Trump lights up Vegas casino floor with unexpected drop-in, gamblers start ‘USA’ chant
President Donald Trump shocked gamblers in Las Vegas when he unexpectedly dropped by a casino floor on Saturday.
Prior to the surprise visit, Trump had addressed thousands of supporters at the Circa Resort & Casino in Sin City on Saturday afternoon. Photos and video show Trump strolling around the casino floor after the speech, while surrounded by security.
The crowd began chanting “USA! USA!” as Trump walked past the slot machines. The president was also seen briefly interacting with enthused gamblers.
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The president also naturally walked up to a craps table where a game was in progress, telling a player to “throw the dice.”
When journalists shouted questions at Trump, a craps player scolded the press pool and told them, “I’m rolling here.” Trump told a gambler that he was “doing a good job” before leaving.
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Trump also said thank you to staff workers holding water trays, shortly after his speech focused on reducing federal taxes for hospitality workers with his “no tax on tips” campaign promise.
“Any worker who relies on tips [as] income, your tips will be 100% yours,” Trump said to a cheering audience during the speech.
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“Nationwide, over four million workers depend on tip income, including an estimated 700,000 single moms…here in Nevada…think of it, a quarter of the typical restaurant workers’ pay comes from tips. I didn’t know that,” he added.
Justice Thomas swears in the next member of Trump’s cabinet from inside his home
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem was sworn in as Department of Homeland Security secretary by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas at his home Saturday, following a scheduling hiccup earlier in the day.
The ceremony, which was originally slated to take place in the Indian Treaty Room inside the Navy Department Wing of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, D.C., at 3 p.m., was postponed multiple times.
Noem shared a video of the moment on X, just after 6:30 p.m.
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“It is such an honor to be sworn in as the United States Secretary of Homeland Security,” she wrote in the post. “It was made even more meaningful by being sworn in by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas at his home. Thank you, President [Donald] Trump for putting your trust in me to help keep America safe.”
Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry shared photos of the event on X, just before 6 p.m., expressing confidence in Noem filling the role.
“Sharon and I were honored to be a part of the swearing in ceremony for Homeland Security Secretary, @KristiNoem,” Landry wrote in the post. “America will be safer and stronger because of her and @realDonaldTrump [President Donald Trump]’s leadership. And once again Americans will be put FIRST!”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, Sen Bernie Moreno and Sen Mike Rounds were in attendance in the Indian Treaty Room, awaiting the initial ceremony, Fox News correspondents reported.
Taylor Van Kirk, a spokesperson for the vice president, told Fox News the swearing in was delayed “due to a scheduling conflict.”
“We are excited for the work she will do to bring much-needed change to DHS and to secure the border,” Kirk said.
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Earlier in the day, the Senate voted 59-34 to confirm Noem as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, making her the fourth Trump nominee to win chamber approval.
One of Noem’s top priorities is securing the southern border and repairing the “broken immigration system,” she said.
“The Trump Administration will once-again empower our brave men and women in law enforcement to do their jobs and remove criminal aliens and illegal gangs from our country,” Noem wrote in a statement. “We will fully equip our intelligence and law enforcement to detect and prevent terror threats and will deliver rapid assistance and disaster relief to Americans in crisis.”
The Trump administration has already taken steps to secure the border, including deploying the military, restarting wall construction and ending the previous administration’s parole programs.
Before the swearing in, the president shouted out Noem, describing her as “tough,” at a rally in Las Vegas.
“I thank President Trump and the US Senate for their trust in me,” she wrote. “Together, we will ensure that the United States, once again, is a beacon of freedom, safety, and security for generations to come.”
Prior to her new role, Noem served as South Dakota’s first female governor. She pledged in 2021 that she would not take any more migrants from the Biden administration, and deployed the National Guard to the Texas border.
Noem, who was a rancher, farmer and small business owner, served in the South Dakota legislature before being elected as South Dakota’s sole member of the U.S. House of Representatives.
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Stephen A Smith says he and others now feel like fools for voting for Harris
ESPN host Stephen A. Smith admitted that he and others who voted for Kamala Harris in November’s election feel like “d— fools,” during an appearance on Real Time With Bill Maher on Friday.
Smith made this declaration when discussing comparisons between Harris’ campaign and Barack Obama’s campaign in 2008. The sports pundit argued that the fact that Harris was not nominated via a legitimate primary, and the fact that she performed so poorly during her short stint in the 2020 Democratic primary, made her undesirable to voters.
Harris dropped out of the 2020 primary in 2019, before even reaching the Iowa caucus. She never received a single primary vote before being anointed the nominee in 2024.
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“Kamala Harris, who didn’t resonate during the primaries in 2020, couldn’t even get to Iowa, suddenly is the Democratic nominee, then you roll up to the convention in Chicago and everybody is like ‘She’s a rockstar!’ So it’s like ‘How’d that happen?” Smith said.
