Rapper 50 Cent is determined to stop P. Diddy from receiving a presidential pardon, as an old feud between the two hip-hop stars continues.

The outspoken "In Da Club" rapper, whose real name is Curtis Jackson, said he will try to convince President Trump against pardoning Sean "Diddy" Combs, who is facing charges in New York for sex trafficking. Combs has pleaded not guilty.

Trump floats shock pardon

Prosecutors say Combs used violence and blackmail to keep women under his control so he could abuse them in depraved orgies that he filmed, called "freakoffs."

His lawyers say the sex was consensual and that prosecutors are attempting to criminalize his hedonistic lifestyle. The charges have rendered Combs a pariah in the entertainment industry in which he once moved as a power player.

When asked about a pardon Friday, Trump said he has not been following the highly publicized case closely enough to make a decision.

“Nobody’s asked. But I know people are thinking about it. I know they’re thinking about it. I think some people have been very close to asking,” Trump said.

“First of all, I’d look at what’s happening, and I haven’t been watching it too closely, although it’s certainly getting a lot of coverage,” he added.

Old beef with a new twist

50 Cent has mocked Combs over his legal woes, poking fun at the massive stash of lubricant that he kept for his drug-fueled sex romps. Jackson is also producing a Netflix documentary about Combs and the case against him.

The two rap stars have been feuding since their glory days in the 2000s. In 2006, 50 Cent released a diss track accusing the Bad Boy Records founder of knowing who murdered his former protege Biggie Smalls.

Their beef was mentioned in Diddy's trial last week, when his former assistant testified that Combs had threatened to shoot 50 Cent. After leaving an MTV event, Combs allegedly said he would rather use guns than words to get back at his rival.

“Wait a minute PUFFY’s got a gun, I can’t believe this I don’t feel safe,” Jackson wrote in a mocking reply on Instagram.

Rapper speaks out

In response to Trump's pardon comments, 50 Cent said he would try to persuade Trump by appealing to the president's pride.

“He [Combs] said some really bad things about Trump, it’s not ok. I’m gonna reach out so he knows how I feel about this guy,” Jackson wrote.

“Donald doesn’t take well to disrespect, and doesn’t forget who chooses to go against him,” he wrote.

Trump has pardoned several rap stars before, including, most recently, NBA Youngboy, who was sentenced to two years on gun charges.

Given the nature of the offenses Combs is charged with, a pardon would certainly prompt public backlash. But Trump is no stranger to making controversial decisions, and at the end of the day, only he can make that call.

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

The Commerce Department released details on Friday confirming that inflation remains very low – at 2.1% for the Personal Consumption Expenditures index, a mark that is almost exactly at the goal of the federal government to keep it in the 2% range.

While various economists are claiming that inflation will reach 3.5% by year's end, the report on Friday confirmed the 2.1% rate from April 2024 to last month, lower than forecasts by those experts of 2.2%.

The report said Core PCE inflation, which is the Federal Reserve's favored measure of price changes as it excludes more volatile food and energy categories, was 2.5% in April, lower than projections of 2.6%.

This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

When billionaire Elon Musk, whose Tesla, X and SpaceX companies routinely lead the nation in tech accomplishments, started working with President Donald Trump on the Department of Government Efficiency, he said he hoped to save taxpayers a trillion dollars, or more.

The DOGE plan, after all, was to cut out corruption, fraud and waste in government spending, and it has been on the job since Trump's inauguration, already saving, according to estimates, each taxpayer about $1,000.

One tracking software estimated DOGE already had saved Americans about $170 billion.

As his position as a temporary federal government employee expired, Musk said that still is within reach.

He pointed out that the official end of the DOGE program is scheduled for mid-2026, and added, "We do expect to achieve over time the trillion dollars of savings."

He said, "With the support of the president and Congress, could we achieve a trillion dollars of savings? I think so. We're on track to do so."

President Donald Trump's Department of Homeland Security (DHS) arrested a 16-year-old illegal immigrant from Columbia last week, who was convicted of killing a 24-year-old Colorado woman while speeding in July 2024 but was let off with no jail time by Colorado's Democrat Attorney General.

ICE agents in Colorado arrested the teen, whose name was not given, and expect to deport him after a hearing.

The teen was offered a plea deal and given two years probation and 100 hours of community service despite an initial charge of vehicular manslaughter.

He admitted guilt in killing Kaitlin Weaver as she drove home from work, crashing into her while driving 90 miles per hour when the speed limit was 45 miles per hour.

"Arrest and removal"

News of the arrest was greeted with approval by Weaver's family, including dad John Weaver, who were outraged by the lenient sentence the teen migrant received.

“Immigration and the criminal justice system and all these things landed together one day in Aurora and now I sit here today without a daughter,” Weaver previously said.

