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Dem’s data center attack in critical Senate race hits snag when money trail surfaces: 'Jekyll-and-Hyde'
FIRST ON FOX: Former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown is targeting Republican Sen. Jon Husted over Ohio's growing data center industry in a new campaign ad that features a facility owned by Google — whose corporate PAC and lobbyists have contributed thousands of dollars to Brown's campaigns.
The Sept. 4 ad features an Ohioan blaming Husted for spearheading "the push to bring data centers to Ohio" and linking their expansion to "higher electric bills."
The facility featured in the ad, which opened in Lancaster in 2023, is owned by Google.
Campaign finance records reviewed by Fox News Digital show Google's corporate PAC contributed $20,000 to Brown over his political career. Brown also received thousands of dollars from individuals who lobby for Google, including two whose firms have worked on permitting, grid reliability and energy affordability issues.
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"Apparently Google is terrible enough to put in a campaign attack ad, but perfectly acceptable when the political contributions are coming in," Mehek Cooke, a GOP strategist and attorney in Ohio, said in a statement to Fox News Digital. "That is the contradiction Brown needs to answer. If Google’s Lancaster investment is so bad for Ohio, why was Google political money acceptable to Sherrod Brown?"
Among the contributors are Google lobbyist Lisa Kountoupes, who donated $3,500 in March, and Google lobbyist Michael D. Smith, who donated a total of $10,200 to Brown since 2017, according to Federal Election Commission records. The contributions were made to Friends of Sherrod Brown, Brown's principal campaign committee.
Kountoupes’s firm, Kountoupes Denham Carr & Reid, was hired by Google in December to lobby on "issues related to permitting reform" tied to the company's data center needs, Politico previously reported. Smith's firm, Cornerstone Government Affairs, reported lobbying for Google on "issues related to permitting reform for grid reliability and energy affordability," according to federal lobbying filings.
FEC records show Brown also received a combined $6,000 over the past decade from three additional Google lobbyists.
In a statement to Fox News Digital, Lauren Chou, a spokeswoman for Brown's campaign, highlighted Brown's opposition to Ohio's data center expansion, saying Husted "led the charge," but did not address Brown's past campaign contributions.
"Husted is a ‘chief reason’ Ohio has 226 data centers and is ‘the face of data centers’ in Ohio," Chou wrote. "Ohioans shouldn’t be forced to subsidize these costs and Ohioans – not Jon Husted and his billionaire friends – should get to decide if data centers are built in their community."
Cooke accused Brown of acting like his "Google relationship in Washington does not count," calling it "Jekyll-and-Hyde politics."
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"For nearly five decades, Brown has sold himself as the plaid-shirt, working-class populist," she said. "He lost in 2024, and now he is back running the same playbook: say one thing to Ohioans while his Washington record tells a very different story."
Brown, who is seeking to return to the U.S. Senate in the high-stakes race against Husted, was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2006 before losing his reelection bid in 2024 to Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio.
But this isn’t the first time Brown’s comeback campaign has faced questions over conflicting positions.
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In 2015, Brown celebrated the construction of an Amazon data center in central Ohio, saying in a press release the new facility "is great news for New Albany and central Ohio."
Despite his public praise, Brown has become an outspoken critic of Ohio's growing number of data centers, a defining issue in Ohio politics ahead of the midterms. President Donald Trump has pushed to expand the facilities, warning that communities that block them would "end up being backwards and poor."
But Cooke said this about more than one local data center.
"America is in a global race for AI, computing capacity and energy infrastructure," she said. "China is not slowing down because American politicians discovered that attacking data centers makes a convenient campaign commercial."
In a statement to Fox News Digital, Husted campaign spokesperson Amy Natoce said that Brown failed Ohio families during his 32 years in Washington and is "once again resorting to lies instead of facing his abysmal record head-on. "
"The House overwhelmingly passed Sen. Husted’s bipartisan legislation requiring data center companies to pay for the power they use, but Senate Democrats blocked it," Natoce said. "Sherrod Brown and his friends would rather play politics and stick Ohio families with higher electric bills than pass a commonsense solution. It’s despicable."