“Yes I voted for her, a lot of people voted for her, but in the end, we end up feeling like d— fools, because we supported it, we fell for the okiedoke as they say. If you had a primary, the likelihood is she would not have been the Democratic nominee.”
Smith has been a harsh internal critic of the Democratic Party during and after the 2020 election.
During Friday’s appearance on Maher’s show, he scolded liberals for choosing not to campaign on issues that the American people were most concerned about, while admitting that Trump did, and was the closer candidate to the center of the political spectrum.
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“Here’s the deal: the man was impeached twice, he was convicted on 34 felony counts, and the American people still said, ‘He’s closer to normal than what we see on the left,’” Smith said.
During an interview with Fox News Channel’s Sean Hannity days after Election Day, Smith insisted that the results were a referendum of the Democratic Party.
“I think that in light of those results we have to look at this election as a referendum on the Democratic Party. And America’s saying we’re not feeling where you are, we’re not feeling where you tried to go, we want no part of it, we’re not having it – and they made their choice and we all have to accept it,” he said.
During an interview on “The Will Cain Show” on the Thursday after the election, Smith delivered a scathing critique of the Democratic National Committee and its message ahead of Election Day and pointed to transgender issues as one of its weak points.
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“It’s such a strong tilt to the progressive left where we are talking about transgender issues and culture wars and identity politics and all of this stuff. We are sick of all of that. That makes total, total sense to me, and I’m good with it, even though I didn’t vote for [Trump]. I’m not as taken aback and feeling like nothing but gloom and doom and the world is coming to an end because the person I voted for didn’t win,” Smith said.
Smith has said multiple times that he would consider running for public office. After the results of the election, he has been one of the few figures in the liberal media to embrace the outcome of Trump’s victory and has been heavily critical of left-wing figures like Michelle Obama, Oprah Winfrey and Jimmy Kimmel in their portrayal of Trump.
Smith also did not rule out a possible presidential run for himself during an interview on “The View” the week after the election.
“I have no desire to be a congressional figure or a senator. But if you came to me and you told me I had a legitimate shot to win the presidency of the United States of America, I would definitely consider it,” he said.
ICE arrests 3 Tren de Aragua gang members in mass deportation push
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) this week arrested three Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang members in two states as the new administration begins its mass deportation push, a senior Trump administration official told Fox News.
Nestor Jose Mendoza-Garcia was nabbed Thursday in San Antonio, Texas, and Elmer Aparicio-Castillo and an unidentified 36-year-old man were arrested the same day in Nashville, all after allegedly entering the country illegally last year when they were processed and arrested by the Biden administration.
“Throughout this week, the heroes of ICE have been hunting down and arresting hundreds of illegal alien criminals, and it’s immediate expulsion, including those with charges of convictions for rape, child sexual assault, terrorism and even murder,” President Donald Trump said at a rally in Las Vegas Saturday.
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“Members of the savage Venezuelan prison gang known as Tren de Aragua. You know that gang? This is not a nice group of people. They formed in prison, and then [Venezuela] dumped their prisons into our country.
“They’re as bad as the bloodthirsty MS-13 gangs
Mendoza-Garcia arrived in the U.S. in October and was issued a notice to appear before being released.
He was arrested by the San Antonio Police Department in November for possessing a gun linked to an unsolved murder.
On Thursday, ICE San Antonio obtained a federal indictment and arrest warrant for Mendoza-Garcia for being an alien in possession of a gun. He is an active member of the gang, the official said.
Aparicio-Castillo was issued a notice to appear after an encounter with ICE in El Paso, Texas, in September.
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He was arrested by ICE Nashville Thursday for allegedly being an alien in possession of a gun. He also allegedly has links to the gang.
Aparicio-Castillo’s criminal history includes charges of evading arrest, promoting prostitution and marijuana possession in Nashville.
After his criminal adjudication, Aparicio-Castillo will be administratively arrested for immigration proceedings, the official said.
The 36-year-old unidentified Venezuelan entered the U.S. illegally through Eagle Pass, Texas, in December and was issued a notice to appear.
His criminal history also includes evading arrest, promoting prostitution and marijuana possession in Nashville.
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He was administratively arrested by ICE Nashville Thursday.
CIA releases new analysis on COVID origins favoring lab leak theory — with major caveat
The CIA has changed its assessment on the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, now favoring the lab leak theory. Under its new director, John Ratcliffe, the agency released an assessment on the origins of COVID-19.
The review was ordered by former President Joe Biden’s National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan toward the end of Biden’s time in office.
Analysts made the assessment with “low confidence” despite former CIA director Bill Burns, who remained agnostic on the origins, telling the agency it needed to look at the existing evidence again and come down on one side or the other.
