President-elect Donald Trump on Friday nominated Key Square Capital Management founder and hedge fund manager Scott Bessent as Treasury Secretary.

Nearly half of Los Angeles, California’s $1.3 billion homelessness budget for fiscal year 2023-2024 wasn’t spent, according to the city Controller’s report. Los Angeles City Controller Kenneth Mejia discovered that only $599 million had been spent, with an additional $195 million marked to be spent, and $512,690,810 million not marked for anything, according to the report. Recently, Los Angeles residents seem poised to approve Measure A, which would add a .5% county-level sales tax, with revenues going towards homeless programs, according to the unofficial election results count.

COVID-19 vaccine supporters are fond of sneering at public figures who have called for the Food and Drug Administration to pull or at least re-evaluate the safety of the increasingly unpopular therapeutics, such as Health and Human Services secretary nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr., cardiologist Peter McCullough and Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo. They might have a harder time caricaturing a former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director who ran the agency when COVID vaccines were being developed, promoted vaccination and repeat boosting as recently as 2022 and promoted cloth face masks as "one of the most powerful weapons we have" against COVID, before vaccines were available.

Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott sent a letter to state agencies ordering them to divest from “risky” investments from China, warning of security threats, according to a Thursday press release. Abbott’s letter was aimed at preventing Texans from being exposed to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), according to the statement. The governor called for the agencies to fully divest from China as soon as possible, citing financial risk and Chinese “aggression” against the U.S.

Following the 2024 presidential election, some states are already focusing on implementing election security legislation, such as requiring proof of U.S. citizenship and reducing the time it takes to count ballots. Republicans in Ohio, North Carolina, and Arizona are all zeroing in on election integrity following this month’s election, and ahead of newly-elected officials taking office next year.