The reversal

“I appreciate ICE taking enforcement action, and I really appreciate the outpouring of support from everyone,” John Weaver told Fox News Digital after the arrest.

According to Breitbart, the Weavers were told that their daughter's killer would not qualify for a plea deal in the case.

Months later, however, he was offered the sweetheart deal.

Weaver lamented the reversal at the time and said if the case had involved a firearm, it would have been prosecuted differently.

“Why the change? If he had taken a firearm and recklessly just shot it and killed someone, this would be a different case. They would be pushing it completely differently,” John Weaver previously said. “There’s no deterrence.”

But that was before Trump took office and the official posture toward migrants who commit crimes changed. Now, justice will be done.

An energy watchdog group reported to Breitbart News after an investigation that it found evidence of "criminal" impersonation of the president in how the autopen was used to approve legislation and executive actions.

Energy expert Daniel Turner, founder of Power the Future released a report last week alleging that at least eight major actions by Biden were signed with the autopen, including several bans on offshore drilling.

“You know, I get so angry when I have these conversations about this because I deal with the people whose livelihoods were destroyed. It takes a lot of effort to not curse and be profane because what they did to the American people is not just criminal, it’s evil,” Turner told radio show host Matt Boyle. “It’s genuinely morally reprehensible. The damage that we did, that we continue to do, to the American people, all because we’re ‘worried about Donald Trump.'”

Turner wondered whether the staffers who used the autopen in this way had presidential immunity against prosecution but argued that "people died" from the actions of those who used Biden's autopen.

"People died"

"People died as a result of this, quite literally," he said, connecting some of the actions to the war in Ukraine. "So there is no hiding behind presidential privilege. There is no saying, ‘Well, I was working for the president, and you can’t subpoena me.’"

"These are really criminal, criminal, allegedly criminal acts that are worthy of investigation," he argued. "You can’t act in Persona Presidente, right? You can’t commandeer the president’s autopen and put forward policies."

He used some of what was presented in the new book "Original Sin" about Biden's cognitive decline and how staffers dealt with it to explain what happened.

“As they said in the book, when they’re willing to do undemocratic things to protect democracy, those people are admitting they’re willing to do undemocratic things to stay in power. And that’s what they did the last four years with the auto pen," he said.

"Process crimes"

The group noted that Biden never spoke of or acknowledged the actions they allege were autopenned without his knowledge.

Group leadership said this proves he didn't know about them.

Last week, Power the Future wrote letters to the Department of Justice (DOJ), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Department of the Interior (DOI), and the Department of Energy (DOE) asking the agencies to investigate the autopen usage.

Turner said on Fox News that letters were also sent to the House and Senate Oversight committees.

"When you have an executive order to ban offshore oil and gas drilling … That’s a pretty damn big ban,
Turner said to Boyle. "When you have that and you sign it by autopen, there are process crimes.”

"The chief of staff had to know what was going on," he accused. "The staff secretary — every time Donald Trump signs an executive order, we see the staff secretary hand him that order, explain it, the president signs it. There are personnel involved in processes.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced a reorganization plan for the State Department on Thursday that will make many of the changes DOGE suggested there permanent, according to Fox Digital. 

More than 300 of the 700 offices and bureaus housed at the State Department will be eliminated or combined as part of the overhaul, which will be the largest since the Cold War era, an official said.

"We have too many godd--- offices," a senior State Department official told Fox News Digital. "We’re trying to shrink offices rather than create them."

Rubio said in April that the overhaul was coming because the agency was "bloated, bureaucratic, and unable to perform its essential diplomatic mission."

Shift to overseas posts

In addition to cost-cutting, the streamlining plan will make the agency more responsive to threats and help it to respond quicker when those threats do come.

About 3,400 personnel will be cut from the department's rolls, which is a 15-20% overall reduction in head count.

"We are really addressing a significant portion of the department's domestic offices and sort of merging them, combining them, trying to make them more efficient," the senior State Department official said.

An update on the reductions is expected by July 1.

Only domestic offices will be impacted, not embassies abroad, officials said.

"We're really shifting the focus towards our embassies out in the field, our ambassadors out in the field, giving them the tools… so that they can effectively implement the ‘America First’ diplomacy out there in the field," another senior State Department official told Fox News Digital.

An update, not a cut

Restructuring "is not designed to either cripple the department or in any way — it’s not even a cost-savings endeavor," Rubio told the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on foreign affairs on May 20.

Despite Musk's departure last week, many DOGE employees will continue to be part of Trump's administration, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said during a briefing.

"Surely the mission of Doge will continue," Leavitt told reporters Thursday. "Many Doge employees are now political employees."

Musk will also be involved with the Trump administration as an advisor; he was limited to 130 days of employment by DOGE as a temporary figure.

