Over 3,000 sexually explicit ads seen on Europe’s Facebook last year: Report
Sexually explicit advertisements have shown up on Facebook in Europe, which raises the question of whether Meta is profiting from material its policies typically prohibit users from posting. The European nonprofit research group, AI Forensics, reported that despite the platform’s community standards, over 3,000 pornographic ads were approved and distributed on Meta platforms in the past year, reaching as many as 8 million users.
The report found the ads were shown mostly to men over the age of 44, because of its ad-targeting process.
When researchers tried to post the same images and videos to Facebook and Instagram they were quickly taken down, which they say suggests the company is not applying the same moderation tools to paid advertisers as it does to regular users.
Researchers also looked into the company’s compliance with European regulations. The EU’s Digital Services Act says the largest online platforms must disclose key aspects of their content moderation practices, perform risk assessments of potential harms and take steps to lessen them.
In its risk assessment of Facebook and Instagram, Meta said that it proactively reviews all advertisements before they get published.
“Bad actors are constantly evolving their tactics to avoid enforcement which is why we continue to invest in the best tools and technology to help identify and remove violating content,” a spokesperson for Meta said.
The spokesperson also said Meta does review ads before approving them, but admits its systems are primarily automated, noting users can report problematic ads which can lead to further review, including humans in some cases.
A past report from AI Forensics found that Meta was also failing to properly label many political ads, leading to an ongoing investigation by the European Commission.
This comes as Meta announced this week that it will replace its third-party fact-checking program with community notes later this year.
Meta kills DEI programs in its latest appeal to Trump
Meta is ending its diversity, equity and inclusion programs effective immediately in the company’s latest swing away from traditionally left-leaning causes. The company announced the policy change in an employee memo first reported by Axios.
“The legal and policy landscape surrounding diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in the United States is changing,” the memo reads. “The term ‘DEI’ has also become charged, in part because it is understood by some as a practice that suggests preferential treatment of some groups over others.”
The move comes just days after CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced Meta would end third-party fact-checking on Facebook and Instagram in favor of what looks more like X’s community notes. He also announced plans for a loosening of the platforms’ hateful conduct policy.
“The recent elections also feel like a cultural tipping point toward once again prioritizing speech,” Zuckerberg said. “So we’re going to get back to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies and restoring free expression on our platforms.”
This was seen as another move in President-elect Donald Trump’s favor, and Trump responded in kind.
“Honestly, I think they’ve come a long way – Meta, Facebook – I think they’ve come a long way,” Trump said.
When asked if Trump thought the fact-checking move was done in direct response to his threats to Zuckerberg and Meta, Trump said, “Probably.”
Trump has previously called Facebook “a true Enemy of the People” and threatened Zuckerberg with prison if he or his company tried to influence the election in any way. Since those comments, the two have made inroads, especially following the first assassination attempt on Trump.
“On a personal note, seeing Donald Trump get up after getting shot in the face and pump his fist in the air with the American flag is one of the most badass things I’ve ever seen in my life,” Zuckerberg told Bloomberg.
Meta also donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund, something the company had not done for Trump’s first inauguration or for President Joe Biden’s.
The company also promoted longtime Republican executive Joel Kaplan to lead global policy for Meta, replacing former deputy prime minister of the U.K. Nick Clegg, a member of the Liberal Democrats political party.
Controversy follows Meta’s move to roll back some rules on hateful content
Meta is making some sweeping changes to its policy on what Facebook and Instagram users can and cannot post. On Tuesday, Jan. 7, the company not only announced it is doing away with professional fact-checking and replacing it with community notes but it also made updates to its hateful conduct policy, rolling back some content restrictions.
For example, the company removed a line in its policy that prohibited “dehumanizing speech” in the form of “certain objects” – including “women as household objects or property or objects in general; Black people as farm equipment; and transgender or non-binary people as ‘it.’”
