Why it matters: The deal marks an unglamorous end for Jones’ media empire.
The Onion will relaunch a new version of Infowars with Everytown for Gun Safety, a nonprofit that fights gun violence, as its first sponsor.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The deal includes Infowars’ website, product inventory, customer lists, social media accounts, and intellectual property.
The Onion was acquired by Twilio co-founder Jeff Lawson and former NBC News reporter Ben Collins earlier this year.
Catch up quick: Jones was ordered to liquidate his assets after he and his company, Free Speech Systems, were ordered to pay almost $1.5 billion in damages for falsely claiming the Sandy Hook mass shooting was a hoax.
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced that his country has officially severed diplomatic relations with Israel. The Turkish leader made the announcement to journalists on his plane after visiting Saudi Arabia and Azerbaijan.
“The government of the Republic of Turkey, under the leadership of Tayyip Erdogan, will not continue or develop relations with Israel,” the Turkish president said. “[Our ruling coalition] is resolute in its decision to cut ties with Israel, and we will maintain this stance in the future as well.”
Erdogan’s decision signifies Turkey’s intention to assert a stronger presence in Middle Eastern geopolitics. The NATO leader’s diplomatic realignment may also impact his ongoing role in the Syrian conflict and other regional hostilities.
Despite Erdogan’s announcement, the Turkish embassy appears to be continuing to operate in Tel Aviv for the time being.
The New Jersey Forest Fire Service says exactly 2,283 acres burned in New Jersey and 5,000 acres scorched across state lines into New York.
The weather is playing a major role in the fight to contain the wildfire. The Forest Fire Service says they grounded helicopters dumping water because of the wind. The rocky, hilly and forested terrain are adding to the difficulty. But this cold weather they say, actually helps.
“As the temperatures drop humidity will come up a little bit more thus allowing the fuels to absorb a little bit the ambient moisture in the air thus allowing them to moisten a little bit and slow down fire progression,” said Christopher Franek from the New Jersey Forest Fire Service.
This is still a coordinated effort. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul says this is the largest wildfire to affect New York state since 2008. She’s deployed the National Guard to help.
Russia launched a massive combined missile and drone attack on the Kyiv region Wednesday, the third on the country in three days, but Ukrainian air defenses intercepted most of the airborne ordnance with only one injury reported.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a social media post that Russian missiles — including ballistic and cruise missiles targeting Kyiv — were shot down, along with about a dozen of about 90 drones involved in the attacks.
Kyiv authorities said Wednesday’s two-hour-long attack, the first in more than two months, began with air-raid sirens sounding at around 6:30 a.m. local time as drones bore down on Kyiv Oblast and then cruise missiles, followed by a ballistic missile strike on Kyiv itself timed to coincide with the arrival of the cruise missiles.
Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said the attack drones destroyed a house and seriously damaged a four-story apartment building with blazes breaking out on the upper levels.
That came the day after Russia unleashed a record 145 drones Sunday — the largest attack of the war — against targets all across Ukraine, according to the Ukrainian Air Force, which claimed to have shot most of them down.
CIA official Asif William Rahman was arrested by the FBI in Cambodia on Tuesday and charged with disclosing classified documents allegedly showing Israel’s retaliation plans against Iran, the New York Times reported on Wednesday. He was brought to a federal court in Guam to face charges.
Rahman was indicted by a US federal court in Virginia with charges of willful retention and transmission of national defense information, the report said.
According to the New York Times, the documents were prepared by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which analyzes US spy satellite information and photos.
While both the US Department of Defense and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment on the leaked documents, they did not deny their authenticity.
The leak occurred on Friday when the Middle East Spectator Telegram channel claimed it had received documents about Israel’s strike preparations from a source within the US intelligence community. This Telegram channel is known for publishing pro-Iranian propaganda, and its associated Twitter account states that its operators are based in Iran.
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee is President-elect Trump’s pick to be the ambassador to Israel
“I am pleased to announce that the Highly Respected former Governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee, has been nominated to be The United States Ambassador to Israel,” Trump said in a statement.
“Mike has been a great public servant, Governor, and Leader in Faith for many years. He loves Israel, and the people of Israel, and likewise, the people of Israel love him. Mike will work tirelessly to bring about Peace in the Middle East!”
President-elect Donald Trump has named Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik as his pick for UN ambassador.
“I am honored to nominate Chairwoman Elise Stefanik to serve in my Cabinet as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. Elise is an incredibly strong, tough, and smart America First fighter,” Trump said in a statement, confirming CNN’s reporting Sunday that Stefanik was offered the role.
The New York congresswoman, the fourth-ranking House Republican, has been a strong ally of the president-elect and a major fundraiser for the GOP.
The choice of Stefanik signals a more combative US posture toward the UN. Stefanik has frequently criticized the international organization, particularly over its criticism of Israel, and last month said the Biden administration should consider a “complete reassessment” of US funding for the UN if the Palestinian Authority continues to pursue a push to revoke Israel’s UN membership.
President-elect Donald Trump has tapped former Rep. Lee Zeldin to lead the Environmental Protection Agency.
In a statement on Monday, Trump praised Zeldin’s background as a lawyer and said he’s known the former New York congressman for a long time.
“He will ensure fair and swift deregulatory decisions that will be enacted in a way to unleash the power of American businesses, while at the same time maintaining the highest environmental standards, including the cleanest air and water on the planet,” Trump said. “He will set new standards on environmental review and maintenance, that will allow the United States to grow in a healthy and well-structured way.”
The COP29 climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, opened on Monday with a declaration that climate alarmism is still in vogue, even with President-elect Donald Trump returning to the White House and a stern lecture for wealthy countries to stop thinking of climate funding for developing nations as “charity.”
“Now is the time to show that global cooperation is not down for the count,” U.N. climate chief Simon Stiell told the jet-setting COP29 attendees, who burned staggering amounts of fossil fuel to convene in oil-rich Azerbaijan.
Politico on Sunday saw Trump casting a long shadow over COP29 since he could “move faster and with less restraint” to pull out of the Paris agreement after his landslide victory in the 2024 election.
“The United States’ absence from the deal would put other countries on the hook to make bigger reductions to their climate pollution. But it would also raise inevitable questions from some countries about how much more effort they should put in when the world’s second-largest greenhouse gas polluter is walking away,” Politico fretted.
Somehow the climate movement is just fine with the world’s largest greenhouse gas polluter, China, doing little except mouthing some lip service at climate conferences and making money off other nations buying solar panels and electric vehicle batteries, markets China has completely cornered.
A source confirmed to Fox News Digital that Trump has selected South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R) to fill the all-important role of Secretary of Homeland Security, a position held for the last four disastrous years by Alejandro Mayorkas. (We’ll get back to Mayorkas in a bit.)
The Department of Homeland Security is responsible for everything from border security and immigration to disaster response and the US Secret Service.
But under Mayorkas and Biden-Harris, Homeland Security has been complicit in the never-ending surge of illegal aliens into this country, a disastrous (lack of) response to deadly Hurricane Helene, and two assassination attempts against Trump over the course of just 64 days.
Noem… would work with former acting ICE Director Tom Homan, who on Sunday was announced as Trump’s “border czar,” and Stephen Miller, former senior advisor to Trump during his first term, who was tapped as White House deputy of staff for policy on Monday.
It was also announced Monday night that Trump is expected to choose Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) as his secretary of state. In addition, the president-elect has asked Rep. Mike Waltz (R-FL) to serve as his national security adviser, according to a source familiar.