As the old saying asserts, politics makes strange bedfellows, and that proposition was brought into stark relief once again this week when one of the Senate's most liberal voices sided with President Donald Trump on a key issue facing the nation.

As Fox Business reports, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) on Friday acknowledged that she is in agreement with the Republican commander in chief's opinion that the federal debt limit should be eliminated once and for all.

Warren, Trump find common ground

The liberal firebrand from Massachusetts has made her position clear when it comes to the debt limit, a mechanism which places a ceiling on the amount of money the Treasury may owe at any one time to pay the country's obligations.

Warren took to X to outline her stance, boldly revealing that she and Trump are of like minds on the issue, saying, “the debt limit should be scrapped to prevent an economic catastrophe.”

She went on to urge Congress to “pass a bipartisan bill and get rid of it forever.”

The lawmaker then took pains to distance herself from Trump despite their agreement on this one, discrete issue, however, attacking the “big, beautiful bill” he currently supports.

“But jacking up the debt limit by $4 trillion to fund more tax breaks for billionaires is an outrage,” Warren added.

Trump's stance, explained

It was soon after his November 2024 election to a second term in office that Trump made his stance on the debt limit quite clear, as NBC News noted at the time.

Trump declared in a phone interview with the outlet that eliminating the debt ceiling permanently would represent the “smartest thing [Congress] could do. I would support that entirely.”

The then-president-elect also pointed to the ability to garner bipartisan support for such a push, noting, “The Democrats have said they want to get rid of it. If they want to get rid of it, I would lead the charge.”

Trump went on to suggest that the debt ceiling itself has little practical meaning and that the consequences of its breach are nebulous, at best.

“It doesn't mean anything, except psychologically,” Trump mused.

Cooperation in the offing?

While it is a rare thing indeed for the likes of Trump and Warren to see eye-to-eye on just about anything, the president referenced the common ground he shares with the senator on this key issue ahead of a Friday press availability.

Emphasizing that he “always agreed with [Warren]” on the debt limit question, Trump highlighted the highly unusual moment of connection with one of the upper chamber's most left-wing members, but whether that will ever translate into a collaborative effort of any sort, only time will tell.

The Trump administration has made no secret of its plans to pursue and deport illegal immigrants who have committed crimes in the United States, and judging by an announcement on Friday from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), that promise is being kept.

As Breitbart reports, an illegal alien from Colombia, convicted in the 2024 death of Kaitlyn Weaver in Colorado, is now in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials and will be deported, another win for DHS and Secretary Kristi Noem.

Tragic case, revisited

It was last July in Arapahoe County, Colorado, that 24-year-old Weaver was making her way home from work when her vehicle was struck by a teen driver who was reportedly traveling at 90-mph in a 45-mph zone.

Weaver had stopped her car at a stop sign when the other driver -- unnamed due to age shield laws -- slammed into her while racing a Jeep in a residential neighborhood, as Fox News noted.

Suffering from catastrophic injuries, Weaver remained on life support for two days before donating her organs.

In the aftermath of the crash, the illegal immigrant, an unlicensed Colombian teen, was arrested and was initially charged with vehicular homicide, with Weaver's grieving family receiving assurances that the case would be treated as a “no plea offer” scenario.

However, the shock and outrage of Weaver's family and the broader community, Democrat District Attorney Amy Padden offered the driver a lenient plea agreement involving a mere two years of probation and 100 hours of community service.

ICE takes action

At the time of the plea agreement, John Weaver, the victim's father, lamented not just the district attorney's decision to opt for leniency, but also the Biden administration's open-border policies, but amid news of the perpetrator's arrest, at least some measure of justice may finally be served.

According to the Friday announcement from ICE the driver who killed Weaver was arrested, along with members of his family, was arrested and is now in federal custody.

ICE officials made the news public in a post on X, blasting the prior outcome in Weaver case, declaring that for the local district attorney in Arapahoe County, “justice is no jail time and probation for this criminal alien who killed a young woman while driving more than 90 mph.”

Marking a sharp contrast in approach, the post continued, “For ICE, justice is arrest and removal.”

The agency went on to state that the individual is slated to remain in ICE custody until an immigration hearing can be held, with President Donald Trump taking to Truth Social to declare that the offender and his family will be deported, as CBS News noted.

Small measure of justice

Grieving dad John Weaver told Fox News Digital that he was made aware of the impending action from ICE against his daughter's killer, and he was quick to express his gratitude.

“I appreciate ICE taking enforcement action, and I really appreciate the outpouring of support from everyone,” Weaver said, though there is no remedy -- legal or otherwise -- that can ever erase the pain resulting from the needless, utterly avoidable loss of his daughter.

The Trump administration has withdrawn the nomination of Jared Isaacman as NASA Administrator in a move that surprised many.

Liz Huston, a spokesperson for the White House, issued a statement explaining that it was "essential that the next leader of NASA” be completely onboard with President Donald Trump's America First agenda.