Meta did, however, amend a different part of the policy related to “harmful stereotypes historically linked to intimidation or violence” to ban comparing Black people to farm equipment.
The company added a new section to the policy allowing “allegations of mental illness or abnormality when based on gender or sexual orientation,” saying transgenderism and homosexuality are both highly debated topics in politics and religion.
Meta also eliminated a ban that prohibited people from saying transgenderism does not or should not exist.
The company also got rid of a ban on blaming the COVID-19 pandemic on Chinese or Asian people. The now-deleted policy had told users not to post “content targeting a person or group of people on the basis of their protected characteristics with claims that they have or spread the novel coronavirus, are responsible for the existence of the novel coronavirus, or are deliberately spreading the novel coronavirus.”
Additionally, Meta is adjusting its automated systems that scan for policy violations, which the company says resulted in “too much content being censored that shouldn’t have been.” The systems will now only focus on extreme violations, such as child sexual exploitation and terrorism.
The changes follow allegations from President-elect Donald Trump and other Republican lawmakers that Meta was “censoring” conservatives. President-elect Trump responded Tuesday to the news of Meta’s policy changes.
“I watched their news conference, and I thought it was a very good news conference,” he said. “I think they’ve, honestly, I think they’ve come a long way. Meta. Facebook. I think they’ve come a long way. I watched it, the man [Mark Zuckerberg] was very impressive.”
Critics of the new policy changes say they’ll likely lead to more hate speech and more false claims going viral.
Zuckerberg says Meta is ditching fact-checkers for community-driven oversight
Meta announced Tuesday, Jan. 7, that it will replace its third-party fact-checking program with a community-driven system called Community Notes. The change will begin rolling out in the United States on Facebook, Instagram and Threads, with plans for global implementation in 2025, according to CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
In a video statement, Zuckerberg explained that the transition is aimed at simplifying policies, reducing moderation errors and prioritizing free expression. He criticized the existing fact-checking system as overly complicated, leading to errors that impacted millions of users.
“So we’re going to get back to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies, and restoring free expression on our platforms. More specifically, here’s what we’re going to do,” Zuckerberg said. “First, we’re going to get rid of fact checkers and replace them with community notes similar to X starting in the U.S.”
Meta’s fact-checking initiative, launched in 2016, involved partnerships with independent organizations certified by the International Fact-Checking Network and the European Fact-Checking Standards Network. These groups reviewed flagged content, assessed its accuracy and assigned ratings such as “False,” “Altered” or “Missing Context.”
Under the outgoing system, flagged posts had their visibility reduced while users received notifications before sharing inaccurate content. Repeat offenders faced penalties, including reduced reach and restrictions on monetization. Zuckerberg said the complexity of the system led to unintended consequences.
“So we built a lot of complex systems to moderate content. But the problem with complex systems is they make mistakes even if they accidentally censor just 1% of posts. That’s millions of people. And we’ve reached a point where it’s just too many mistakes in too much censorship,” Zuckerberg said.
Community Notes, modeled after a similar feature implemented by X, will rely on user contributions to flag and add context to posts. Meta plans to refine the system in the United States before expanding it globally. The company described the move as part of an effort to enhance transparency and involve users more directly in content moderation.
Meta emphasized that strict oversight will remain for content related to terrorism, child exploitation and drug-related issues. While the company acknowledged concerns about the potential for increased misinformation, it expressed confidence that refinements to Community Notes will mitigate these risks.
Zuckerberg appoints UFC boss and Trump ally Dana White to Meta Board
Meta is once again signaling its closeness to President-elect Donald Trump by appointing Trump ally and Ultimate Fighting Championship CEO Dana White to its Board of Directors. The appointment comes a week after the company named a former Republican political staffer as its head of policy and less than a month after it donated $1 million to the president-elect’s inauguration fund.
Zuckerberg praised White for his success in growing UFC, saying, “I’ve admired him as an entrepreneur and his ability to build such a beloved brand.”
