
Trump looks to North Carolina as he tries to contrast his leadership with Democrats’
CNN
President Donald Trump on Friday is set to visit North Carolina — a state he said “has been abandoned by the Democrats” as it rebuilds from Hurricane Helene’s flooding — with questions about disaster relief taking center stage in his first days back in office.
President Donald Trump on Friday is set to visit North Carolina — a state he said “has been abandoned by the Democrats” as it rebuilds from Hurricane Helene’s flooding — with questions about disaster relief taking center stage in his first days back in office. Trump will then travel to California, where wildfires have ravaged the Los Angeles area, as Republicans on Capitol Hill begin to navigate between conservatives’ desire for spending cuts and Trump’s pledges to help both places rebuild. The trip will be Trump’s first outside Washington since his inauguration on Monday. By visiting North Carolina, a swing state he’s won three times, the president is seeking to draw clear contrasts with former President Joe Biden, whose administration’s management of the flooding he called “so bad,” and Democratic leaders in California, whose handling of the wildfires he has repeatedly lambasted. In a Wednesday interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity, Trump said the Federal Emergency Management Agency is “getting in the way of everything” in North Carolina, and — without explaining how — claimed that Democrats used the agency “not to help.” “I’m stopping in North Carolina — first stop, because those people were treated very badly by Democrats,” Trump said. “And I’m stopping there, we’re going to get that thing straightened out, because they’re still suffering from a hurricane from months ago.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth risked compromising sensitive military information that could have endangered US troops through his use of Signal to discuss attack plans, a Pentagon watchdog said in an unclassified report released Thursday. It also details how Hegseth declined to cooperate with the probe.

Two top House lawmakers emerged divided along party lines after a private briefing with the military official who oversaw September’s attack on an alleged drug vessel that included a so-called double-tap strike that killed surviving crew members, with a top Democrat calling video of the incident that was shared as part of the briefing “one of the most troubling things” he has seen as a lawmaker.

Authorities in Colombia are dealing with increasingly sophisticated criminals, who use advanced tech to produce and conceal the drugs they hope to export around the world. But police and the military are fighting back, using AI to flag suspicious passengers, cargo and mail - alongside more conventional air and sea patrols. CNN’s Isa Soares gets an inside look at Bogotá’s war on drugs.

As lawmakers demand answers over reports that the US military carried out a follow-up strike that killed survivors during an attacked on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean, a career Navy SEAL who has spent most of his 30 years of military experience in special operations will be responsible for providing them.









