SINCERETALK

Festive shopping made easy! Shop over 100 curated food and wine gifts selected by News24’s Food and Wine editors. from News24 News24/TopStories/rss https://ift.tt/FjL1pDg via sinceretalk

Director of Medea Leila Henriques reveals how she brought ancient Greek tragedy into contemporary Johannesburg. from News24 News24/TopStories/rss https://ift.tt/i5c2prj via sinceretalk

When Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth addressed a bombshell Washington Post article that he rreportedly ordered the killing of defenseless passengers adrift in the Caribbean Sea following a boat strike in early September, he noticeably didn't refute the allegations. In a Friday post to his official X account , Hesgeth referred to the Post's reporting as "fabricated, inflammatory, and derogatory reporting to discredit our incredible warriors fighting to protect the homeland." He maintained that it was his intent to carry out "lethal, kinetic strikes" against alleged "narco-terrorists who are poisoning the American people." The Pentagon chief continued to defend the strikes as "lawful under both U.S. and international law." "The Biden administration preferred the kid gloves approach, allowing millions of people — including dangerous cartels and unvetted Afghans — to flood our communities with drugs and violence," Hegseth wrote...

For Jared and Dawnita Hendricks, the holiday season is usually the most profitable time of year. But thanks to President Donald Trump's tariffs , their business is on life support this Christmas. According to a Friday report in NBC News , the Hendricks' business — Village Lighting in West Valley City, Utah – has had to pay nearly $750,000 in tariff-related costs in 2025 alone. The company's raw materials are often imported from Asia, and they've had to pay 50 percent tariffs on each individual item as a result of the president's signature economic policy. "The tariff costs in and of themselves are not sustainable, and I don’t believe we can raise the cost enough to the consumers to be profitable," Jared Hendricks told NBC. Village Lighting, which employs 15 people, posted one of its most profitable years on record in 2024. The company pre-ordered its 2025 inventory roughly a year in advance, and had completed all of its orders by February of 2025. How...

President Donald Trump announced he has pardoned Juan Orlando Hernández, the former president of Honduras who is serving a 45-year sentence in a U.S. prison for drug trafficking. Trump wrote in a Friday post to his Truth Social platform he was endorsing Nasry "Tito" Asfura in Sunday's presidential election in Honduras, and that his administration would be "very supportive" of Asfura's government if he won. He then pivoted to his decision that he would be "granting a Full and Complete Pardon" to Hernández, saying he had been "treated very harshly and unfairly." "VOTE FOR TITO ASFURA FOR PRESIDENT, AND CONGRATULATIONS TO JUAN ORLANDO HERNANDEZ ON YOUR UPCOMING PARDON," Trump wrote in his signature all-caps style. The DOJ stated last year that it was sentencing Hernández to 45 years in prison for conspiring "to facilitate the importation of an almost unfathomable 400 tons of cocaine to this country." The former Hon...

President Donald Trump's attempt to redraw U.S. House districts in a deep-red state just hit another roadblock, after one Republican state senator announced that Trump's use of a slur cost him his vote on the plan. Politico reporter Adam Wren tweeted Friday that Indiana state senator Michael Bohacek (R) announced he would not be supporting Trump's mid-decade redistricting plan in the Hoosier State after he called Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) "seriously retarded." The Republican lawmaker made the announcement on his official Facebook page, and said that as a parent of a child with Down Syndrome, he couldn't endorse Trump's plan due to his use of the word (which the Special Olympics considers a slur ). "I have been an unapologetic advocate for people with intellectual disabilities since the birth of my second daughter. Those of you that don’t know me or my family might not know that my daughter has Down Syndrome," Bohacek wrote. "This is n...

During a Thursday night press conference at his Mar-a-Lago estate, President Donald Trump erupted at a female reporter who asked him about the vetting process for the alleged perpetrator of this week's fatal shooting in Washington D.C. Trump announced Thursday that 20 year-old West Virginia National Guard member Sarah Beckstrom succumbed to her injuries after being shot in downtown Washington D.C. on Wednesday afternoon. Beckstrom and 24 year-old Andrew Wolfe were attacked outside of the Farragut West Metro station just blocks away from the White House. Wolfe is still in critical condition. Police arrested 29 year-old Afghan national Rahmanullah Lakanwal , who allegedly fired multiple rounds from a handgun at Beckstrom and Wolfe in an ambush-style attack. Lakanwal was also shot, and is being treated for his injuries at a local hospital. Trump blamed former President Joe Biden's immigration and refugee policies for the attack, as Lakanwal came to the U.S. from Afghanistan i...