Kirk family has powerful evidence — but Utah law could derail wrongful death case: experts
A Utah government immunity law could upend the Kirk family’s efforts to bring a wrongful death lawsuit against Utah Valley University over alleged security failures surrounding Charlie Kirk’s assassination.
Attorneys for Kirk’s family filed a notice of intent to sue on Sept. 9, one day before the anniversary of his death. The filing alleges a series of security failures by the university, including declining additional police officers, failing to adequately address concerns from Kirk's security team and not having an adequate security plan in place for his visit.
But legal experts say the Kirks face an uphill legal battle because Utah law grants government entities — including their officers and employees — broad immunity from lawsuits arising from a lengthy list of circumstances, including the performance or failure to perform discretionary functions and claims involving assault, battery, false imprisonment, malicious prosecution and civil rights violations.
"Unfortunately, Charlie Kirk's family is going to have a very difficult time prevailing in a wrongful death case in Utah," Tenielle Brown, a University of Utah law professor, told Fox News Digital. "And that's because Utah's government immunity statute is phrased in such a way that says even if the state and UVU were reckless, they retain immunity in cases that arise out of a battery, and that would include gunshot wounds."
Kirk, 31, co-founded Turning Point USA in 2012 and grew the conservative youth organization into a major force on high school and college campuses nationwide. He was shot and killed while speaking at Utah Valley University in Orem on Sept. 10, 2025.
Neama Rahmani, president of West Coast Trial Lawyers, told Fox News Digital that wrongful death claims against the government are already difficult for plaintiffs to win because government entities generally enjoy broad immunity from lawsuits stemming from assaults or batteries committed by third parties.
"I've handled lack of security cases, including lack of security cases against the government," Rahmani told Fox News Digital. "They are tough because you are trying to hold the police or city, county or state responsible for someone else's criminal actions."
But Rahmani suggested the Kirk family's strongest evidence could be a message from UVU Police Chief Jeffrey Long acknowledging concerns about rooftop access to the Sorenson Center, a building located "pretty close" to where Kirk was scheduled to speak. The Sorenson Center sits directly west of the Losee Center, where prosecutors say Tyler Robinson fired the shot that killed Kirk. In response to the security concerns, Long messaged Kirk's team, "I got you covered."
TYLER ROBINSON HEARING ENDS WITHOUT RULING AS EVIDENCE DISMANTLES CHARLIE KIRK CONSPIRACY CLAIMS
"That means they're gonna argue that they assume the responsibility to make sure Charlie Kirk was safe, and they failed to do so," Rahmani said of the Kirk family. "In cases where you have the government taking on a duty, that tends to be better than simply arguing that the government has a duty to protect everyone because we know that murders happen all the time, and you can't sue the government just because someone is killed."
But Brown said Utah law can shield government officials from lawsuits even when they fail to perform their job functions.
"There have been a number of cases where the plaintiffs and the family of the victims have sued for either wrongful death or battery," Brown told Fox News Digital. "And in some cases, the government did behave recklessly, and they could show carelessness and recklessness and the plaintiffs were not able to prevail because it arose out of a battery. And that's unusual. Most states don't have that broad of a statute."
Brown pointed to the case of Mika Scott, a 19-year-old Utah Valley University student who sued Utah County and the Utah County Sheriff's Office after Shawn Leonard, a prisoner with a violent criminal record who had escaped from a work-release program, raped her in 2010.
"They were supposed to screen inmates to make sure that they weren't violent," Brown told Fox News Digital. "And then when they went out in the community on the job sites, they were supposed to make sure that they were policing the boundaries so that these inmates couldn't escape and in a really terrible situation."
