In a surprising split from royal tradition, Prince William has hired the lawyers who represented his mother Princess Diana in her divorce from King Charles.
The move was reported by the Daily Mail, which said that William is no longer using Harbottle & Lewis, the law firm that has been associated with the royal family for decades.
Prince William is hiring Mishcon de Reya, which represented Princess Diana in her highly publicized divorce from Charles in 1996, just one year before her death in a Paris car accident.
Harbottle & Lewis represented the royal family during the News of the World royal phone-hacking scandal, which led to exposure of Prince William's voicemails and the eventual closure of the newspaper.
Williams' decision to part ways with the firm has been left its partner Gerrard Tyrrell -- one of King Charles' top advisers -- feeling snubbed.
The older of King Charles' two sons, William is heir apparent to the British throne and is often seen as a more traditional figure than his controversial brother Prince Harry.
But William's legal move is seen as evidence of his desire to forge his own identity within the rigid structure of the British monarchy.
According to the Mail, William's decision has stunned Buckingham Palace.
"William wants to do things differently from his father and wants to be seen to do them differently," a friend told the Daily Mail.
Another source said, "William wanted to strike out on his own. He did not want to continue using his father’s lawyers. It’s as simple as that. He wants to be his own man."
The King and the Prince of Wales have often been seen as allies in the ongoing drama surrounding Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, who have repeatedly aired their grievances with the royal family since leaving their duties in 2020.
But William is no hide-bound traditionalist, Richard Eden of the Daily Mail noted.
"William’s decision to branch out from his father’s legal advisers shows that he is more than willing to shake up the status quo behind palace doors as well," Eden wrote.
In addition to navigating royal politics, William has had two loved ones battle cancer recently. His wife Catherine, Princess of Wales, announced earlier this year that her cancer is in remission, months after she stunned the world with the news of her illness.
The King is returning to his public duties after a recent hospital stay caused by side effects from ongoing cancer treatment.
President Trump fired some national security staffers after right-wing journalist Laura Loomer encouraged him in person to purge suspected "neocons" who don't share the president's agenda.
The president defended Loomer, who took credit for the firings, as a "patriot" while also denying she had any role in the shakeup.
"Laura Loomer is a very good patriot and she is a very strong person. I saw her yesterday for a little while. She makes recommendations of things and people, and sometimes I listen to those recommendations," Trump said aboard Air Force One.
"I listen to everybody and then I make a decision. … . She always has something to say and it’s usually constructive. … She recommended some people for jobs," he added.
The fired officials include National Security Agency Director Gen. Timothy Haugh and civilian Deputy Director Wendy Noble. Haugh, a Biden appointee, also led the Cyber Command. Loomer wrote on X that Noble and Haugh "have been disloyal to President Trump," adding, "That is why they have been fired."
Trump also fired people at the National Security Council, including Brian Walsh, the senior director for intelligence; Maggie Dougherty, the senior director for international organizations; Thomas Boodry, the senior director for legislative affairs; and David Feith, the son of George W. Bush official Douglas Feith, often described as an architect of the Iraq War.
Loomer, who runs her own opposition research outfit, is known for vigorously defending Trump against perceived traitors and "neocons" -- meaning people with hawkish foreign policy views that peaked in influence under former President George W. Bush -- who many Trump supporters see as a threat to the president's agenda.
During a White House meeting on Wednesday, Loomer named and shamed individual NSC staffers and recommended that Trump fire them, the New York Times reported. At one point, National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, a former Bush administration official who worked as a counterterrorism advisor to Vice President Dick Cheney, jumped in to defend the individuals.
Loomer later criticized White House officials who leaked the meeting's details to left-wing media.
"Out of respect for President @realDonaldTrump and the privacy of the Oval Office, I’m going to decline on divulging any details about my Oval Office meeting with President Trump. It was an honor to meet with President Trump and present him with my research findings," she wrote on X.