Thanksgiving dinner is typically known for both succulent dishes and intense political discussions with relatives . Now, one former cult member is revealing their strategy for breaking through to people who have made President Donald Trump's MAGA movement a part of their core identity . In a recent appearance on the Daily Beast Podcast , Dr. Steven Hassan — a mental health counselor and former member of the Unification Church in the 1970s — said it's important for family members to understand the mentality of someone in what he called an "authoritarian mind control cult." He urged listeners to put themselves in their MAGA relatives' shoes and find a way to appeal to their humanity beyond partisan labels. "[What] people need to do now is they need to think about people they were close to ... And most people that I talk to have blocked these people or not invited them for Thanksgiving," Hassan said. Hassan went on to say that the start of repairing an...

29 year-old Afghan national Rahmanullah Lakanwal was arrested Wednesday and accused of shooting two National Guardsmen in downtown Washington D.C., who both are currently hospitalized in critical condition. The alleged gunman's motive has not yet been revealed, but President Donald Trump insinuated in a video address posted to Truth Social that the shooting could be attributed to former President Joe Biden's immigration and refugee policy. "The suspect in custody is a foreigner who entered out country from Afghanistan — a hellhole on earth. He was flown in by the Biden administration in September 2021," Trump said. "... His status was extended under legislation signed by President Biden ... This attack underscores the single greatest national security threat facing our nation." However, CNN law enforcement and intelligence analyst John Miller said Wednesday that new information about Lakanwal suggests that the Trump administration may be more to blame...

Several women who were victimized by deceased child predator Jeffrey Epstein are now accusing President Donald Trump's Department of Justice (DOJ) of publicizing their identifying information on purpose. That's according to a Wednesday article in the Wall Street Journal , which reported that the DOJ failed to redact of dozens of women's names from emails it received from Epstein's estate. One spokeswoman for the House Oversight Committee — which released the emails earlier this month — said the committee's subpoena specifically instructs the DOJ to redact victims' names, though one document shows the full names of 28 victims. "Many of the victims believe this is being done intentionally," wrote attorneys Bradley Edwards and Brittany Henderson, who represent hundreds of Epstein's accusers. On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Richard Berman (who former President Bill Clinton appointed to the Southern District of New York in 1998) ordered the DOJ t...

Ever since President Donald Trump called for the imprisonment of several Democratic members of Congress — even endorsing a call for them to be hanged — their national profiles have been significantly elevated. One Republican strategist is warning that Trump may be pouring gasoline on a fire that he should instead be extinguishing. Politico reported Wednesday that Trump's attacks on six Democrats who recorded a video urging rank-and-file servicemen and women to remember their duty to disobey illegal orders may already be backfiring politically. Those Democrats – who are all veterans of either the U.S. military or the CIA — reminded active-duty service members of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) which stipulates that lawful orders must be obeyed, but that carrying out unlawful orders could result in a court-martial. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has recently suggested that retired U.S. Navy Captain Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), who appeared in the video, could be c...

Karl Rove — the longtime Republican strategist behind George W. Bush's presidency — is lamenting that politics has become cheapened by constant attention-seeking. And he's pinning the blame primarily on President Donald Trump. In a Wednesday op-ed for the Wall Street Journal , Rove bemoaned the current state of American politics as "way too loud and much too small." And he observed that rather than dealmaking and legislating, modern-day politicians instead favor "ever more exotic social media antics." "We’re witnessing the rise of a new class of political performance artists. They want to be at the center of national attention, creating chaos and conflict, shocking sensibilities and unleashing dark passions," Rove wrote. "The hard work of legislation, of addressing Americans’ real needs, is of little interest. Instead, they compete to see who can say the most outrageous and inflammatory things. Their goal is more posts, more views, and mor...