"And she could have shown carelessness and maybe even recklessness, but because of the government immunity statute and because this claim arose out of a battery, she was not able to prevail against the state," Brown continued.
CHARLIE KIRK SUPPORTERS RETURN TO SITE OF ASSASSINATION 1 YEAR LATER: ‘WE ARE STILL STANDING’
The Utah Supreme Court addressed the statute's language in its 2005 decision in Wagner v. Utah, which held that civil battery does not require an intent to cause physical or psychological injury.
"The court said, it may not be prudent for the state to continue to retain immunity here," Brown told Fox News Digital. " And they're kind of signaling to the legislature that the legislature should probably change the statute to allow for suits in cases like Charlie Kirk's."
"But the state has not revised the statute and so it still says very clearly that you can't sue the state if the claim arises out of a battery," Brown continued.
Brown said state workers who are not elected cannot be held accountable at the ballot box for failing to do their jobs.
"The president of UVU, the campus police, those people are not elected, and so if you were to say sovereign immunity is all about letting people decide whether they're state actors or careless at the ballot box, then you vote them out of office," Brown said.
"That doesn't work," Brown continued. "That argument doesn't for the UVU president because nobody can vote them of office, nobody is having any political check on the campus police."
Astrid Tuminez, who served as the school's president at the time of Kirk's assassination, stepped down from her position in May 2026 after eight years. She and Long are named in the filing by Kirk's family.
"We are aware of the notice of claim," a Utah Valley University spokesperson said in a statement to Fox News Digital. "UVU addresses legal matters consistent with our established processes. Our focus remains on supporting our campus community."
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Kirk leaves behind his wife Erika Kirk and their two small children.
Fox News Digital reached out to the Kirk family's lawyers for comment.
Caitlin Clark returns after FIBA title as Kelsey Mitchell sets WNBA scoring mark in Fever victory over Tempo
Kelsey Mitchell’s 33-point performance Friday night added another chapter to her record-setting season. The Indiana Fever guard became the WNBA’s single-season scoring leader in a 103-85 victory over the Toronto Tempo.
Mitchell now has 1,034 points this season. A’ja Wilson, the reigning back-to-back WNBA MVP, set the previous mark in 2024, when she scored 1,021 points for the Las Vegas Aces.
Mitchell’s teammate, Caitlin Clark, added 28 points Friday and matched her season high with 14 assists as Indiana earned its eighth win in 10 games. Mitchell also scored at least 20 points for the 25th consecutive game, extending her WNBA record. She shot 12 for 17 and went 7 for 11 from 3-point range.
Clark went 2 for 8 from distance for her 14th double-double in her first game since helping the U.S. win the women’s FIBA World Cup in Germany. She made 12 free throws without a miss.
Clark also had 14 assists in a home win over Toronto on June 16.
The game was the first for both teams following a nearly three-week World Cup break.
Toronto’s Laura Juskaite scored 22 points and Kiki Rice had 18. Isabelle Harrison and Temi Fagbenle each scored 16 points, but the Tempo lost their fifth straight.
Toronto started its inaugural season 9-9 but has gone 2-21 since.
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The Tempo were without veteran guard Marina Mabrey. On Wednesday, the team said Mabrey will miss the final four games of the season because of a right adductor injury. Mabrey hasn’t played since a home loss to Indiana on Aug. 18.
The Fever return home next, hosting the Washington Mystics on Sunday. The Tempo will face the New York Liberty in their next game.
Toronto has already been eliminated from postseason contention, while Indiana has clinched a playoff spot and, after Friday’s win, moved into a tie with the Atlanta Dream for first place in the Eastern Conference.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Mountain lion caught on camera evading capture in San Francisco before being tranquilized, released
A mountain lion evaded capture for several hours in San Francisco on Friday after it was spotted in the busy Sunset District, the city's largest neighborhood.
Officials, including police, California Department of Fish and Wildlife, animal control, and the San Francisco Zoo, surrounded the animal in Outer Sunset and eventually tranquilized it.