Trump's national security team was thrust into controversy recently after Signal chats about military strikes in Yemen were leaked through a liberal reporter. The president has called the controversy overblown, and he has defended Waltz, who added Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg to the chat.
The president is said to be reluctant to fire anyone over the leak, believing that it would play into the hands of his liberal media opponents.
Trump is operating with a more loyal and cohesive staff than he had during his first term, when Trump was often undermined from within by insubordinate officials with deep ties to the culture of Washington D.C.
Still, some Trump backers are skeptical of certain administration officials including Waltz, whom critics have called a "neocon" because of his work in the Bush-Cheney administration. Loomer reportedly pushed Trump to fire Waltz's deputy Alex Wong, although it appears he has not been fired.
Christine Grady, wife of Anthony Fauci, was fired from her job as bioethics department head at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Centers, Breitbart reported. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. also "reassigned" several of Fauci's former staffers.
Fauci is best known for his role as the top adviser during the coronavirus pandemic. He had served as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and later as the White House chief medical adviser under then-President Joe Biden.
Some believe Kennedy was compelled to fire Grady and the others because of a vendetta against the COVID-19 vaccines. Fauci was also notoriously in favor of draconian lockdowns, as well as vaccine and mask mandates.
With the elimination of these jobs, Kennedy's office has greatly reduced the infectious disease division as well as sections of the Food and Drug Administration. Perhaps it signals a philosophical change with Kennedy now at the helm as some cry foul.
Kennedy's critics at Politico were apoplectic about the change, but Kennedy explained his reasoning in a lengthy post to X, formerly Twitter, on Thursday. "This is a difficult moment for all of us at HHS," Kennedy wrote.
"Our hearts go out to those who have lost their jobs. But the reality is clear: what we've been doing isn't working. Despite spending $1.9 trillion in annual costs, Americans are getting sicker every year," Kennedy continued.
"In the past four years alone, the agency’s budget has grown by 38% — yet outcomes continue to decline. We must shift course HHS needs to be recalibrated to emphasize prevention, not just sick care," Kennedy added.
He added that the "changes will not affect Medicare, Medicaid, or other essential health services," Kennedy wrote. "This overhaul is about realigning HHS with its core mission: to stop the chronic disease epidemic and Make America Healthy Again. It’s a win-win for taxpayers and for every American we serve," Kennedy concluded.
This is a difficult moment for all of us at HHS. Our hearts go out to those who have lost their jobs. But the reality is clear: what we've been doing isn't working. Despite spending $1.9 trillion in annual costs, Americans are getting sicker every year. In the past four years…
— Secretary Kennedy (@SecKennedy) April 1, 2025
While Kennedy's rationale makes complete sense, Politico insinuates that Kennedy is interested only in retribution. "As an anti-vaccine activist, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. spent years attacking Anthony Fauci and sowing doubts about the successful effort he led to develop a Covid vaccine," the news outlet claimed.
"As HHS secretary, he’s exacting his revenge," authors Adam Cancryn and Erin Schumaker added. The article explained that Grady was fired, and three others who were "Fauci’s longtime colleagues" at the NIH could choose reassignment to Alaska or leave employment.
"It’s like a Fauci fixation," claimed Scripps Research Translational Institute head and public health expert Dr. Eric Topol. "So many of these people are just dedicated; they really want to do good, and now they’re losing their jobs senselessly," he added.
Even if Kennedy's motives are not pure, there's no doubt that the public health officials flubbed the pandemic response. The lying and obfuscation, the measures that didn't work, and the coercion are all reason enough to dismiss these people, including Grady.
The people who were supposed to guard public health did a lousy job when they were needed most. Unless Kennedy thoroughly cleans house, there's no way to get rid of the rot that caused the debacle in the first place.
Vice President J.D. Vance is in no hurry to announce a run for the presidency, Fox News reported. He was asked about his political future on Fox&Friends Thursday but said he was "not focused on politics."
Vance sat for an interview with Fox News' Lawrence Jones, and the host asked him about whether he would run when President Donald Trump's term ends in 2028. "I really am just not focused on politics," Vance said.
