Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) sued a New York doctor for sending abortion medication under the Empire State's shield law to Texas, which has a near-total abortion ban, his office said Friday.
Why it matters: The lawsuit, one of the first known of its kind, tests the future of shield laws enacted by blue states in the post-Roe era to help patients who live in states with abortion bans.
President-elect Trump's Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff visited Saudi Arabia on Wednesday and met Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS), two sources with knowledge of the meeting told Axios.
Why it matters: It was the first meeting between MBS and a member of the incoming Trump administration since the November elections.
More than a quarter of the 2025 House Republican freshman class managed to get spots on the chamber's four most coveted fiscal committees, a high watermark for the 21st century.
Why it matters: The figure is a boon to Rep-elect Brian Jack (R-Ga.), the freshman representative to the House GOP's steering committee, which decides on committee membership.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) put Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on notice Friday after reports seemingly linking the Health and Human Services nominee to an effort to revoke the polio vaccine.
Why it matters: McConnell, a childhood polio survivor, will be an important vote for President-elect Trump's nominees to win over. Kennedy is expected to spend next week on the Hill meeting with senators.
An ally of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in 2022 petitioned the Food and Drug Administration to revoke approval for the use of a polio vaccine on children on the grounds that the agency didn't do sufficient safety studies, documents show.
The big picture: Aaron Siri, a lawyer who worked for Kennedy during his presidential campaign, has filed more than a dozen petitions on behalf of private citizensrequesting the government halt distribution of certain vaccines, also including the one for hepatitis B.
The Republican Party will aim to get rid of daylight saving time, President-elect Trump said in a post on Truth Social Friday.
Why it matters: Most U.S. adults dislike the semi-annual clock change — currently designed to maximized daylight during summer — and lawmakers have occasionally pitched scrapping it, without official success.
President-elect Trump's inner circle rushed to claim a report acknowledging that FBI informants (but not undercover agents) were present at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, as proof of a baseless right wing belief that the bureau instigated the riot despite the report saying the opposite.
Why it matters: Vice President-elect Vance, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy in their social media posts falsely conflated the FBI's acknowledgement that several informants were at the riot and even entered the Capitol with a long-running conspiracy theory that the FBI staged the attack to discredit then-President Trump. The report explicitly said that no FBI employees were present and that no FBI informants were authorized to participate.
Those mysterious drones reportedly flying over New Jersey and surrounding states are probably just planes, the White House says.
"Using very sophisticated electronic detection technologies provided by federal authorities, we have not been able to ... corroborate any of the reported visual sightings," national security spokesman John Kirby said in the briefing room yesterday.
"To the contrary, upon review of available imagery, it appears that many of the reported sightings are actually manned aircraft that are being operated lawfully."
🛸 Catch up quick: Reports of suspicious drone sightings began last month in central New Jersey, then spread to New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut and Maryland.
OpenAI said in a court filing today that Elon Musk wanted OpenAI to turn into a for-profit company years ago,Axios' Ina Fried reports.
Why it matters: Musk is suing to block OpenAI's planned transition from a nonprofit research lab into a for-profit corporation. Musk helped found OpenAI, but has since become a critic and AI competitor.
📧 OpenAI's new filing includes emails, sent before the breakup, in which Musk endorsed a for-profit structure — one where he would have had most of the equity.
"Probably better to have a standard C corp with a parallel nonprofit," Musk wrote in 2015, according to OpenAI.
Fireworks erupt above people celebrating the ouster of Syria's president, Bashar al-Assad, at the Umayyad Square in central Damascus today. Photo: Omar Haj Kadour/AFP via Getty Images
🇸🇾 Thousands of Syrians poured into the streets today to celebrate the fall of dictator Bashar al-Assad. Go deeper.
⚖️ McKinsey & Co. will pay $650 million in a deal with federal prosecutors over its work helping Purdue Pharma increase opioid sales. Go deeper.
🏥 Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, 84, fell and was hospitalized during a congressional trip to Luxembourg. "While traveling with a bipartisan Congressional delegation in Luxembourg to mark the 80th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge, Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi sustained an injury during an official engagement and was admitted to the hospital for evaluation," a statement from her office says. Go deeper.
