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A House GOP lawmaker is accused of sexually harassing two "young female staffers" in his office in an explosive report that details lavish gifts, trips, and even reciting a poem for one of the aides in an incident that made others in his office uncomfortable. The House Ethics Committee is recommending a censure for Rep. Chuck Edwards, R-N.C., after an extensive probe found that he violated the House of Representatives' code of conduct with repeated incidents targeting the two staffers. "Specifically, the Committee found that Representative Edwards engaged in persistent unprofessional and inappropriate conduct towards two young female staffers. While Representative Edwards denied that any of his conduct was intended as a sexual or romantic advance, his pattern of behavior would lead a reasonable observer to interpret it as such, including providing the young women with lavish and recurrent gifts, making comments regarding their appearance and dress, inviting them to ...

Devlin Barrett / New York Times : Court docs: an FBI agent has been charged with amassing ~$1M worth of cryptocurrency, largely by making unauthorized withdrawals from a criminal target overseas   —  The agent confessed to making unauthorized withdrawals from a criminal target overseas, according to court papers.

President Donald Trump 's effort to remake the Smithsonian is reaching the institution's bottom line, with the administration proposing its smallest budget request in years while pushing to eliminate what it calls "woke" ideology from federally funded museums and programs. A Fox News Digital analysis of Smithsonian budget requests found the institution submitted steadily larger funding requests during the Biden administration, with annual requests rising from $1.11 billion in fiscal year 2021 to a record $1.24 billion in fiscal year 2024. The fiscal year 2025 request also exceeded $1 billion before the Trump administration proposed reducing the institution's request below that threshold in its fiscal year 2026 and 2027 budgets—the first time since fiscal year 2020 that the Smithsonian's annual request has fallen below $1 billion. The proposed funding reduction comes as the White House expands one of its most ambitious efforts to reshape a federally funded cul...

Mariah Timms / Wall Street Journal : Researchers used AI-assisted code to undetectably tamper with data from computerized scans of physical DNA evidence produced by widely used crime-lab machines   —  Researchers found that widely used lab machines produced digital DNA files that are vulnerable to tampering

Every member of the "Squad," an informal left-wing congressional caucus, has endorsed Abdul El-Sayed ahead of Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary, according to his campaign website. The Squad is made up of Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez , D-N.Y., Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., Summer Lee, D-Pa., Delia Ramirez, D-Ill., and Greg Casar, D-Texas. Many of the squad’s current and former members have past or ongoing affiliations with the Democratic Socialists of America , an organization El-Sayed is attempting to distance himself from as he attempts to moderate ahead of a swing-state general election. The unified endorsements sharpen the ideological stakes of the Tuesday primary, linking El-Sayed to the party’s most prominent progressive bloc even as he rejects the socialist label and seeks to present himself as a viable candidate in a battleground state. The support also gives Republicans an early line of attack should El-Sayed defeat the m...

Mayor Zohran Mamdani has given homeowners in New York City an additional month to apply to be exempt from his new pied-à-terre tax, which went into effect on July 1. Homeowners across the five boroughs who believe they should qualify for an exemption now have until Sept. 18 to apply for one, according to City Hall. The previous deadline was Aug. 21. The extended deadline, city officials said, applies to anyone who received notices from the Department of Finance (DOF) with the phrase "You may be subject to..." The pied-à-terre tax, passed by the New York State Legislature in May, imposes an annual surcharge on certain high-value New York City homes worth more than $5 million that are not the owner's primary residence. LIBERAL PODCASTER SAYS HE WAS 'DOXED' BY MAMDANI'S 'WANTED POSTER' OF PROPERTY OWNERS The city's finance department said the extension was necessary to give homeowners more time to prove that their home is in fact their primary resid...