"I'm not focused on the midterm elections in 2026, much less the presidential election in 2028. When we get to that point, I'll talk to the president. We'll figure out what we want to do. The way I think about it is, if we do a good job, the politics take care of themselves."
Vance and Trump are currently focused on getting the things they were elected to do done. One of the main priorities is return the U.S. to prosperity.
"I just want America to be wealthy again. I want our communities to be safe again. I want us to be opening factories rather than closing down factories," Vance told Jones.
"I want people of my generation to be able to afford a home, to raise a family. And I want to stop all the ridiculous wars that were started by the previous administrations. There's so much to do, man," Vance continued.
Biden left office with a legacy of record inflation, a tattered economy, out of control immigration, and other domestic woes. Vance said he's focused on taking care of those problems first.
"If I do a good job, if the president does good for the American people, and I know that we will, the politics will take care of itself. Let's just do a good job," Vance said.
Trump's tariffs went into effect this week, and Jones asked Vance about the consequences ordinary Americans may face. "What I’d ask folks to appreciate here is that we are not going to fix things overnight," Vance told Jones.
The vice president said that Biden left the "largest peacetime debt and deficit in the history of the United States of America" that also comes with untenable interest rates. Vance said that the "right deregulation" will take the heat off of workers while ensuring foreign nations "can't take advantage of us anymore."
Vance also talked up the Department of Government Efficiency run by Tesla billionaire Elon Musk for cutting spending. "Elon came in, and we said, ‘We need you to make government more efficient. We need you to shrink the incredible, vast bureaucracy that thwarts the will of the American people, but also costs way too much money.’" Vance recalled.
"And we said that’s going to take about six months, and that’s what Elon signed up for," he added. The vice president cautioned that it won't "happen all in six months" but instead will be "a long and committed effort."
Trump and Vance were elected to fix what's wrong with the nation's economy right now. If their novel strategies of implementing tariffs and making cuts through DOGE are effective, Vance is correct that he will be set up to run for president in 2028.
The undersecretary for management at the State Department, Tibor Nagy, stepped down on Friday after less than three months on the job, but it shouldn't have been a surprise to anyone who had the inside scoop on the situation.
Nagy served in the first Trump administration and came out of retirement to take his current position.
Officials said he was returning to retirement and that doing so had always been the plan.
"Ambassador Nagy was honored to come out of retirement to help stand-up the second Trump administration, and it was always his plan to perform the duties of the Under Secretary for Management until more State Department leaders were confirmed," a State Department spokesperson said in an email.
Nagy helped oversee DOGE's actions in cutting USAID and making other changes at the State Department.
"We have long needed to examine the fundamentals of how we conduct foreign policy," Nagy wrote in the email. He also said more changes were needed to transform the department into one more "suited for the 21st century."
"While these changes can be unsettling, please continue to be receptive and supportive of these efforts," he wrote to the workforce.
Assistant Secretary of Administration José Cunningham will succeed Nagy, the email said.
The department has been embattled because of the changes to how foreign policy is conducted with the elimination of USAID.
Critics of the changes warn that eliminating so much foreign aid so quickly could make the U.S. more isolated, but some reports said that many of the aid programs were based on DEI and other principles antithetical to the values of the countries receiving aid.
Around 83% of the aid previously administered through USAID was cut, and the rest was absorbed into the State Department, according to Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has been trying to cut $1 trillion from the U.S. annual budget in order to eliminate deficit spending and get a handle on the nation's $36 trillion in debt.
The White House reported this week that Elon Musk, who has been spearheading DOGE, can only serve in that capacity for 130 days because he is not an official government employee.
As an advisor, Musk has been hard at work looking for fraud and waste wherever it can be found so that taxpayers are not being taken to the cleaners for nothing.
Val Kilmer spent his last years confined to his bed as a result of ailing health, according to the latest heartbreaking details on his death at age 65.