President Donald Trump deviated from his speech pardoning two turkeys ahead of Thanksgiving to attack one prominent Democratic governor presumed to run for the presidency in 2028. During his remarks at the White House on Tuesday, Trump spent a portion of his speech talking about 26 year-old Bethany MaGee, who was set on fire while riding a train in Chicago, Illinois and is currently being treated for her injuries in a local hospital. Trump launched into an attack on Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson (D) and Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D), suggested their policies were to blame for the attack. "The mayor is incompetent, and the governor is a big, fat slob," Trump said. "He ought to invite us in and say, 'please make Chicago safe.' We're going to lose a great city if we don't do it quickly." The president's remarks were quickly met with ridicule and disdain on social media. Former U.S. Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.), who previously represented a Chicago-area di...

Democratic lawmakers who participated in a video warning US military personnel against following unlawful orders issued by President Donald Trump remained defiant after being contacted by the FBI. As reported by Reuters on Tuesday, the FBI has requested interviews with Sens. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) and Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), as well as Reps. Chris Deluzio (D-Penn.), Maggie Goodlander (D-NH), Chrissy Houlahan (D-Md.), and Jason Crow (D-Colo.), just days after Trump demanded their imprisonment or even death for supposed “sedition.” One US Department of Justice official told Reuters that the FBI interviews are to determine if the Democratic lawmakers engaged in “any wrongdoing” when they spoke out against the president potentially giving unlawful orders that pit the US military against American civilians. The Democrats, however, vowed that they would not be intimidated by any FBI investigation. In a social media post, Slotkin said that Trump’s push to jail the Democrats for exe...

The peace plan that President Donald Trump's administration offered to end the ongoing war in Ukraine has been widely criticized for being overly accommodating to Russia. Now, a new report shows that Russia may have been even more intricately involved in its composition than previously known. The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that the proposal — which Trump administration special envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner (who is also the president's son-in-law) — relied heavily on input from a "Kremlin insider." Kushner, Witkoff and the Kremlin advisor huddled behind closed doors in multiple "secret meetings" in Miami, Florida, according to the Journal . That Kremlin advisor was identified as Kirill Dmitriev, who the Journal described as an envoy of Russian President Vladimir Putin who also has ties to Kushner. Witkoff also met Dmitriev during his April trip to Moscow. The 28-point plan has been described as a "framework" to end the war, t...

On Monday, a judge ruled that acting U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan was improperly appointed, and subsequently dismissed her indictments of former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James (D). Former federal prosecutors are now saying that the judge's ruling may have thrown all of her office's work into question. During a Monday segment on CNN , former U.S. attorneys Harry Litman — who led the Department of Justice's (DOJ, or Main Justice) operations in the Western District of Pennsylvania under former President Bill Clinton's tenure — and Greg Brower, who handled cases in the District of Nevada during the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations, both agreed that anything bearing Halligan's name is likely now damaged goods. "Her future w as already p retty well sealed ... with a series of blunders and pratfalls, i ncluding misconduct i n the grand jury," Litman said of Halligan. "T here seemed to have been...

Karoline Leavitt, the current White House press secretary under President Donald Trump, jokingly suggested her role was giving her post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) on Monday, while also bemoaning several vacations that have bee disrupted by her job. The youngest person to ever hold the job at only 28 years old, Leavitt has distinguished herself as press secretary for her persistent loyalty to Trump and her frequent clashes with reporters over unflattering questions about him. In recent weeks, for example, she deflected questions about Trump's Truth Social post calling for Democratic lawmakers to face the death penalty and suggested that reporters ought to feel grateful for his honesty after he called a female journalist "piggy" when she pressed him about the release of files related to Jeffrey Epstein. In an interview with the Daily Mail published Monday , Leavitt suggested, jokingly, that she was developing PTSD due to the job. As opposed to any of the unple...

G20 showed the world what SA capable of and secured real commitments for Africa. Now we must apply that same excellence domestically, strengthening the rule of law to sustain investor confidence, writes Busisiwe Mavuso. from News24 News24/TopStories/rss https://ift.tt/GLP8z9l via sinceretalk

The electronic voting company Smartmatic has submitted another filing that details more shocking revelations about Fox Corp . The company is suing over what it alleges were false allegations about its electronic voting equipment in the wake of the 2020 election. Each part of the case has shown details about what Fox staff and on-air talent have said under oath that could undermine Fox's defense. More exhibits appeared on the docket Sunday night under Document 2818, revealing the extent of the financial damage to the company since the 2020 election allegations began. Last week, The Guardian reported that President Donald Trump's Justice Department would begin an investigation into conspiracy theories that allege Venezuela had a role in somehow rigging the election. Among the exhibits was the testimony of a finance and damages expert. Financial expert Christopher James submitted a report on Feb. 15, 2024 that used a formula to calculate the damages he feels Fox Corp. cau...