UFC has held more than 300 live events, and Forbes estimates the promoter’s value to be over $11 billion.
During a speech at last year’s Republican National Convention in support of Trump, White said, “I know America needs a strong leader, and the world needs a strong America. I know Donald J. Trump is the best choice for President of the United States.”
However, White is not without controversy. In 2023, TMZ released a video of a physical altercation between him and his wife. White apologized after the video emerged, saying, “There’s never ever an excuse for a guy to put his hands on a woman.”
Meta appointed two other business executives to its board alongside White — John Elkann, CEO of the Italian company Exor, and former Microsoft executive Charlie Songhurst.
Meta accused of censoring Palestinian content on Instagram and Facebook
Facebook and Instagram’s parent company Meta is facing accusations of censoring pro-Palestinian content, according to a report on Sunday, Jan. 5. The allegations came from news outlets like the BBC and a Human Rights Watch (HRW) report.
HRW said that it found more than 1,000 cases of what it called suppression of pro-Palestinian content shortly after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
The organization said that the suppression of content has been “systemic and global,” and started before Hamas’ terrorist attack.
A separate BBC report in December 2024, found the Facebook pages of 20 “prominent” Palestinian-based news outlets saw their engagement drop by nearly 80% shortly before and a year after the Oct. 7 attack, while engagement for Israel’s 20 largest news outlets grew by nearly 40%.
The BBC report includes leaked documents from current and former Meta employees who say the company launched a crackdown on Palestinian users’ comments after Hamas’ terrorist attack.
Meta confirmed the crackdown but said the measures were necessary to respond to a “spike in hateful content” coming out of Palestinian regions.
Meta argued it wrestled with freedom of speech and the fact that Hamas is a designated terrorist organization. The tech giant noted that pages posting exclusively about the war in Gaza were the most likely to see engagement take a hit.
“We acknowledge mistakes, but any implication that we deliberately suppress a particular voice is unequivocally false,” a Meta spokesperson told the BBC.
One of the Palestinian photojournalists in Gaza told the BBC, “In spite of the challenges, the risk and the content bans… We must continue sharing Palestinian content.”
Congress to certify Trump’s win; Biden issues warning to ‘not forget’ riots
Congress prepares to re-affirm President-elect Donald Trump as the next president of the United States on the fourth anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riots. And after a weekend of blizzard-like conditions in the Plains and Midwest, a major winter storm aims for the East Coast. These stories and more highlight your Unbiased Updates for Monday, Jan. 6, 2025.
Congress to certify Trump’s win; Biden issues warning to ‘not forget’ Jan. 6 riots
Senators and members of the House of Representatives will gather to tally the electoral votes of all 50 states and Washington, D.C., confirming Trump will be the 47th president of the United States.
Speaking to Fox News on Sunday, Jan. 5, House Speaker Mike Johnson said a major winter storm heading toward the area would not prevent the congressional joint session from counting the electoral votes.
Monday’s joint session comes four years after the certification of votes affirming President Joe Biden’s 2020 victory. Biden’s certification turned into chaos when rioters stormed the Capitol, looking to prevent then-Vice President Mike Pence from presiding over the certification. Many rioters insisted the election was stolen from Trump.
This year, Vice President Kamala Harris will oversee the electoral count of the election she lost and declare Trump the winner. Harris already conceded the race to Trump after he won 312 electoral college votes, surpassing the 270 needed to win the presidency. Harris won 226 votes.
Following the 2021 Capitol attack, Congress passed the Electoral Count Reform Act of 2022. This act clarified that the vice president does not have the power to determine, accept, reject or adjudicate the vote results.
On Sunday, Biden spoke to new Democratic members of Congress about the events that unfolded in 2021 and the importance of the date.
“Tomorrow’s Jan. 6; we gather to certify the results of a free and fair presidential election and ensure a peaceful transfer of power,” Biden said. “It’s a day that [for] most of our history we took for granted, the sixth, but I hope we never take it for granted again.”