Oregon is far and away the top producer of Christmas trees in the U.S., according to USDA data.
Domestic farms cut more than 14.5 million Christmas trees in 2022, the most recent year for which data is available. More than half came from Oregon and North Carolina.
House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi sustained a serious injury to her hip and was hospitalized during a congressional visit to Luxembourg, several sources familiar with the matter told Axios.
What they're saying: The 84-year-old former speaker is cancelling the rest of her CODEL engagements but "continues to work," Pelosi spokesperson Ian Krager said in a statement.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's (D-N.Y.) run to lead Democrats on the House Oversight Committee is morphing into a stand-in for the fight between the left and center wings of the Democratic Party.
Why it matters: The ideological proxy battle adds to a generational fight already being waged among House Democrats, driven by urgency about taking on the incoming Trump administration.
House Oversight Committee ranking member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) is pressing the Trump transition team for information on its vetting of administration appointees, Axios has learned.
Why it matters: The letter homes in on allegations that Trump aide Boris Epshteyn sought payments from people pursuing appointments in exchange for favorable treatment.
Daniel Penny, the former Marine acquitted this week in the death of an unhoused Black man, will join President-elect Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance at the Army-Navy football game Saturday.
Why it matters: The decision to prosecute Penny for Jordan Neely's death on a New York City subway train last year became a rallying point for some Republicans.
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D) on Friday requested that President Biden direct more resources to investigate the origins of mysterious drones spotted across several states since last month.
Why it matters: The letter comes as local and state officials have demanded the federal government provide more information and resources as they express safety concerns over the drones' unknown origins.
The U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission on Thursday charged Cantor Fitzgeraldwith lying to SPAC investors, and said that the Wall Street firm had agreed to pay a $6.75 million civil penalty.
Why it matters: Cantor Fitzgerald is led by Howard Lutnick, who was recently nominated by President-elect Trump to lead the U.S. Commerce Department. It's unclear if Trump was aware of the SEC investigation.
About half of U.S. adults are "not at all confident" in President-elect Trump's ability to appoint qualified people to his administration, per an AP-NORC poll released on Friday.
Why it matters: The lack of confidence from respondents undercuts Trump's claim to have won a mandate from voters as he finalizes Cabinet picks and fine tunes policy proposals.
President-elect Trump and Elon Musk are finding a wellspring of unexpected cooperation from Democrats in their plans to crack down on government waste and inefficiency.
Why it matters: Trump's "Department of Government Efficiency," or DOGE, has been a mostly Republican brainstorm so far, but centrist and progressive Democrats have begun offering ideas for it.
Amazon gave $1 million to President-elect Trump's inaugural fund, the company confirmed Thursday — one day after Facebook and Instagram parent Meta announced a similar donation.
Why it matters: Trump noted to CNBC's Jim Cramer on Thursday that he's returning to the White House with warmer relations with Big Tech leaders and said Amazon founder Jeff Bezos planned to visit him next week, following a similar Mar-a-Lago meeting with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.)is deeply skeptical of some of President-elect Trump's and GOP leadership's aggressive border plans.
Why it matters: He's gaining power next Congress. Paul, an infamous deficit hawk and libertarian, will chair the committee that oversees the Department of Homeland Security.
A super PAC closely aligned with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) is circling districts that voted for their Republican incumbents by as much as 30 percentage points as it charts a course back to the majority
Why it matters: Democrats are cautiously optimistic that they can pull off a repeat of the 2018 "Blue Wave" as Trump's right-wing policy agenda and appointments come into view.
President-elect Trump appeared to indicate his support for the dockworkers union in its contract dispute with the United States Maritime Alliance (USMX) that led to a major strike at East Coast and Gulf ports earlier this year.
Why it matters: Though port workers are back on the docks after a three-day work stoppage in October, they haven't yet finalized a new contract with the shipping companies — the prospect of an economy-crushing strike still looms. The deadline is just five days before Trump's inauguration.
The spending stopgap bill being negotiated by Congress will fund the government until March 14, 2025, according to multiple sources familiar with the negotiations.
Why it matters: That timeline sets up Congress for a government funding battle toward the tail end of President-elect Trump's first 100 days in office.
