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Chris Mortensen, the longtime NFL insider for ESPN, died Sunday morning, the network announced. He was 72. “Mort was widely respected as an industry pioneer and universally beloved as a supportive, hard-working teammate,” ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro said in a statement. “He covered the NFL with extraordinary skill and passion, and was at the top of his field for decades. He will truly be missed by colleagues and fans, and our hearts and thoughts are with his loved one.”

Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel has officially announced her plans to step down next month. McDaniel, 50, who has held the post for seven years, said she plans to resign on March 8. “Some of my proudest accomplishments include firing Nancy Pelosi, winning the popular vote in 2022, creating an Election Integrity Department, building the committee’s first small dollar grassroots donor program, strengthening our state parties through our Growing Republican Organizations to Win program, expanding the Party through minority outreach at our community centers, and launching Bank Your Vote to get Republicans to commit to voting early,” she said...

Chris Christie partly blamed his onetime friend Donald Trump for the spike in antisemitism and Islamophobia across the country. The former New Jersey governor posited that Trump’s language has emboldened others to act hatefully. “When you show intolerance towards everyone, which is what he does, you give permission as a leader for others to have their intolerance come out,” Christie told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday. “And that’s been going on for quite some time, not just with Donald Trump, but with university professors on some of our most elite campuses in this country.”

Dozens of famous bird species will lose their familiar names in the coming months and years as part of a nationwide effort to eliminate monikers “clouded by racism” and to diversify bird-watching. The American Ornithological Society, which is responsible for standardizing English bird names across the Americas, announced plans Wednesday to ditch any bird classifications derived from a person’s name, instead identifying them by their physical traits or their habitats. Although not all fowl named after people are linked to unsavory histories, the undertaking mainly aims to purge names connected to racism, misogyny and genocide, the AOS said. Birds with...

New York’s leaders are doubling down in their fight against gas stoves. A vocal group of legislators, doctors and scientists is imploring Gov. Kathy Hochul to pass the NY Home Energy Affordable Transition Act — just months after Hochul’s controversial move to ban gas stoves, furnaces and propane heating in new residential buildings in the Empire State. During a virtual press conference this week, the agitated assemblage presented a report bolstering the argument against any kind of gas-powered appliances, period. A bill floated by the group would effectively allow the decommission of natural gas pipelines and plants and expedite the...

Senate leaders announced a potential breakthrough in the government shutdown stalemate Tuesday evening as the House of Representatives remains in paralysis. Nineteen Senate Republicans voted against the measure: Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), Mike Braun (R-Ind.), Katie Britt (R-Ala.), Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), Rand Paul (R-Ky.) Rick Scott (R-Fla.), Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), JD Vance (R-Ohio), Steve Daines (R-Mont.), Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.), Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.), Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), Deb Fischer (R-Neb.), Ted Budd (R-NC) and Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.). ... The Senate’s CR was expected to fund the government at “present levels”...

A Food and Drug Administration panel today unanimously ruled that a medicine used by millions for a stuffy nose does not work. Phenylephrine is the most common active compound in over-the-counter drugs like Benadryl Allergy Plus Congestion, Sudafed PE, and Tylenol Cold and Flu Severe Day & Night. But an FDA panel said after a two-day review that the oral decongestant ‘is not effective’ at standard or even high doses. Their ruling is not binding but it strongly suggests that the agency could soon heed their advice and pull its approval, which would force companies to pull or reformulate their...

Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel on Sunday advised 2024 candidates to focus on Independent voters after the GOP failed to deliver a once-expected “red wave” in the 2022 midterm elections. “I look at 2022 as the ‘Year of Independents,'” McDaniel told Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures. “In every single battleground state except Pennsylvania, a Republican won statewide – so we had more ticket splitting than we’ve ever seen.” “So [in 2024], it really is going to be how do our candidates appeal to Independent voters?”

The House Ethics Committee closed its two-year-long investigation into Rep. Eric Swalwell’s ties to suspected Chinese spy Christine Fang on Tuesday and said it will take no action against the California Democrat. “As you are aware, on April 9, 2021, the Committee on Ethics informed you that it had determined to investigate allegations raised in the complaint that you may have violated House Rules, laws, or other standards of conduct in connection with your interactions with Ms. Christine Fang. The Committee will take no further action in this matter,” read a letter to Swalwell from Ethics Committee Chairman Michael Guest...

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has officially changed its mission statement, dropping a quote from former President Lincoln because it used male pronouns and was viewed by some as excluding women. On Thursday, the VA announced that its new motto is, "To fulfill President Lincoln's promise to care for those who have served in our nation’s military and for their families, caregivers, and survivors." The new statement replaces the original 1959 mission statement which featured a quote from Lincoln's second inaugural address, delivered in 1865, "To care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow,...

