Americans had a pandemic on their minds back in 2020 when then-President Donald Trump signed a $2.3 trillion COVID-19 relief bill that stimulated the slack economy and averted a government shutdown. Tucked inside the bill, however, was another bit of business entirely—a provision requiring the Pentagon to investigate more than 120 sightings by military pilots of what used to be known as UFOs, and now go by the more decorous-sounding “unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP).” Lawmakers wrote the requirement into the must-pass legislation in the hope that it might help explain cockpit footage of UAP sightings that the Navy had declassified earlier that year and that had been burning down the internet ever since. 

The Department of Defense released the mandated report in 2021, analyzing both the video evidence and eyewitness accounts of flying objects moving in all manner of ways that defy conventional aeronautics—loop-the-looping and changing directions with a nimbleness no existing technology could manage. None of the objects produced detectable exhaust. Some turned with a suddenness that would have produced g-forces deadly to any human being who might be aboard. Others dove into the ocean and then flew straight back out.

The military’s verdict? A shrug. The objects weren’t U.S. Air Force or Naval aircraft, but whether they belonged to a hostile foreign power—terrestrial or otherwise—was impossible to say.

“These things would be out there all day,” one pilot told the New York Times in 2021. At the speeds at which the objects were moving, he added, “twelve hours in the air is 11 hours longer than we’d expect.”

Inauguration day for Trump’s second term is still more than two months away, but when the once-and-future president returns to Washington, he’ll find the mystery of UAPs again there waiting for him. 

On Nov. 13, two subcommittees of the House Oversight Committee held a joint hearing provocatively titled “Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Exposing the Truth,” during which they heard from four witnesses who spent just over two hours making the case that American skies are indeed being plied by un-American—and quite possibly unearthly—machines.

Let me be clear,” testified Luis Elizondo, a former military intelligence official who spent 10 years running a Pentagon program investigating the unexplained sightings, “UAP are real. Advanced technologies not made by our government or any other government are monitoring sensitive military installations around the globe. Furthermore, the U.S. is in possession of UAP technologies, as are some of our adversaries. I believe we are in the midst of a multi-decade, secretive arms race, one funded by misallocated taxpayer dollars, and hidden from our elected representatives and oversight bodies.”

What caused both the lawmakers and the witnesses at the hearing particular concern is not just the fact that the sightings keep occurring, but where they’re occurring—with a disproportionate share of them happening over military or other secure installations. Committee chairman Glenn Grothman (R-Wis.) put the question directly to Elizondo.

“I suppose, hypothetically, you could have incursions over just regular airports,” he said, “but is it obvious that these incursions are more likely over military facilities than over a random airport?”

“There is definitely enough data to suggest that there is some sort of relationship between sensitive U.S. military installations, also some of our nuclear equities, and some of our Department of Energy sites,” Elizondo answered. “This is not a new trend; this has been going on for decades and that information has been obfuscated, unfortunately, from folks like you in this committee, and I think that’s problematic.”

Elizondo was not the only witness to charge that the government is playing cute with what it knows or doesn’t know about the origin of UAPs. Retired rear admiral Tim Gallaudet was deployed off the east coast of the continental U.S. in Jan. 2015 when one of the cockpit videos that was declassified in 2020 was first captured. According to his testimony, he and a handful of other Naval officers received an email with the video attached—an email that vanished from all of their inboxes “without explanation” the next day. The anomalous object, he said, exhibited “flight and structural characteristics unlike anything in our arsenal.” For Gallaudet, the content of the video, not to mention its disappearance, served as “confirmation that UAPs are interacting with humanity.”

Some of the most sensational claims of the two-hour session came from journalist Michael Shellenberger, founder of the news site Public on the Substack platform, who submitted 214 pages of testimony into evidence. Last month, Shellenberger published an article alleging that the government was running what he described in his testimony as “an active and highly secretive” program called Immaculate Constellation, which includes “hundreds, maybe thousands” of images and videos of UAPs. “And it’s not those fuzzy photos and videos we’ve been given,” he testified. “It’s very clear, very high resolution.”

Michael Gold, a former NASA associate administrator and a member of the space agency’s UAP independent study team, weighed in too, lamenting what he described as “the pernicious stigma that continues to impede scientific dialogue and open discussions” about UAP. “Science requires data which should be collected without bias or prejudice, yet when the topic of UAP arises, those who wish to explore the phenomena are met by resistance and ridicule.”

That’s not only a disservice to public knowledge, but a risk to public safety—one that Gallaudet, with his military pedigree, was quick to point out. “There is a national security need for more UAP transparency,” he said. “In 2025, the U.S. will spend over $900 billion on national defense, yet we still have an incomplete understanding of what is in our airspace.”