An email from the government’s own court reporter appears to muddy the Justice Department’s claim that a full grand jury reviewed the final indictment of former FBI Director James Comey, Lawfare’s Roger Parloff reports. The Justice Depart on Thursday did “ a complete reversal on its position about whether the full grand jury in the Comey criminal case reviewed the indictment before it was handed up to a federal judge in September,” NBC News reports. Lindsey Halligan, the acting U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, was hand-picked by President Donald Trump to present the case against Comey. On Wednesday, Halligan “testified … that when jurors voted to indict Comey on two of the three counts submitted in the original indictment, the full grand jury hadn’t reviewed a final revised document showing the two counts the former FBI director was charged with,” according to NBC News. Halligan told the court only the jury foreperson and an additional grand juror saw the...

Championship leader Lando Norris and his McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri were disqualified on Sunday from the Las Vegas Grand Prix for technical infringements. from News24 News24/TopStories/rss https://ift.tt/WQnwc95 via sinceretalk

The social media star has denied claims he is neglecting a child from his first marriage. from News24 News24/TopStories/rss https://ift.tt/Fx1zlhn via sinceretalk

Several Democratic members of the House of Representatives have filed official complaints with the U.S. Capitol Police Department after President Donald Trump endorsed a call to have them hanged . Politico reported Friday that Reps. Jason Crow (D-Colo.), Chris DeLuzio (D-Pa.) and Chrissy Houlahan (D-Pa.) contacted Capitol Police to file reports about the threat, which Trump issued after they appeared in a video encouraging military service members to defy illegal orders. The video also featured Rep. Maggie Goodlander (D-N.H.), along with Sens. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) and Elissa Slotkin. (D-Mich.) Following the video's release, Trump posted to his Truth Social account that their comments should be seen as " SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by death! " He also reposted a supporter's comment calling for the six Democrats to be hanged. “Each one of these traitors to our Country should be Arrested and put on trial," Trump wrote. "Their words cannot be allowed t...

As Americans prepare for Thanksgiving, President Donald Trump is promoting Walmart’s 25 percent cheaper holiday meal as evidence that grocery prices are falling. But the discount reflects a smaller, bargain-focused menu with fewer items and fewer name-brand products — lowering the cost of a one-time holiday feast without addressing the broader fact shoppers are seeing at the checkout line, that overall food prices have hit a record high this year. The fact-checkers at Snopes reported on Friday that the cost of feeding a family of four for one month hit an all-time high of $1,030 this year. Snopes cited data from the Urban Institute, a Washington, D.C. think tank, whose October American Affordability Tracker compiled figures from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. A separate report released Friday by Groundwork Collaborative, The Century Foundation, and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) found that many Thanksgiving basics have risen s...

President Donald Trump's complimentary tone toward New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani caught many Republicans off guard — and some are worried about what that could mean for the GOP's hopes in next year's pivotal midterm elections. "I expect to be helping him, not hurting him," Trump said, adding that he would feel "really" comfortable living in New York City with Mamdani as mayor. "Especially after the meeting, absolutely," the president said. On Friday, Fox News took note of numerous young White House staffers awaiting Mamdani's arrival. Business Insider reporter Bryan Metzger tweeted : "it says *something* about Mamdani that a bunch of 20-something Trump admin staffers were camped out hoping to catch a glimpse of his arrival at the [White House]." Punchbowl News founder Jake Sherman observed that the president "showering praise on Mamdani in the White House may throw House Republicans for a loop." ...