As reported by TMZ, Kilmer's body never fully recovered from his treatment for throat cancer, which left him stuck in bed for "years" long before his Tuesday death from pneumonia.
While the cancer went away, Kilmer's body eventually "shut down," the report said, noting his health "seriously declined" in the last week of his life.
A video shared on Kilmer's Instagram in February was actually filmed years ago, the outlet noted. The clip shows Kilmer, the star of Batman Forever, wearing a Batman mask.
Kilmer was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2014, undergoing chemotherapy and radiation treatment that he would later say caused more suffering than the disease itself.
The actor all but lost the use of his voice after a tracheotomy - a procedure that creates an opening in the neck for breathing.
“I can’t speak without plugging this hole,” he said in his 2021 documentary Val, produced by his kids Mercedes and Jack. “You have to make the choice to breathe or to eat,” Kilmer, who used a feeding tube, added. “It’s an obstacle that is very present with whoever sees me.”
He continued, “I’m still recovering, and it is difficult to talk and to be understood. But I want to tell my story more than ever.”
The actor was celebrated for his range, first becoming known as Tom Hanks' rival Iceman in the original Top Gun. Kilmer went on to win critical acclaim as Jim Morrison in The Doors and Doc Holliday in the Western movie Tombstone.
Kilmer reprised his Top Gun role with a short cameo appearance in 2022's Top Gun: Maverick. It proved to be his last movie.
Considered by many an underrated actor, Kilmer was never nominated for an Oscar or Emmy. The handsome, charismatic star dated glamorous women like Cindy Crawford and Cher.
"Once Cher works her way inside your head and heart, she never leaves. For her true friends, her steadfast love and loyalty never die," Kilmer wrote in his memoir, I'm Your Huckleberry.
Kilmer's death led to an outpouring of tributes from friends and colleagues in the movie industry.
"See ya, pal. I'm going to miss you," his friend, actor Josh Brolin, wrote. "You were a smart, challenging, brave, uber-creative firecracker. There's not a lot left of those. I hope to see you up there in the heavens when I eventually get there. Until then, amazing memories, lovely thoughts."
Kilmer is survived by his two children, Mercedes and Jack, from his marriage to ex-wife Joanne Whalley.
Nashville's police investigation into the Covenant School shooting has concluded that while the shooter had radical beliefs, her primary motive was a desire for notoriety.
The report, released over two years after the March 2023 attack, clarified that the shooter’s choice of Covenant School as a target was driven by her pursuit of fame, not her animosity towards Christianity or privileged racial groups.
The tragic event resulted in the deaths of six individuals, including three children and three adults. The 28-year-old attacker was found to have harbored radical thoughts concerning gender identity and white privilege, but police determined these beliefs did not influence her choice of venue. Instead, she aimed to garner attention by selecting a school likely to shock the public due to the young age of the victims.
The victims of this shooting included children Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs, and William Kinney and adults Michael Hill, Katherine Koonce, and Cynthia Peak. Investigators noted that the shooter identified as male, using he/him pronouns, but was biologically female her whole life. According to the report, there was no evidence of any medical transition.
Investigators discovered journal entries depicting the attacker’s struggle with her gender identity and frustrations about puberty. Despite expressing hatred toward Christianity and white privilege in 16 notebooks, these writings did not amount to a manifesto. Authorities concluded that the shooter's notoriety-seeking ambitions were the prime motivator.
The police report further established that the attacker had mental health disorders but was found sane and capable of comprehending the moral and legal consequences of her actions. She initiated fantasies of a school shooting in 2017 and began formulating plans in 2018. Various locations were considered as potential targets, including schools and malls.
Years of preparation culminated in a reconnaissance visit to Covenant School in September 2021. The investigation revealed she was meticulous in her planning, adjusting her strategies and manipulating perceptions to appear non-threatening. It was during this period that her family became aware of her intentions, intervening by confiscating her firearms. However, the intervention failed to prevent her from eventually carrying out the attack.