Added Elizondo: “We are talking about technologies that can outperform anything we have in our inventory. And if this was an adversarial technology, this would be an intelligence failure eclipsing that of 9/11 by an order of magnitude.”

Whatever the unexplained technology is, the witnesses stressed, it is the government’s responsibility not just to figure out its origin, but to share what it learns with the taxpaying public. “The intelligence community is treating us like children,” Shellenberger testified. “It’s time for us to know the truth about this. I think that we can handle it.”

Mike Tyson said that "the devil himself" would show up Friday night in his boxing match against Jake Paul. He gave Paul a preview at Thursday's weigh-in.

Betting public backing Mike Tyson in return vs. Jake Paul

play

• 
  David Purdum, ESPN Staff WriterNov 14, 2024, 12:49 PM ET

The betting public is overwhelmingly siding with Mike Tyson for Friday's fight against Jake Paul that bookmakers say is on pace to be the most heavily bet boxing match in years.

The odds have been drifting toward Tyson this week, with sportsbooks reporting upward of 90% of the bets being on the underdog. Tyson, 58, has moved from +225 to +175 this week at ESPN BET, where Paul, 27, is listed as a -225 favorite.

The eight-round, sanctioned fight takes place Friday at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, and will be broadcast on Netflix.

While Tyson is garnering the majority of wagers, the bigger ones are on Paul, including a $1 million bet placed with Caesars Sportsbook by a bettor in Michigan at -220 odds. The bet would pay a net $454,000 if Paul wins.

DraftKings sportsbook director Johnny Avello told ESPN on Thursday that it had taken two $500,000 bets on Paul to win.

"As we got closer to the fight, we've started to see a lot of small bets on Tyson," Avello said. "Took a couple of big bets on Paul, but it's not going to overcome all the bets on Tyson."

BetMGM said in a release Tuesday that it expects Tyson-Paul to be the most bet-on boxing match in the online sportsbook's seven-year history, and Andrew Babakitis, a risk manager for the Westgate SuperBook in Las Vegas who oversees fight odds, said he has been shocked by the betting interest.

"It's pretty surprising to see how many people are still willing to take a shot on Mike Tyson at this age," Babakitis told ESPN on Wednesday.

Babakitis said the SuperBook had taken "several six-figure bets" on the fight, all of them on Paul. Big bets on Paul also showed up before the fight was postponed from July 15 to Nov. 15 due to a health issue with Tyson. The odds on the fight were in the same range before and after the postponement

Avello was a bookmaker for the 2017 Conor McGregor-Floyd Mayweather boxing match in Las Vegas, a fight that drew record betting interest, including five reported million-dollar wagers at Nevada sportsbooks. Avello said, with legal sportsbooks now operating in 38 states and the District of Columbia, Tyson-Paul might attract even more money from bettors, but he isn't expecting the million-dollar bets he saw on McGregor-Mayweather.

"For us, I think it certainly could be our biggest bout of the year," Avello said.

The most popular prop bet on the fight is for Tyson to win in the first round. Avello said DraftKings took so much action on Tyson in the first round that it moved the price from 22-1 to 12-1.

Tyson hasn't fought professionally in nearly 20 years. Paul, who rose to fame as a YouTube influencer, has amassed a 10-1 record in his boxing career.

Not all states are allowing betting on the fight because of a variety of factors, with the abstainers including New York, Colorado and Pennsylvania.

"I'm shocked at how much this fight is being bet," Babakitis said. "It almost feels like a joke, but it's not. There's some serious money on this thing."

 The satirical news publication The Onion won the bidding for Alex Jones’ Infowars at a bankruptcy auction, backed by families of Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims whom Jones owes more than $1 billion in defamation judgments for calling the massacre a hoax.

“The dissolution of Alex Jones’ assets and the death of Infowars is the justice we have long awaited and fought for,” Robbie Parker, whose daughter Emilie was killed in the 2012 shooting in Connecticut, said in a statement provided by his lawyers.

The Onion acquired the conspiracy theory platform’s website; social media accounts; studio in Austin, Texas; trademarks; and video archive. The sale price was not immediately disclosed. The Onion said its “exclusive launch advertiser” will be the gun violence prevention organization Everytown for Gun Safety.

“Everytown will continue to raise awareness on InfoWars’ channels about gun violence prevention and present actual solutions to our nation’s gun violence crisis, including bipartisan, common-sense measures and public safety initiatives backed by Everytown,” The Onion said in a statement Thursday.

Jones confirmed The Onion’s acquisition of Infowars in a social media video Thursday and said he planned to file legal challenges to stop it.

Last broadcast now live from Infowars studios. They are in the building. Are ordering shutdown without court approval,” Jones said on the social platform X.

Jones was broadcasting live from the Infowars studio Thursday morning and appeared distraught, putting his head in his hand at his desk.