Biden wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post on Sunday. In it, he told Americans that while some may no longer want to mention what happened four years ago, it cannot be forgotten.
“We should be proud that our democracy withstood this assault. And we should be glad we will not see such a shameful attack again this year…” he wrote. “The election will be certified peacefully. I have invited the incoming president to the White House on the morning of Jan. 20, and I will be present for his inauguration that afternoon. But on this day, we cannot forget.”
Monday’s proceedings are the last official opportunity for any member of Congress to object to the electoral votes. Following the certification, Trump will be sworn into office on Jan. 20 for his second term. He vowed to pardon those convicted in connection with the Jan. 6 riots.
Biden signs Social Security Fairness Act into law
Biden signed the Social Security Fairness Act into law Sunday. It’s expected to be one of the last major pieces of legislation of his term.
Today, I signed legislation expanding Social Security benefits for millions of teachers, firefighters, nurses, police officers, other public employees, and their spouses and survivors.
The law repeals a rule that limited certain public sector job retirees who collect pensions — such as firefighters, teachers, postal workers and police officers — from also claiming social security benefits.
The new law also eliminates limits on the benefits that surviving spouses can receive after they die.
The Senate passed the bill in December after the House approved it in November with overwhelming bipartisan support.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to resign this week: Reports
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is expected to announce his resignation as early as Monday, according to multiple news outlets. It comes as his party, the Liberal Party, is set to hold its national caucus meeting on Wednesday, Jan. 8.
Last month, Trudeau’s finance minister, Chrystia Freeland, publicly announced her resignation in a letter criticizing the prime minister. Since then, calls for his resignation have grown publicly and privately within his own party.
This is just the latest in a series of recent political struggles for the prime minister. In September, Trudeau faced a no-confidence vote in parliament, which later failed.
Trudeau and Trump have been locked in a public back-and-forth over tariffs with Trump threatening to put a 25% levy on Canadian imports.
Details emerge about New Orleans suspect’s actions in weeks before attack
More details emerged about the man authorities said killed 14 people and injured dozens more when he drove a rented truck into a crowd of revelers in New Orleans on New Year’s Day.
The FBI said Sunday the attacker, Shamsud-Din Jabbar, visited the city twice in the weeks leading up to the deadly act of terrorism and recorded video of the area using Meta Smart Glasses.
The glasses allow users to record video hands-free and can also livestream on Meta platforms. Investigators said Jabbar wore the glasses to capture video while he rode a bicycle through the city’s French Quarter. He reportedly wore the glasses during the attack on Bourbon Street but was not livestreaming.
Authorities also believe Jabbar set fire to a short-term rental house in New Orleans where investigators found bomb-making material. They said he planted two bombs in the French Quarter before the truck attack but neither detonated.
Jabbar was killed after opening fire on responding police officers.
Millions of Americans under blizzard alerts as winter storm moves east
A major winter storm will continue to move through the Mid-Atlantic region today, followed by dangerously cold temperatures spreading across the central and eastern U.S. pic.twitter.com/sogRlbC6Y9
Major cities like Washington, D.C., Baltimore and Philadelphia are preparing for snowy and icy conditions Monday and into Tuesday, Jan. 7. Meanwhile, parts of Virginia are expecting 5 to 12 inches of snow.
Impacts of this weather system could also be felt in the South, with severe thunderstorms capable of producing tornadoes and damaging winds expected to hit Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and other southern states Monday night.
2025 Golden Globes crown best in movies, television
The 2025 Golden Globes rolled out the red carpet Sunday night for the best and brightest stars of film and television — but only a select few walked away with awards.
In the movie categories, the big winners were the films “Emilia Pérez” and “The Brutalist.” “Emilia Pérez” won four awards, including best musical or comedy. “The Brutalist” took home best drama and two other awards.
Over on the TV side of things, “Shōgun” topped the competition with four awards, including Best TV Drama. “Hacks” won Best TV Series – Musical or Comedy.