It was later released back into the wild.
Animal Care & Control shared a couple of videos of the cougar getting out of its crate later in the day and heading back into a wooded area.
The mountain lion was wearing a collar which it didn’t previously have.
"We're happy to report that our mountain lion visitor has been released back to the wild by our friends at the California Department of Fish and Wildlife," the organization wrote on Facebook.
The group added: "We're so grateful for the collaboration today between so many agencies and organizations. It takes a village to wrangle a mountain lion! Thank you to the San Francisco Zoo for their expertise darting the lion and documenting the scene. Thank you to the San Francisco Police Department for having our backs and thank you to the wonderful Santa Cruz Puma Project!
"And of course, thank you to our fabulous Animal Control Officers who go above and beyond helping animals and people every single day!"
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A mountain lion was spotted in the city’s Panhandle neighborhood earlier this month, but it went back into the woods on its own.
It’s unclear if it was the same mountain lion on Friday.
Sorority alumnae take legal fight to federal court after being 'given a brother' instead of sisterhood
Sorority alumnae returned to federal court Monday, asking judges to revive their lawsuit against Kappa Kappa Gamma after they alleged the sorority's national leadership improperly allowed a chapter to admit a transgender woman.
Plaintiff Allie Coghan told Fox News Digital that while she has since graduated, she hopes the appeal will establish a clear legal precedent that protects single-sex private spaces and keeps national organizations from overriding local member consent.
"We were promised a sisterhood, and we were given a brother," Coghan said. "If Kappa wants to redefine the word woman to include men in the definition, that's fine, but they have to go through the proper procedures to do so and allow members to vote, which they did not."
The legal fight stems from 2022, when transgender student Artemis Langford was allowed to join the University of Wyoming chapter of Kappa Kappa Gamma. Coghan said despite reservations from her and other sorority sisters, Langford was admitted into the sorority.
Coghan said the chapter did not follow its normal voting procedures during the process. Instead of using what she described as the chapter’s traditional recruitment app, Coghan said members were required to submit non-anonymous Google Forms attached to their email addresses.
"They were knocking on girls' doors asking for proof that you had voted," Coghan said, adding that officers told members they would be labeled "transphobic" if they voted against membership.
Coghan said that, despite attempts by members and parents to contact the organization’s national leadership, executives did not answer phone calls and eventually stopped answering emails. She and several of her sorority sisters ultimately launched a legal challenge.
The initial lawsuit was dismissed by U.S. District Judge Alan B. Johnson, who ruled that Kappa Kappa Gamma, as a private organization, could interpret its own membership requirements. However, the alumnae, supported by the Independent Women's Law Center, appealed the ruling to the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which heard oral arguments in Denver Monday.
"It was very surreal to be back. I mean, we were in college. We just wanted to be sorority girls, finish our degrees, graduate, go out into the real world," Coghan said.
"I remember when I was trying to decide if I wanted to sign my name on this, asking the lawyer, am I [going to] be married with kids before there's any sort of resolution? And he just kind of laughed at me and said, ‘I guess it depends on how soon you get married.’ Well, I actually just got married two weeks ago," she added.
Coghan described the situation in school as toxic and said the sorority house became a "political war zone." She said that while Langford did not live in the house, the student was granted 24/7 access to the living quarters and common rooms, including an area young women needed to walk through to get to the showers.
"The entire dynamic of the house completely shifted. It became a political war zone," Coghan said. "You would see him sitting in the common rooms upstairs, and girls have to walk past those rooms to get to the shower. We don’t have a space to undress to get into the shower, so you would just walk in your towel and go take a shower and come back."
While Coghan has since graduated, she said a sense of duty to younger women keeps her involved in the case and seeking a resolution in the courts.
"I don't understand how the feminist movement has shifted so much that it's no longer pro-women, it's pro-woman erasure," Coghan said.