Authorities discovered no hostility from peers or examples of bullying during her time at The Covenant School. On the contrary, she established friendships and enjoyed play dates, illustrating a sense of acceptance rather than alienation.
In analyzing her written materials, police found no conclusive motivations tied to racial, religious, or economic factors. This finding is reflected in the police statement, acknowledging speculation about these potential motives but dismissing them in the context of her decision to attack the school.
Investigators observed that in her journals, she mentioned feeling alone and ostracized, perceiving herself as shunned by society. In her quest for recognition, she expressed a desire to force people to notice her by committing a violent act against children.
Ultimately, the police report concludes that the shooter was driven by a desire to be noticed and not by a personal vendetta against any religious or racial group. Nashville authorities decisively closed the investigation, with no other individuals found responsible for the crime.
The release of this report sheds light on the complex interplay of personal struggles, mental health issues, and a quest for notoriety that guided the attacker's lethal actions. Through this comprehensive analysis, Nashville police aim to present a fuller understanding of the motivations behind a tragedy that shocked the community.
The high-powered law firm where the husband of former Vice President Kamala Harris works has agreed to provide $100 million in free legal services for the Trump administration, marking another humiliation for Harris after her decisive election loss to Trump last fall.
Willkie Farr & Gallagher, which employs Harris' husband Doug Emhoff, is the third elite law firm to make an agreement with the White House to avoid sanctions.
It's the latest capitulation from the elite legal profession, or "Big Law," which has skewed to the left for years. The Trump administration has sought to bring the politicized legal profession to heel, threatening sanctions against firms with a history of engaging in "lawfare."
Wilkie Farr provided tens of millions of dollars in pro bono work for two Georgia women who won an eye-popping settlement in their defamation suit against Rudy Giuliani, a top Trump ally who was separately disbarred over his 2020 election advocacy.
Wilkie Farr also employs former investigators who worked on the politically motivated January 6th committee, which recommended criminal charges against Trump for "insurrection."
According to the Trump administration, Wilkie Farr will provide $100 million in legal services to advance causes across the political spectrum, such as helping veterans, fighting antisemitism, and ending the weaponization of the justice system.
Wilkie Farr also agreed to stop discriminating against job applicants on the basis of politics and race. The firm will desist from Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) policy and hire based on merit. Finally, the firm committed to providing legal representation for all, regardless of their political beliefs.
"Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP proactively reached out to President Trump and his Administration, offering their decisive commitment to ending the Weaponization of the Justice System and the Legal Profession. The President is delivering on his promises of eradicating Partisan Lawfare in America, and restoring Liberty and Justice FOR ALL," the White House said in a statement.
According to sources, Emhoff was opposed to the firm's decision and encouraged them to resist Trump.
“The rule of law is under attack. Democracy is under attack. And so, all of us lawyers need to do what we can to push back on that,” Emhoff told students at a Georgetown University event Tuesday.
Two other top firms, Paul Weiss and Skadden Arps, have reached similar agreements with the White House.
The White House is engaged in a multi-front legal war to defend Trump's agenda, which has faced a series of setbacks in front of activist judges.
Courts have blocked Trump from targeting certain law firms such as Perkins Coie, which became a household name over its role in procuring the notorious Trump-Russia dossier on behalf of Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
Democrats in the state of Colorado are working hard to make it a crime to call a man by his name. Or call a woman by her name.
Instead, they want to demand that men who say they are women, or vice versa, be addressed by a new name they have chosen.
In fact, they want to make it a state "discrimination" offense to use the person's legal name.
It's all part of the radical transgender ideology Democrats in the state have promoted, a campaign that aligned with Joe Biden's official practice in the White House to promote transgenderism worldwide. President Donald Trump reversed that upon taking office, deciding that the U.S. government recognizes only two genders, male and female.
A report in the Washington Examiner explains some Democrats in Colorado's legislature have proposed a law to require courts to consider "deadnaming" and "misgendering" in court battles regarding child custody.