Sealed bids for the private auction were opened Wednesday. Both supporters and detractors of Jones had expressed interest in buying Infowars. The other bidders have not been disclosed.

The Onion, a satirical site that manages to persuade people to believe the absurd, bills itself as “the world’s leading news publication, offering highly acclaimed, universally revered coverage of breaking national, international, and local news events” and says it has 4.3 trillion daily readers.

Jones has been saying on his show that if his detractors bought Infowars, he would move his daily broadcasts and product sales to a new studio, websites and social media accounts that he has already set up. He also said that if his supporters won the bidding, he could stay on the Infowars platforms.

Relatives of many of the 20 children and six educators killed in the shooting Jones and his company for defamation and emotional distress for repeatedly saying on his show that the shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, was a hoax staged by crisis actors to spur more gun control. Parents and children of many of the victims testified that they were traumatized by Jones’ conspiracies and threats by his followers.

The lawsuits were filed in Connecticut and Texas. Lawyers for the families in the Connecticut lawsuit said they worked with The Onion to try to acquire Infowars.

 Fetterman urged reporters to ask his Republican colleagues for their response to Trump tapping Gaetz, who resigned from Congress on Wednesday night.

“We all know, you know, what the Democratic side’s going to be,” Fetterman said. “That’s where the interesting answers are going to come from, my colleagues on the GOP that are going to vote, or justify voting, for that mess.”

Trump on Wednesday announced a series of nominations, including Gaetz for the top law enforcement post in the country. The announcement took many Senate Republicans by surprise, and some expressed skepticism that his nomination could get through the upper chamber.

Among the main concerns for some Senate Judiciary Committee members, and for senators in general, will be the Department of Justice’s years-long investigation into allegations that Gaetz had sex with an underage girl. The investigation was closed last year, and Gaetz was not criminally charged. He has denied any wrongdoing.

The House Ethics Committee, up until Gaetz’s resignation from Congress, was investigating whether the Florida Republican engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, among other allegations. With Gaetz’s resignation, the panel no longer has jurisdiction but could still vote to release the report.

 That's the response of multiple organizations in response to a white supremacist gathering outside Howell's American Legion Post 141 on Saturday, Nov. 9, during a performance of "The Diary of Anne Frank."

In specific, the quote is from the American Defamation League (Michigan), which wrote a statement Monday on X, formerly Twitter.

More:'We were hiding with Nazis outside': White supremacists protest play in Howell

“We are disgusted by the far-right extremists who praised Hitler and waved Nazi flags outside of an American Legion hosting the play ‘The Diary of Anne Frank,’ and we stand with American Legion 141 and @HowellTownship who know that hate doesn't belong in their community.”

According to video posted to social media by the American Legion, a group of five demonstrators holding Nazi flags and American flags with white supremacist symbols gathered outside the organization where the show was produced by Fowlerville Community Theatre.

A member of the American Legion told WLNS the play was intended to be educational amid reports of rising antisemitism. The organization went live on Facebook on Saturday, filming the demonstrators being confronted by deputies from the Livingston County Sheriff’s Office.

One demonstrator can be heard telling deputies they're protecting their right to free speech.

Another four demonstrators were seen waving Nazi flags in Fowlerville at the intersection of Grand River Avenue and Grand Street. It's unclear whether the protests shared members, as their faces were covered.

The Michigan Chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, also spoke out against the demonstration.

“We condemn this display of neo-Nazi hate and join all those speaking out against the rising bigotry and societal division we are witnessing nationwide,” said CAIR-MI Executive Director Dawud Walid. “All such attempts to promote racism, antisemitism or any other form of bigotry must be repudiated by local, state and national religious and political leaders.”

CAIR’s mission is to protect civil rights, enhance understanding of Islam, promote justice, and empower American Muslims.    

WLNS also quoted Jason Woolford, recently elected to represent the area in the Michigan House of Representatives, and Howell Mayor Robert Ellis — both of whom are frustrated by Howell's continued reputation as a safe space for white supremacists.

“I’ll say to those that are using our community and, in most cases don’t even live here, to promote a message of hate, quit coming here,” Woolford said.

 President-elect Donald Trump moved to build out his national security team Tuesday, announcing he is nominating Fox News host and Army veteran Pete Hegseth to serve as his defense secretary and former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe to lead the Central Intelligence Agency.

In a flurry of announcements, Trump said he had chosen former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee as ambassador to Israel and his longtime friend Steven Witkoff to be a special envoy to the Middle East. Trump also said he would nominate South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem to run the Department of Homeland Security and named Bill McGinley, his Cabinet secretary in his first administration, as his White House counsel.

Trump is rolling out a steady stream of appointees and nominees for his upcoming administration, working thus far at a faster pace and without as much drama as his first transition following his 2016 victory. His selection of Hegseth, who lacks senior military or national security experience, was sure to draw questions about his qualifications to lead the department.