It was an especially memorable night for actress Demi Moore, who won her first acting award. She won the Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy for her role as an aging Hollywood star who undergoes a cloning procedure in “The Substance.”
Meta pulls plug on AI bots after backlash over glitches, misinformation
Meta’s experiment with generating accounts using artificial intelligence has hit a snag. The company removed several of its AI bots following user backlash over misleading chats and awkward images.
Meta’s AI-generated profiles, complete with bios, selfies and posts, were designed to blend seamlessly into social media platforms. But users quickly noticed flaws, including glitchy visuals and false information, sparking widespread criticism.
AI bot @HiMamaLiv sparks controversy
One bot, Liv, described herself as a “proud Black queer mama of two and truth teller.” However, when Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah interacted with Liv through direct messages, she uncovered inconsistencies.
Attiah revealed on the social media platform Bluesky that, when speaking to a white friend, Liv said she grew up in an Italian-American family. Meanwhile, she told Attiah, who is Black, that she grew up in a Black family.
Attiah questioned whether the bot tailored its backstory based on who it interacted with.
Meta pulls bots after backlash
Following the controversy over Liv and other bots like “Dating with Carter,” which offered private dating advice, Meta removed the accounts from Instagram and Facebook.
A Meta spokesperson told CNN the accounts were part of an early AI experiment.
This isn’t Meta’s first foray into artificial intelligence. In September 2023, the company introduced chatbots modeled after celebrities, including Snoop Dogg, Tom Brady, Kendall Jenner and Naomi Osaka.
Despite initial buzz, Meta shut down these celebrity-inspired chatbots in less than a year.
Bugs and technical issues
Meta also addressed bugs affecting the AI bots. One issue prevented users from blocking the bots, while another suggested the bots had been active for over a year, despite being part of a recent experiment.
Meta’s new head of global policy Joel Kaplan has close Republican ties
Meta is putting a Republican in charge of global policy just weeks before President-elect Donald Trump takes back the White House. Joel Kaplan is a former deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush and has close ties to the Republican Party. He’ll replace former deputy prime minister of Britain Nick Clegg.
Clegg said it was the “right time” for him to move on as Meta’s president of global affairs in a Facebook post.
“Joel is quite clearly the right person for the right job at the right time – ideally placed to shape the company’s strategy as societal and political expectations around technology continue to evolve,” Clegg wrote.
Joel Kaplan (far right) is pictured in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in 2007. Kaplan served as President George W. Bush’s Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy. Getty Images.
Kaplan has been at Facebook since 2011, most recently as Clegg’s deputy. In a comment on Clegg’s post, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg told the former Liberal Democrat party statesman he’s grateful for his service over the past seven years.
“I’m excited for Joel to step into this role next given his deep experience and insight leading our policy work for many years,” Zuckerberg said.
The switchover comes as Meta cozies up to Trump ahead of the White House switchover. Meta recently donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund, a break from tradition. Meta did not donate to President Joe Biden’s inauguration or Trump’s first one.
The donation came after Zuckerberg visited Trump at Mar-a-Lago following the election. Trump has previously called Facebook a “true Enemy of the People” and accused Zuckerberg and his wife of using election donations to boost Democratic voter turnout.
As Zuckerberg tries to smooth things over with the future president, Clegg’s politics might have become a hurdle if he had stayed. He didn’t shy away from sharing his thoughts. Just this past month, he said on a BBC podcast that X owner Elon Musk, who is very close to Trump, could become a “political puppet master.”
“Elon Musk is obviously now playing an outsized role in both the election and now the formation of the new U.S. administration,” Clegg said.
Meanwhile, Kaplan has previously faced pressure for his Republican ties. He once apologized to Meta staffers after he was spotted sitting behind his close friend Brett Kavanaugh during Kavanaugh’s contentious Supreme Court nomination hearing.