State Sens. Faith Winter and Chris Kolker and state Reps. Lorena Garcia and Rebekah Stewart, all Democrats, are pushing for their social agenda in the plan.
"The legislation claims to strengthen legal protections for transgender people, including adding to prior laws that it is 'discriminatory practice and unlawful to, with specific intent to discriminate, publish materials that deadname or misgender an individual' in places of public accommodation."
So-called deadnaming is using a person's legal name instead of a different moniker they have chosen.
The Democrats also would order courts to take into account "deadnaming, misgendering, or threatening to publish material related to an individual's gender-affirming health-care services as types of coercive control."
They want to ban courts from "applying or giving any force or effect to another state's law that authorizes a state agency to remove a child from the child's parent or guardian because the parent or guardian allowed the child to receive gender-affirming health-care services."
The leftist Democrats in California, the Examiner report noted, already adopted similar transgender ideology demands, but Gov. Gavin Newsom, also a Democrat, vetoed that plan.
Three House committees launched probes against ActBlue over its questionable donor verification practices, Just the News reported. They found that the progressive fundraising platform changed its rules on verifying donors to make them "more lenient."
Last year, Congress began investigating Act Blue over allegations that its rules, changed at least twice, allowed foreign donors and other unverified contributions. The committees released their report with the findings on Wednesday.
The report states that the platform showed "a lack of commitment to stopping fraud and paint a picture of complacency on ActBlue’s fraud-prevention team," including fraud prevention vendor Sift. "Put simply, the documents reflect a fundamentally unserious approach to fraud prevention at ActBlue—one that has left the door open for large-scale fraud campaigns on Democrats’ top fundraising platform."
During President Joe Biden's 2024 campaign that turned into then-Vice President Kamala Harris' bid, Act Blue directed staff to "look for reasons to accept contributions." This was on top of its previous practice of not collecting the CVV codes for credit card transactions.
According to the New York Post, the GOP-led House committees found that standards changed twice during key times in the 2024 campaign season. The changes, which came in April and again in September, resulted in as many as 28 additional fraudulent contributions each month.
Moreover, they resulted in up to 6.4% of questionable donations that were missed. An internal memo showed that the company was already keyed into foreign sources, including "Brazil, Colombia, India, Iraq, the Philippines and Saudi Arabia, and other countries," the news outlet noted.
"Look out for these donations: Giving to Center for American Progress Action Fund. Mostly from Brazilian donors (unlikely to give to this organization)," the memo said.
Sure enough, a December 2024 audit of "known instances of fraud" revealed hundreds of donations were collected from those countries. In addition, prepaid U.S. gift and debit cards used on another 237 donations were traced to IP addresses outside the U.S. between September and October 2024, when ActBlue shut down the option.
ActBlue has also acknowledged that it received 1,900 phony donations between September 2022 and November 2024. However, House Republicans are convinced these shady donations are more "widespread" than the company is letting on.
The report from the House Oversight and Administration Committees stated that "ActBlue acknowledges that serious gaps in its fraud prevention systems remain," the 478-page report said. "Internal communications explain that 'if someone could coordinate a big attack where each individual donation fell below the [fraud review] threshold, they would go through,'" the report went on.
It conclude that "despite repeated instances of fraudulent donations to Democrat campaigns and causes from domestic and foreign sources, ActBlue is not demonstrating a serious effort to deter fraud on its platform." The lawmakers asserted that it impacted the Biden and Harris' presidential bid.
These levels are significant as Democrats and their pet causes received almost $2 billion from donations gathered through ActBlue for the 2024 campaign. In the hours after Biden turned his bid over to Harris, she received a whopping $46.7 million went to her campaign.
"At best, ActBlue’s conduct displays a profound disrespect for the principle that only Americans should decide American elections. At worst, it may violate the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 (FECA), which states that persons who 'knowingly accept a contribution made by one person in the name of another person' may face criminal liability," the report said.
The investigations seem to suggest that untold sums of dirty money may have made it into Democrats' coffers. If it's true, that amounts to election interference of the worst kind.