This explanation suggests that there was some sort of disagreement between Isaacman and the Trump administration on how NASA was going to participate in the MAGA agenda.

Huston's statement explained, "The Administrator of NASA will help lead humanity into space and execute President Trump’s bold mission of planting the American flag on the planet Mars. It’s essential that the next leader of NASA is in complete alignment with President Trump’s American First agenda and a replacement will be announced directly by President Trump soon.”

There is little to no information in this statement that hints at the real reason behind Isaacman's nomination, and many Congressional Republicans are not happy.

Isaacman Popular With Congress

Isaacman was on pace to be confirmed by Congress without trouble, as he had previously testified before the Senate Commerce Committee in April, which ended in him being “advanced out of committee in a 19-9 vote."

Furthermore, Isaacman was a good candidate to help NASA work with the private sector as he has previously worked alongside SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, who is seen as a trailblazer of the aerospace industry.

So it is no surprise to see the dismissal of Isaacman be greeted with both confusion and anger from some Republicans who were sold on confirming him as NASA's next administrator.

Senator Tim Sheehy (R-MT) took to X to say, "Astronaut and successful businessman @RookIsaacman was a strong choice by President Trump to lead NASA. I was proud to introduce Jared at his hearing and strongly oppose efforts to derail his nomination."

Conservative activist Robby Starbuck also weighed in on the decision by saying, "The White House just pulled Jared Isaacman’s nomination to lead NASA. A big mistake to keep the acting Administrator (Janet Petro) in charge of NASA. She’s a true believer in DEI. Keeping her in charge is inexcusable and @rookisaacman was a tremendous pick lead our space agency."

Starbucks' tweet only further clouds the waters on what is happening with NASA as Petro ended NASA's DEI programs in January following Trump's inauguration. By all accounts, Petro has been vigilant in stamping out leftist DEI programs.

Future Of NASA

NASA has an important role to play in the future, as space travel is a growing priority that has seen immense leaps thanks to Elon Musk and SpaceX.

While it is important that NASA's next administrator is in line with the Trump administration's agenda, it is also important that this situation gets sorted in an efficient and timely manner.

The opposite seems to be happening right now, as this revocation of the nomination comes just ahead of an expected easy confirmation.

Hopefully, more information will be released in the coming days if the Trump administration wants to avoid spreading confusion.

Valerie Mahaffey, a celebrated actress known for her dynamic roles across stage, film, and television, has died at the age of 71, ABC News reported.

She passed away on a Friday in Los Angeles after battling cancer, as announced by her publicist on Saturday.

Mahaffey was a versatile performer whose talents graced various media, gaining admiration and respect from colleagues and audiences alike. Her acting journey spanned decades, with numerous credits that showcased her range and ability to captivate viewers.

Acting Roots and Soap Opera Stardom

Valerie Mahaffey's illustrious career began to take shape over 45 years ago with her participation in the soap opera “The Doctors.” It was among these early performances that she carved out a niche for herself in the industry.

From there, Mahaffey expanded her television roles, appearing in a diverse array of shows. Her work included significant roles on series such as "Young Sheldon," "Desperate Housewives," "Northern Exposure," "The Powers That Be," "Big Sky," "Seinfeld," "Wings," and "ER."

Her portrayal on "Northern Exposure" earned her an Emmy Award for outstanding supporting actress in a drama series, cementing her status as a talented and respected actress.

Transitioning Between Film and Television

In addition to television, Mahaffey's talents were showcased in numerous films. Her film credits included well-known movies such as “Sully,” “French Exit,” “Jungle 2 Jungle,” “Senior Trip,” and “Seabiscuit.”

This seamless transition between film and television highlighted her adaptability and commitment to her craft. Mahaffey’s ability to shift between roles and genres made her a beloved figure in both industries.

Despite her success, she remained dedicated to her personal life, finding joy and stability in her family.

A Life Lived Across Continents

Mahaffey’s journey into acting was influenced by a rich and diverse upbringing. As a child, she lived in countries including Indonesia, Nigeria, England, and Texas. This globe-trotting experience enriched her perspective and perhaps contributed to her depth as an actress.

Her personal life was marked by significant relationships, including her marriage to actor Joseph Kell. Together, they shared a life filled with mutual support and artistic collaboration.

She was also a devoted mother, survived by their daughter, Alice Richards, who carries forward her legacy.

A Heartfelt Farewell from Family

In the wake of her passing, Joseph Kell shared heartfelt words reflecting the personal loss he felt.

"I have lost the love of my life, and America has lost one of its most endearing actresses," Kell expressed. His tribute to Mahaffey underscores the impact she had both personally and professionally.

"She will be missed," he continued, highlighting the gap left by her absence in both their lives and the broader entertainment community.