Hegseth, 44, is a co-host of Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends Weekend” and has been a contributor with the network since 2014, where he developed a friendship with Trump, who made regular appearances on the show.

If confirmed by the Senate, he would inherit the top job during a series of global crises — ranging from Russia’s war in Ukraine and the ongoing attacks in the Middle East by Iranian proxies to the push for a cease-fire between Israel, Hamas and Hezbollah and escalating worries about the growing alliance between Russia and North Korea.

Hegseth is also the author of “The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free,” published earlier this year, and has been outspoken about rooting out what he has called “woke-ness” in the military.

The book, according to its promo, combines “his own war experiences, tales of outrage, and an incisive look at how the chain of command got so kinked,” and bills itself as “the key to saving our warriors — and winning future wars.”

While the Pentagon is considered a key coveted post in any administration, the defense secretary was a tumultuous post during Trump’s first term. Five men held the job during his four years only to resign, be fired or serve briefly as a stopgap. Just two of them were actually confirmed by the Senate.

Trump’s relationship with his civilian and military leaders during those years was fraught with tension, confusion and frustration, as they struggled to temper or even simply interpret presidential tweets and pronouncements that blindsided them with abrupt policy decisions they weren’t prepared to explain or defend. Many of the generals who worked in his first administration — both on active duty and retired — have slammed him as unfit to serve in the Oval Office and he has condemned them in return.

Hegseth was an infantry captain in the Army National Guard and served overseas in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He was formerly head of the Concerned Veterans for America, a group backed by conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch, and he unsuccessfully ran for the Senate in Minnesota in 2012.

He also championed the case of four former Blackwater contractors convicted in a 2007 shooting rampage in Baghdad that killed more than a dozen Iraqi civilians. They were pardoned by Trump in one of his final acts in office.

“With Pete at the helm, America’s enemies are on notice — Our Military will be Great Again, and America will Never Back Down,” Trump said in a statement. “Nobody fights harder for the Troops, and Pete will be a courageous and patriotic champion of our ‘Peace through Strength’ policy.”

Hegseth has “an excellent background as a junior officer but does not have the senior national security experience that secretaries need,” said Mark Cancian, a senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “I think Trump was tired of fighting with his secretaries of defense and picked one who would be loyal to him.” Cancian said the lack of experience might make it more difficult for Hegseth to get through Senate confirmation.

Noem is a well-known conservative and former member of Congress who used her two terms leading a state to vault to a prominent position in Republican politics. She was considered a potential presidential contender herself, but declined to challenge Trump. She instead launched an overt pitch to be selected vice president but lost that nod when Trump chose JD Vance as his running mate.

If confirmed, Noem would head an agency that is at the center of Trump’s sweeping immigration plans and his campaign vow to carry out mass deportations of immigrants in the United States illegally. There are an estimated 11 million people in the country illegally.

 After President-elect Donald Trump announced that Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy will lead the Department of Government Efficiency, an effort to root out government waste, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., criticized Trump's decision, suggesting he had tapped two people to execute the job of one person.

"The Office of Government Efficiency is off to a great start with split leadership: two people to do the work of one person," Warren said in a post on X, sarcastically adding, "Yeah, this seems REALLY efficient." 

Musk and Ramaswamy "will pave the way for my Administration to dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies," Trump said in a statement.

Trump noted that the team, nicknamed "DOGE," "will provide advice and guidance from outside of government, and will partner with the White House and Office of Management & Budget to drive large scale structural reform, and create an entrepreneurial approach to Government never seen before."

Musk has invited the public to share their thoughts about what should and should not be slashed.

"All actions of the Department of Government Efficiency will be posted online for maximum transparency. Anytime the public thinks we are cutting something important or not cutting something wasteful, just let us know! We will also have a leaderboard for the most insanely dumb spending of your tax dollars. This will be both extremely tragic and extremely entertaining," he tweeted.

Ramaswamy dropped his bid for the GOP presidential nomination and endorsed Trump back in January.

"DOGE will soon begin crowdsourcing examples of government waste, fraud, & and abuse. Americans voted for drastic government reform & they deserve to be part of fixing it," he tweeted.

A Fox & Friends weekend co-host is not qualified to be the Secretary of Defense. I lead the Senate military personnel panel. All three of my brothers served in uniform. I respect every one of our servicemembers. Donald Trump’s pick will make us less safe and must be rejected," she declared in a post on X.

Hegseth is an author and Army veteran who earned two Bronze Stars and a Combat Infantryman's Badge, according to his website.

His last day with Fox was Tuesday.

Trump said in a statement that Hegseth "will be a courageous and patriotic champion of our ‘Peace through Strength’ policy."