Virtually all of the gains the Republican Party made in the 2024 election could be wiped out ahead of the 2026 midterm elections due to the growing influence of "overt racists" within the GOP, according to conservative Washington Post columnist Marc Thiessen. In a Thursday column , Thiessen laid out how Republicans were able to secure both a popular vote and Electoral College majority in 2024 for the first time in two decades thanks to making inroads with Black and Hispanic voters. He argued, however, that the GOP's activist base includes "morally reprehensible" people like neo-Nazi podcaster Nick Fuentes , whose growing influence could turn into "political suicide for the right." "Conservatives cannot build a lasting majority without appealing to minority voters — and that won’t happen if they embrace white nationalists," Thiessen wrote. According to Thiessen, (a MAGA conservative who recently advocated for President Donald Trump to win...

In the pivotal swing state of Pennsylvania — which President Donald Trump won last year — voters in one swing county are growing increasingly frustrated with Trump's handling of the economy. CNN correspondent John King reported Thursday from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, which covers both Lehigh and Northampton Counties. He described it as a "blue-collar" community full of people "living paycheck to paycheck." Jenique Jones – a three-time Trump voter who runs a local business helping financially distressed residents repair their credit – told King that her clients' financial situations have become more dire under Trump's second term. "My husband lost all of his overtime. My kids' daycare went up. Can't afford the cost of food. Using credit cards for everyday expenses. No money left after their bills are paid," Jones said when asked to describe what kinds of stories she hears on a daily basis. " Pretty much just a whole bunch ...

Newly released emails from Ghislaine Maxwell – who was deceased child predator Jeffrey Epstein's chief accomplice — show that the special privileges she's receiving in prison even include "secretarial services" from the facility's highest-ranking official. The Atlantic's Isaac Stanley-Becker reported Thursday that he pored through dozens of emails that Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee received from a nurse who worked at the minimum security prison camp in Bryan, Texas (northwest of Houston) where Maxwell was transferred earlier this year . While NBC News reported on some excerpts of those emails, Stanley-Becker wrote that the most notable details had "not previously been reported." According to the Atlantic journalist, Maxwell's emails were "notably free of regret, remorse, shame [and] self-doubt." He wrote that they provide a window into the "relatively comfortable life" of the woman serving a 20-year prison s...

President Donald Trump has officially signed the Epstein Files Transparency Act into law, after the legislation passed through both chambers of Congress almost unanimously. But the new law includes one major catch that's already drawing criticism. The Daily Beast reported Wednesday that Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), who introduced the bill in the Senate after it passed the House of Representatives by a 427-1 vote, is expecting a continuous fight with the Trump administration given that the law allows for Attorney General Pam Bondi to have final discretion over redactions. The Oregon Democrat told the Beast that he expects the Department of Justice (DOJ) to hand over the files with much of the contents still hidden from view. "I fully expect that the attorney general and Trump will use every possible excuse for not releasing the files," Merkley said. While the law lets the DOJ redact victims' names to protect their identities, it also stipulates that Bondi can wit...

A new poll conducted by Fox News shows that President Donald Trump has the highest disapproval rating on record. The conservative network also found large majorities of respondents disapproved of his ability to lower prices for daily necessities. On Wednesday, Fox News reported that just 41 percent of those polled approved of Trump's performance as president, with 58 percent disapproving. When separating out respondents by party, 86 percent of Republican respondents approved of Trump's presidency, though that figure is down from 92 percent in March. Roughly 76 percent of American voters have a negative view of the economy. Only 18 percent of those surveyed thought inflation was either completely or mostly under control. And large majorities of poll respondents said that costs for basic needs had either increased by a little or by a lot. 85 percent said groceries had increased (60 percent saying grocery prices went up by "a lot") while 78 percent of those polled s...

House Republican leadership recently took action to bar one of their own members from international trips, according to a new report. Punchbowl News reported Wednesday that GOP leaders decided to ban Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) from traveling for three months due to an "alcohol-related episode" in Mexico this summer. In details laid out by Punchbowl reporter Andrew Desiderio , the original incident took place while Crenshaw and other Republicans were on an official Congressional delegation (CODEL) visit to Mexico in August, and Crenshaw was "having drinks with a group of Mexican officials." "One Mexican official cracked a crude joke that made a woman present uncomfortable. Crenshaw toasted the remarks," Desiderio wrote on his X account. Following the August CODEL, Crenshaw reportedly met with House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and House Intelligence Committee chairman Rick Crawford. (R-Ark.) Desiderio's sources told him that the meeting grew ...