"I hope that it will really set a standard of woman means woman. Woman does not mean man who thinks he is woman. Woman is not up for interpretation. A woman is an adult human female," she later added.
Coghan and her fellow plaintiff, Hannah Holtmeier, also spoke on the "Riley Gaines Show" podcast, discussing the moment they said their chapter president told them that if they didn’t like the change in their house, they were welcome to drop out of the group.
"She basically told us, 'If you don't like it, your values don't align with Kappa's, and you can drop,'" Holtmeier told Gaines. "Being told that, 'If you don't like it, you can drop' and not live in a house that I had called a home for already a year and a half was absolutely mind-boggling to me."
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She echoed Coghan’s comments about conditions in the sorority house, saying women would sometimes act as lookouts for one another when they were in the shower to ensure the hallway was clear.
"It was to the point where girls would have like a lookout basically when they're in the shower. They would text their roommate, say, ‘Hey, I'm coming back,’ and they would have to clear the hall," Holtmeier said.
"It was definitely an unnerving feeling in those intimate spaces, especially upstairs when that's where our showers were."
The recent oral arguments before the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver represented a new phase in the legal battle. The three-judge panel is considering whether to overturn the lower court’s dismissal and revive the breach of contract lawsuit.
The plaintiffs argued the national leadership of the group could not legally redefine core membership terms, including what constitutes being a "woman," without a formal vote from the organization's members or an amendment to its bylaws. The appeals court’s ruling will determine whether the lawsuit remains dismissed or is allowed to move forward.
Fox News Digital reached out to Kappa Kappa Gamma for comment but did not immediately receive a response.
Cuba plunges into total blackout as electrical grid collapses again, US Embassy warns
Cuba experienced a total power failure Friday, according to the U.S. Embassy in Havana.
The embassy said the failure was due to the "collapse of Cuba’s electrical grid."
According to Cuban regime media, the reason for the collapse is under investigation and the timeline to restore power is unknown."
"All U.S. citizens in Cuba or planning to travel to Cuba should be aware and plan accordingly. There are reports of cellphone and internet outages," the embassy added, noting that Cuba’s electrical grid is "increasingly unstable," which has led to "multiple" nationwide power outages in the last few months.
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The embassy added, "The electrical system remains vulnerable, and additional regular outages have been occurring more frequently and for longer periods. Scheduled power cuts occur daily, and unscheduled outages persist throughout Cuba."
Cuba’s energy ministry also posted about the power outage on social media.
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The country’s power system has been struggling because of fuel shortages, the U.S.-imposed oil blockade and crumbling infrastructure.
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Even when there isn’t a national outage, the country often endures rolling blackouts that leave millions without power.
The last national outage happened just last month, and Friday's marks the seventh this year.
Yankees star Aaron Judge heads back to injured list weeks after returning from broken rib
As the New York Yankees make a final push for October baseball, slugger Aaron Judge is likely to miss most of the remaining regular season.
The Yankees announced Friday that they plan to place Judge on the 10-day injured list with a right calf strain. The move can be backdated to Thursday, which would make the three-time American League MVP eligible to return for the Yankees’ regular-season finale Sept. 27.
Judge has appeared in just 66 games this season after playing more than 150 games in each of the previous two seasons and winning back-to-back American League MVP awards in 2024 and 2025.
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The 34-year-old last played Wednesday in the Yankees' series finale against the Minnesota Twins. But Judge was removed from the game in the sixth inning because of leg discomfort, though he said afterward that the move was precautionary.
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Judge has one extra-base hit in seven games since returning last week from a broken rib, which kept him out of the lineup for more than three months.
The Yankees continue their latest road trip Friday night playing the Arizona Diamondbacks in Phoenix. New York entered Friday night's action five games behind the AL East-leading Tampa Bay Rays. Both the Yankees and Rays have already clinched postseason berths.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Why the House let out early is a matter of debate after Johnson says chamber has 'done its work'
It’s a matter of debate as to why House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., sent the House home a day early this week. This is in addition to the House lopping off two additional weeks from its schedule later this month and into early October.