But those ties could help Meta navigate a new terrain today. Among those praising Kaplan’s promotion is Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, who called Kaplan a friend of 25 years.
Congratulations. Both Joel and Kevin have been friends of mine for 25 years, and I am hopeful that their promotion signals a renewed commitment to free speech online. For the past decade, Big Tech has been far too eager to censor and silence, I hope that Meta will now join X in…
“I am hopeful that their promotion signals a renewed commitment to free speech online,” Cruz wrote on X. “For the past decade, Big Tech has been far too eager to censor and silence, I hope that Meta will now join X in fighting to protect free speech for everyone.”
Kaplan’s Facebook profile is pretty bare. His only post of 2024 is one sporting a photo of him with Vice President-elect JD Vance, taken when Trump rang the New York Stock Exchange bell.
Amazon to donate $1 million to Trump inauguration fund
Amazon will make a large donation to Trump’s inauguration fund. And more allegations of sexual assault against entertainer Sean “Diddy” Combs. These stories and more highlight your Unbiased Updates for Friday, Dec. 13, 2024.
Amazon to donate $1 million to Trump inauguration fund
Another big tech company has announced a large donation to President-elect Donald Trump’s inaugural fund. Amazon confirmed Thursday night, Dec. 12, it is planning to donate $1 million to the fund.
This marks another sign of tech companies working on forming a closer relationship with Trump than they had during his first term in office. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is reportedly set to visit Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida next week.
The Trump and Bezos relationship has been rocky in the past with the president-elect taking issue with reporting in the Washington Post –– another one of Bezos’ companies.
In addition to the $1 million cash donation, various reports indicate Amazon also offered a $1 million in-kind donation to stream the inauguration on its Prime Video service.
Amazon’s move comes a day after Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, announced a similar donation. Its founder, Mark Zuckerberg visited Trump at Mar-a-Lago just weeks ago.
Both Zuckerberg and Bezos were among the big tech executives to congratulate Trump on his election win in November.
After ringing the bell at the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday, President-elect Trump spoke with CNBC’s Jim Cramer on the trading room floor about working alongside major tech companies and their leaders during his second administration.
“Mark Zuckerberg’s been over to see me,” Trump said. “I can tell you that Elon [Musk] is another, and Jeff Bezos is coming up next week. I want to get ideas from them. We want them to do well. We want everybody [to do well] and we want great jobs. Fantastic salaries. We want people to love, and when they wake up in the morning, get up and [say,] ‘I love to go to work.’ We want people working and we want them working for a lot of money.”
Despite their strained history, Bezos in recent weeks has changed his tone when it comes to the president-elect. Last week, during a New York Times conference, he said Trump is “calmer than he was the first time and more confident, more settled.”
Inspector general’s probe finds FBI not involved in Jan. 6 attack
A new report released by the Justice Department inspector general Thursday found no federal agents were directly involved in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. The long-awaited report found no evidence undercover FBI employees were among the thousands of Trump supporters who stormed the building.
The report also found 26 confidential informants for the FBI were among the crowd that day, but only three were assigned by the FBI to attend the rally. The report said none of them were directed by the bureau to “break the law” or “encourage others to commit illegal acts.”
One of the confidential human sources assigned by the FBI to be there was among four sources in total who entered the Capitol building that day. The other two assigned by the FBI entered the restricted area around the Capitol.
Republican Congressman Jim Jordan told Fox News, “The FBI had encouraged and tasked confidential human sources to be at the Capitol that day. Four entered the Capitol and weren’t charged, which is not the same treatment that other Americans received.”
The report said the bureau should have done a better job communicating with field offices nationwide before Congress met that day to certify the 2020 election results.
Trump made immigration and immigration enforcement a centerpiece of his 2024 presidential campaign, vowing mass deportations.
New York is the country’s largest sanctuary city and has laws in place limiting how local agencies cooperate with federal deportation efforts.