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The agency has maintained for years it did not have enough intelligence to conclude whether COVID originated in a lab or a wet market in Wuhan, China. Despite the new assessment favoring a lab leak, there was no indication of new evidence.
“CIA assesses with low confidence that a research-related origin of the COVID-19 pandemic is more likely than a natural origin based on the available body of reporting. CIA continues to assess that both research-related and natural origin scenarios of the COVID-19 pandemic remain plausible,” a CIA spokesperson told Fox News.
“We have low confidence in this judgment and will continue to evaluate any available credible new intelligence reporting or open-source information that could change CIA’s assessment.”
Ratcliffe, who was confirmed Thursday, has long been a proponent of the lab leak theory. In an interview with Breitbart, Ratcliffe framed the assessment of COVID’s origins as part of a broader strategy “addressing the threat from China.”
He also said he wants the CIA to “get off the sidelines” and take a stand.
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In a March 2023 Fox News piece co-written with Cliff Sims, Ratcliffe accused the Biden administration of trying to keep a growing consensus around the lab leak theory quiet by suppressing “what can clearly be assessed from the intelligence they possess.”
He also cast doubt on the notion that the CIA did not have enough evidence to come to a conclusion about the virus’ origins.
“The CIA is the world’s premier spy agency. Its reach is unmatched, its ability to acquire information unrivaled. And yet here we are three-and-a-half years later and there is ample public reporting that the CIA just doesn’t have enough information to make an assessment. This is utter nonsense,” the March 2023 piece says.
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In the same piece, Ratcliffe and Sims dismissed the idea that the virus emerged naturally, claiming there was “a complete absence of intelligence or scientific evidence” pointing to that conclusion.
When he testified before the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic in April 2023, Ratcliffe said the lab leak theory was “the only explanation credibly supported by our intelligence, by science and by common sense.”
As airlines button-up dress codes, these clothes will get you kicked off a flight
Air travel has certainly changed over time, and an occasion that once mandated dressing smartly has become considerably more casual.
Recently, Spirit Airlines issued a new dress code for its flight passengers, after several news-making instances regarding customers being removed from flights due to their attire.
Now, customers on Spirit Airlines are subject to being removed from flights if they are “barefoot or inadequately clothed (i.e., see-through clothing; not adequately covered; exposed breasts, buttocks, or other private parts), or whose clothing or article, including body art, is lewd, obscene or offensive in nature.”
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Here are some other rules that airlines have regarding clothing.
1. Hawaiian Airlines
Passengers on Hawaiian Airlines are prohibited from wearing bathing suits, and “clothing must cover the upper part of the torso,” says its contract of carriage.
Shorts are fine, but “speedos and bikini bottoms are not allowed,” said Hawaiian Airlines. And bare feet are not OK either.
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“In all cases, clothing must not be lewd, obscene or patently offensive to others,” said Hawaiian Airlines.
2. Southwest Airlines
Southwest Airlines passengers cannot wear clothes that are “lewd, obscene or patently offensive,” and passengers must wear shoes.
3. United Airlines
Similarly to Southwest, passengers on United have a pretty loose dress code.
United Airlines’ contract of carriage specifies that passengers must be “properly clothed.”
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Clothing cannot be “lewd, obscene or offensive” as well — and passengers have to wear shoes.
4. American Airlines
American Airlines’ code of carriage does not specify what is not allowed, but it does say that passengers have to “dress appropriately; bare feet or offensive clothing aren’t allowed.”
5. Delta Air Lines
Delta’s code of carriage does not have a specific dress code.
It does state that passengers can be removed when their “conduct, attire, hygiene or odor creates an unreasonable risk of offense or annoyance to other passengers.”
6. Qatar Airways
Qatar Airways has a dress code for passengers in business class and above, says its website.
“Depending on your destination, there are different rules and regulations regarding the type of clothing you should wear. The dress code is designed to ensure passengers’ comfort and safety while traveling, so it is important to understand the rules before departing,” said Qatar Airways.
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This dress code prohibits shorts, sportswear and “overly revealing clothing,” and business class passengers should be dressed “smart casual.”
“Passengers should pay attention to the dress code when traveling in business class, as it will ensure their comfort and respect for other passengers,” said Qatar Airways.
LA real estate star names the top reason some wildfire victims won’t come back
After making a shocking prediction that up to 70% of Pacific Palisades residents won’t return to rebuild and live in their homes, former “Million Dollar Listing” real estate agent Josh Altman is explaining exactly why.
“They’re not going to not return because they don’t want to return. Of course they want to go back there… They’re not going to return because it’s simple math,” Altman said on “FOX Business Live,” Friday.
“I don’t believe they’re going to be able to afford to rebuild with most of the people that are heavily underinsured, with the costs of construction, lumber, steel. We’re talking about a $1,000 [per] foot building in the Palisades and in Malibu.”