"We're going to modify the House schedule by a day. And let me explain to you why. The House has done its work," Johnson said as House members fled Capitol Hill early Wednesday night. "House Republicans are going now back to our districts. We're going to make the case to the American people on what we have delivered on their behalf."
The House isn’t scheduled to reconvene until Nov. 9, just after the midterms.
But outgoing Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., believes there’s a different reason Johnson cut everyone loose early. The Kentucky Republican introduced eight articles of impeachment for Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth. Because Massie’s push for impeachment is "privileged," the House had 48 hours max to consider the articles.
"I figured out why we canceled tomorrow," Massie said. "Tomorrow would be the vote on impeaching Secretary of Defense Peter Bryan Hegseth. And it looks like that vote's not going to happen."
A senior House Republican leadership source insisted to Fox last week that members would be on Capitol Hill "for a full week."
But, by Wednesday, the House had synced up with the Senate and passed the Russia sanctions bill. It OK'd legislation to protect consumers from high electricity and water bills associated with data centers, foisting the cost on tech companies. Yes, there were calls by bipartisan lawmakers that the House should remain in session to address intensifying concerns about AI. But the House was running out of floor traffic.
Except for Massie’s measure to impeach Hegseth.
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Now you can determine for yourself why Johnson dismissed lawmakers a day early — to say nothing of the plan for the House to cut town two weeks sooner than originally planned.
But you can imagine what Massie thought.
"Exactly what I predicted," Massie said on the House floor. "Why did he just cut another day off the calendar?"
I found Massie off the floor after he concluded his speech.
"Do you think they adjourned the House because you have the votes on Hegseth?" yours truly asked.
"Chad, they cut two weeks off of the calendar to keep me from getting to 218 votes on the Epstein discharge petition. And then we came into this week, and I introduced eight articles of impeachment against Peter Hegseth, and they have 48 hours to vote on that," Massie replied.
"He cut off the day tomorrow to avoid the vote."
Here are the parliamentary mechanics.
The House was compelled to consider Massie’s impeachment articles if it met this past Thursday. Otherwise, the resolution covering the eight impeachment articles would expire. The 48-hour window associated with such privileged resolutions disappears. Sure. Massie could bring them up when the House next meets in November. But that is seven weeks from now.
But let’s say the House met on Thursday and was forced to bring up Massie’s impeachment articles. Republicans would likely have offered "a motion to table." This is an effort to kill Massie’s gambit. Thus, the vote would not have been on impeaching Hegseth, but whether or not to set aside Massie’s plan.
If the House voted to table Massie’s articles of impeachment, the gig is up. It’s done. The House never even considered the actual impeachment resolutions. The vote was one step removed from a straight, up/down vote on actually impeaching Hegseth.
But let’s say the motion to table was to fail? That means the House immediately skips to the articles of impeachment. The possibility suddenly exists that Hegseth could face eight impeachment votes even through there’s been no investigation. No committee hearings. No "process."
Nowhere does it say in the Constitution that Congress is required to wrestle with the usual parliamentary volutions to impeach someone. If a simple majority in the House votes to impeach you, you’re impeached.
Nuff said.
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This is why Republicans likely would have moved to table Massie’s impeachment articles. A vote to table inoculates members from having to take a challenging vote on the underlying issue. Keep in mind that there are a number of House Republicans who are aggravated with Hegseth and beside themselves about the war in Iran. This vote would have put them in an interesting position, especially since many if not all Democrats may have voted to impeach.
So, I asked Massie the following about the motion to table.
"That would have put (members) in a tough spot. Or, if they had to vote on that, would it have passed?" I asked.
"A vote on a motion to table? He may not have survived that vote," Massie declared.
In other words, Massie believes the House could have defeated the motion to table. That would have triggered votes on actually impeaching Hegseth. And, from Massie’s standpoint, that’s why Johnson sent the House home.