While the sanctuary city status is determined by the city council, not the mayor, Adams has said he supports a bill to roll back parts of the city’s sanctuary policies.
“We’re going to protect the rights of immigrants in this city that are hardworking, giving back to the city in a real way,” Adams said after his meeting with Homan Thursday. “We’re not going to be a safe haven for those who commit repeated violent crimes against innocent migrants, immigrants and longstanding New Yorkers.”
We are a city of immigrants, and we will always be true to those roots, but we also have to be honest and be clear that our immigration system is broken and a small number of repeat, violent offenders are taking advantage of that broken system. pic.twitter.com/Rp0ZITJNJt
Adams added, “We’re going to tell those who are here, who are law-abiding, to continue to utilize the services that are open to the city, the services that they have a right to utilize: educating their children, health care, public protection and the things that we have long been proud for in doing so. But we will not be a safe haven for those who commit violent acts.”
After the meeting with Adams, Homan sat down for an interview with TV personality Dr. Phil. Homan said he believes the things he and Adams discussed “may save lives.”
“This isn’t going to be neighborhood sweeps and military vehicles going through the city,” Homan told Dr.Phil. “I’m not asking him to be an immigration officer. I’m not asking NYPD to be immigration officers. I want them to be cops that work with cops to take public safety threats off the streets of New York and make New York safer. Migrant crime is sky high here.”
Just days after winning the election, Trump tapped Homan to serve as border czar. Homan is a former acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and a proponent of tough border policies, such as rounding up and deporting migrants, who are in the country illegally and have committed crimes.
Adams seemed to agree on Thursday, saying, “it’s important to go after those who are committing serious crimes, particularly those dangerous gangs that have come from Venezuela and now we’re finding them on the streets of our country.”
UN: More than 1.1. million Syrians displaced since fall of Assad regime
More than one million people have been displaced since the fall of the Assad regime in Syria less than a week ago, according to the United Nations. It’s also reporting food shortages are now widespread in Aleppo, Syria’s second-largest city.
This weekend, Jordan will host a summit including foreign ministers from Western and Arab nations to discuss ways to support a smooth transition of power after rebels ousted the country’s long-time leader in a coup last Sunday, Dec. 8.
It also comes as the U.N. chief has voiced concerns over the country’s sovereignty after Israel launched hundreds of air strikes and deployed ground troops in Syria. Israeli officials claim they’re trying to prevent arms from falling into “the wrong hands” by destroying military installations and weapons sites.
Meanwhile, a man from Missouri reported missing in Hungary has been found in Syria. Missionary Travis Timmerman, 29, was reportedly found walking the streets of Damascus barefoot Thursday after being held in a prison there for several months. You can read Karah Rucker’s full report here.
3 men accuse Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs of sexual assault
There are new accusations against hip hop mogul Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs. Three men accused Combs of drugging and raping them during incidents that took place between 2019 and 2022 at a nightclub and ritzy New York hotels.
One of the men has been identified as a former employee of Combs. Their lawyer, who filed the anonymous lawsuits Thursday night, said Combs used his power and wealth to take advantage of them.
The men are seeking a jury trial and unspecified damages.
In a statement, Combs attorneys said the claims are full of lies.
Combs has pleaded not guilty to federal charges of racketeering and sex trafficking. He remains in federal prison in Brooklyn after being denied bail.
Look up! Geminid meteor shower peaks this weekend
Stargazers, it’s the time of the year again to look up for the Geminid meteor shower. The annual December display will light up the night sky as it peaks this weekend.
Unlike most meteor showers which originate from comets, the Geminids come from an asteroid.
NASA said the Geminid is considered one of the best opportunities for young viewers since it starts around 9 or 10 p.m.
To best view the meteor shower, experts said you should find a dark spot and leave the binoculars at home and just watch with the naked eye. NASA said it may take around 30 minutes for your eyes to adjust to the dark before you can see the shower, but the show will last hours, and you will have plenty of time to catch a glimpse.