Southern California has been grappling with a surge of wildfires since Jan. 7. Over 50,000 acres have been scorched, 28 people have been killed and upwards of 16,000 homes and buildings have been completely lost.
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President Donald Trump declared a national emergency Friday after touring the devastation in Los Angeles with residents who were personally impacted by the disastrous event.
Early estimates put the total financial loss of the wildfires in the $50 billion range, according to AccuWeather and JPMorgan. Leading up to the fires, several insurance companies either fled, stopped writing new policies or reduced coverage in the Golden State.
“And that’s on top of getting a construction crew to show up to your site when there’s 16,000 structures that have been burned between houses, schools, commercial spaces. It’s a disaster,” Altman expanded. “That’s what I’m saying, I don’t know that they’ll be able to do it with the insurance.”
Newsom signed off on a relief package where the state will spend $2.5 billion to help with wildfire recovery. But Altman wants Newsom to take his response a step further by removing bureaucratic roadblocks that make building homes in California timely and costly.
“The recipe for success is going to be cutting the red tape. Building a house, the process in California, which is just wrapped in red tape, is absolutely impossible: a year to get permits; you’ve got the Coastal Commission, which could be another two years. It’s time for the governor to start cutting the red tape. We got to move forward as a team,” he said.
“There’s been a lot of ordinances and a lot of things on the state and local level that have to go. The mansion tax, that was the worst tax that was ever passed,” Altman continued. “Get rid of it for all the people who lost their houses. The wildlife ordinance, get rid of it. Start cutting the red tape. That’s how we’re going to get back to being [a] strong Los Angeles.”
The real estate expert, who spoke ahead of the president’s visit, hoped Trump seeing the devastation with his own eyes would lead to more federal aid and assistance.
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“You have to see it. I have walked the Palisades, I have walked Malibu. It is way worse in person than you could ever imagine. Hopefully that will open up funding on the federal level.”
Critical fire conditions waned across the region, Friday, with isolated pockets of rain expected over the weekend. The beneficial rain will peak in coverage Sunday, but could trigger mudslides in burn-scar areas.
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Four female hostages held in terror’s grip released after 477 days in captivity
The terrorist group Hamas released four additional hostages from Gaza on Saturday after a ceasefire deal with Israel took effect nearly a week ago.
Karina Ariev, 20, Daniella Gilboa, 20, Naama Levy, 20, and Liri Albag, 19 — all of whom are members of the Israeli Defense Forces —were freed on Saturday in the second round of hostage releases after they were abducted in Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack against Israel.
In exchange, Israel was expected to free 200 Palestinian prisoners or detainees, including 120 militants serving life sentences after being convicted of deadly attacks.
The first round of hostage releases on Sunday freed Romi Gonen, Emily Demari, and Doron Steinbrecher.
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Video from Palestine Square in Gaza shows the four newly released women hostages being taken from the cars. They are alive and walking, wearing uniforms.
“The Red Cross has communicated that four Israeli hostages were transferred to them and are on their way toward IDF and ISA forces in the Gaza Strip,” the IDF and Israeli Securities Authority said in a joint statement.
The IDF and ISA later said: “A short while ago, accompanied by IDF and ISA forces, the four returning hostages crossed the border into Israeli territory. The returning hostages are currently on their way to an initial reception point in southern Israel, where they will be reunited with their parents.”
During their return to Israeli territory, the hostages underwent initial medical assessments.
“The commanders and soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces salute and embrace the returning hostages as they make their way home to the State of Israel, the IDF wrote on X.
The four female soldiers were believed to have been, at least at one time, held all together.
“After 477 agonizing days in captivity, Daniella, Liri, Naama, and Karina are finally returning home – to their families who worked tirelessly for their release, to friends who prayed for their well-being, and to an entire nation that never lost faith this day would come,” the Hostages and Missing Families Forum Headquarters said in a press release.
“Their return today represents a moment of light in the darkness, a moment of hope and triumph of spirit, while serving as a painful reminder of the urgency to bring back the 90 hostages still in Gaza,” the release continued. “We will not stop fighting until all phases of this deal are completed and every last hostage returns home to their loved ones. We extend our deepest gratitude to President Trump, whose instrumental efforts made this deal possible.”
Under the ceasefire deal, a total of 33 hostages are to be set free over the course of six weeks, including those already released, in exchange for hundreds of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel.
Hamas agreed to release three female hostages on the first day of the deal, four on the seventh day and the remaining 26 over the next five weeks.
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This is the second cease-fire achieved during the war that began more than a year ago.
The 15-month-long war in Gaza started when Hamas launched a surprise attack against Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, prompting military retaliation from Israeli forces. Nearly 100 hostages remain captive in Gaza.