You might remember that there was a bipartisan effort last summer by Massie and Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., to go around Johnson and deposit a measure on the floor, forcing release of the Epstein files. Johnson let the House out early for summer break then. Later, Johnson kept the House out of session for most of the 43-day government shutdown as the special effort to bring action on the resolution loomed.
The House voted to reopen the government in mid-November. And one of the first things the House did after that? Voted 427-1 to require a release of the files. The lone nay vote against releasing the files? Rep. Clay Higgins, R-La.
Even though there aren’t votes until early November, Massie is still a member of the House. He’ll be a member in the lame duck session through early January. Massie lost his primary to Republican Ed Gallrein, a candidate backed by President Donald Trump.
And Hegseth took the unusual step of traveling to northern Kentucky this spring to campaign for Gallrein.
It’s unclear if the Hegseth articles of impeachment will return late this fall or winter. But Massie is back. At least for a little while. And whether Johnson adjourned the House to prevent a vote on the impeachment articles will remain a matter of debate.
Hiker, 61, battles agonizing injury on grueling climb, resets dislocated shoulder himself
A 61-year-old hiker popped his own dislocated shoulder back into place during a hike on New Hampshire's Mount Washington and kept climbing.
Connecticut resident Kurt Siuzdak was hiking Mount Washington earlier this week when he sustained the painful injury after slipping on wet granite.
The news was reported by The Boston Globe Thursday, citing a statement Wednesday from the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department.
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Siuzdak began hiking at around 4 a.m. Tuesday, according to the report.
Six hours later, at around 10 a.m., he slipped on a wet granite slab in a section called the Lakes of the Clouds.
During the fall, he dislocated his shoulder and injured his back.
About a mile and a half from the summit of Mount Washington, Siuzdak decided to keep going — slowly and steadily.
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He was found by another hiker about five hours later.
Siuzdak told rescuers he planned to press on and "figure out his options" once he reached the summit, as the Globe noted.
When two officers hiked down to meet him at around 5 p.m., Siuzdak was still making his way up the mountain at a slow pace, officials said.
Flanked by the two officers, Siuzdak kept climbing.
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He eventually reached the summit under his own power.
After being evaluated by emergency personnel, he asked to be taken to his car so he could drive himself to urgent care, the Globe reported.
At some point during the hike, Siuzdak managed to reset his dislocated shoulder himself, officials said.
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In a statement, the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department highlighted Siuzdak's preparedness.
The agency noted he had followed the agency's recommendations by packing extra gear, including warm clothing and a first aid kit.
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"These items turned out to be much needed after his accident, and he was thankful that he had heeded the recommendations," officials said, according to The Boston Globe.
Fox News Digital reached out to Siuzdak for comment.
Fox News Digital also reached out to the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department for comment.
Paramount appears to learn from its 'Big Brother' racial double standard on 'The Challenge'
Three contestants were abruptly removed from MTV’s long-running athletic reality competition series "The Challenge" this week following a reported racial incident that the show chose not to air.
At the beginning of Wednesday’s episode of "The Challenge: Cutthroat," host T.J. Lavin entered the house without Leo Dionicio, Josh Goldstein and Nelson Thomas present.
"Leo, Nelson and Josh all broke the code of conduct here on 'The Challenge,' so they're all gone," Lavin told the remaining contestants.
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The show did not air the incident that led to the three disqualifications or provide any additional details.
Page Six reported that Dionicio, who is Black, used the N-word during a game and Goldstein, who is White, repeated it. According to the report, Thomas became angry over Goldstein’s use of the word and later damaged the kitchen. Production then removed all three contestants.
The Paramount+ original is the 42nd season of the long-running MTV franchise. "The Challenge" is generally classified as reality television, but the modern version is built around athletic competition. Contestants run, swim, climb, wrestle, carry heavy weight and race through obstacle courses that test strength, endurance and mental toughness. Seasons typically end with a grueling final that can stretch across multiple days and resemble an adventure race more than a reality show.