At least 28,000 supporters of President Donald Trump flocked to the nation’s capital on Jan. 6, 2021 — many of them carrying weaponry ranging from firearms to brass knuckles to screwdrivers, the House select committee investigating the events of that day revealed in its final report. The 814-page document, released late Thursday, draws the previously unreported crowd figure from data from Secret Service magnetometers stationed at Trump’s pre-riot speech on the Ellipse near the White House — though hundreds of the most hardcore rioters skipped the rally and went directly to the Capitol. The committee of seven Democrats and two...

An array of Jewish groups, including the activist arm of the Reform movement, has attacked the likely incoming Republican House speaker, Kevin McCarthy, for pledging to remove Minnesota Democrat Rep. Ilhan Omar from the Foreign Affairs Committee over past comments he has called antisemitic. The tone of the statement released Monday was unusually combative for Jewish nonprofits, insinuating that McCarthy came closer to expressing antisemitism than Omar did. . . . “As Jewish American organizations, we oppose House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy’s pledge to strip Representative Ilhan Omar of her House Foreign Affairs Committee seat based on false accusations that...

It’s not the Great White Way. A white sign-language interpreter says he was booted from “The Lion King” on Broadway because of his skin color. Keith Wann, 53, was one of at least two people forced off the production by the non-profit Theatre Development Fund – which staffs Broadway shows with American Sign Language interpreters – after the group decided it was “no longer appropriate to have white interpreters represent black characters for ASL Broadway shows.” Wann filed a federal discrimination lawsuit on Tuesday against the organization and the director of its accessibility programs, Lisa Carling. ... Carling’s decision came...

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Wednesday took Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis to task for joking that “little elf” Dr. Anthony Fauci be thrown across the Potomac River. Jean-Pierre did not see the humor in the crack — leveled by a potential challenger of her boss in 2024 — saying at her regular press briefing that DeSantis advocated a “physical assault” on President Biden’s chief medical adviser.

A former top speechwriter for President George W. Bush slammed Donald Trump Jr. this past weekend over a recent speech in which the former first son lamented that conservatives had “ceded ground in every major institution in our country.” In an op-ed published by The Atlantic Sunday, Peter Wehner took issue with Trump Jr.’s Dec. 19 remarks at the America Fest Conference hosted by Turning Point USA. “If we get together, they cannot cancel us all. Okay? They won’t. And this will be contrary to a lot of our beliefs because — I’d love not to have to participate in...

GOP Rep. Tom Rice has said he regrets voting to sustain objections to the 2020 presidential election results in two states on Jan. 6 — and said former President Donald Trump was “responsible” for the riot that ravaged the Capitol that day. Rice (R-SC) told Politico Wednesday that while he still believes there were “real issues with the election,” he wishes he had voted differently. According to the outlet, Rice is believed to be the first GOP member of Congress to publicly disavow his Jan. 6 vote. “In retrospect, I should have voted to certify,” Rice said. “Because President Trump...

President Joe Biden's sister, confidante and longtime political strategist, Valerie Biden Owens, has a book deal. Celadon Books told The Associated Press on Thursday that Owens' “Growing Up Biden” will come out April 12 of next year. She is expected to cover everything from her childhood as the only girl among four siblings to her “trailblazing, decades-long professional relationship” with Biden, who has referred to Owens as his best friend. Vogue magazine last year dubbed her “The Joe Biden Whisperer.”

The Food and Drug Administration appears likely to move to ban menthol in cigarettes this week — a step, experts say, that has been years in the making and that could have a significant positive impact on the health of Black Americans. The FDA's decision would not ban menthol immediately, but rather kick off the rule-making process to do so, which could take years. "The winds are definitely in our favor," said Delmonte Jefferson, executive director of the Center for Black Health & Equity, citing both the decades of data that show that the cooling flavor in cigarettes makes it...

President Donald Trump was hit with strong backlash Thursday over his decision to hold a campaign rally next week on Juneteenth, a holiday marking the end of slavery, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the site of one of the deadliest race riots in American history, in 1921. Rep. Karen Bass, D-Calif., chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, said the decision to hold a rally there on June 19 "is disrespectful to the lives and community that was lost during the Tulsa race riot." . . . "To make matters worse, he has chosen Juneteenth, a day of our emancipation. This is ridiculous...

More snark against our wonderful and beautiful First Lady from the usual Big Mike worshipping fashion police.