The controversy also bears a striking resemblance to one Paramount faced three years ago on another reality competition show. The company appears to have learned from a racial double standard it applied back then.
Thomas subsequently confirmed at least part of the reported account.
"I let my emotions take over, broke dishes, destroyed [the] kitchen and violated the code of conduct," Thomas wrote on X. "That’s on me."
Thomas also claimed that Goldstein apologized to him privately and urged Goldstein to address the situation publicly.
"Saying you have Black friends doesn’t give you a pass to use the N-word," Thomas wrote.
Dionicio, meanwhile, discussed his removal during an appearance on fellow "Challenge" competitor Johnny "Bananas" Devenanzio’s "Death, Taxes and Bananas" podcast.
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At the beginning of the discussion, Devenanzio said they had been instructed "from the top" not to reveal the specifics of the incident. Despite that, Dionicio argued that he did not deserve to be included in the mass disqualification.
"I was really, really upset because what was said was super ignorant," Dionicio said. "I thought the hand I was dealt was pretty messed up considering I didn’t really do s--- wrong."
Dionicio said he believed one contestant should have been fined, another should have been removed and he should not have been punished at all.
Johnny "Bananas" pushed back on Dionicio’s argument.
"I think what’s understood is that they have to have a rule, and it has to apply to everybody equally," he said.
Later in the conversation, however, Dionicio acknowledged that every contestant had signed the same agreement.
"I know we all signed the same contract," Dionicio said. "It’s just frustrating because I didn’t really think that would apply to me. But then I realized, you know, I’m not bigger than the program, unfortunately."
Dionicio never explicitly said, "I’m Black, so I should be allowed to use the N-word." But taken together, his comments strongly suggest that is his position. He reportedly used the word, said he did not believe the rule should have applied to him and then emphasized in a separate post on X that he is Black and Afro-Latino.
Paramount declined to discuss the specific actions that led to each contestant’s removal. A source familiar with the production said Bunim/Murray Productions has a clear code of conduct and that all three cast members were removed after violating it. The source directed OutKick to Thomas’ public comments about the incident.
The response did not confirm whether Dionicio and Goldstein were removed for using the same word or whether the same provision was applied to both contestants. But Paramount also did not dispute the reported account or challenge OutKick’s interpretation that the rule was enforced equally. Dionicio and Goldstein did not respond to requests for comment prior to publication.
In August 2023, CBS removed "Big Brother" contestant Luke Valentine after he used the N-word inside the house. The network said Valentine violated the show’s code of conduct and that it had "zero tolerance" for the use of a racial slur.
Except, as OutKick reported at the time, another contestant, Kirsten Elwin, had used the same word days earlier and received no apparent punishment.
Valentine is White. Elwin is Black.
At the time, I wrote that CBS could not claim to have a zero-tolerance rule while applying different consequences based on the race of the person who violated it.
I wasn’t arguing that a White person and a Black person using the N-word carry the same social meaning because they don’t.
But a television production’s code of conduct is either a rule or it isn’t. If contestants are told that a particular word is prohibited, their skin color should not determine whether the rule applies to them.
CBS and MTV were both under the Paramount umbrella when the "Big Brother" incident occurred, just as they are now. This time, the company appears to have applied the standard equally.
Again, Paramount’s refusal to explain the disqualifications prevents us from saying that definitively. But the available reporting indicates that Dionicio and Goldstein used the same word and were both removed from the competition. Dionicio’s subsequent comments suggest he believed being Black should have changed how the rule applied to him.
If the reported account is accurate, production enforced the rule against everyone rather than determining who was socially entitled to violate its conduct policy.
Paramount deserves credit for apparently correcting the double standard it applied on "Big Brother" in 2023. Now it should be transparent enough to confirm that equal enforcement is exactly what happened.