A verdict was returned on Saturday in the impeachment trial of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. Lt. Governor Dan Patrick presided over the hearing. Paxton was brought up on 16 counts of impeachment. A conviction on one article would mean impeachment. The Texas AG needed 10 state senators out of 31 to vote to acquit. 

Paxton was aquitted on all 16 counts. Senators Paul Bettencourt, Brian Birdwell, Donna Campbell, Brandon Creighton, Pete Flores, Bob Hall, Joan Huffman, Bryan Hughes, Phil King, Lois Kolkhorst, Mayes Middleton, Tan Parker, Charles Perry, Kevin Sparks, Drew Springer, and John Whitmire voted to acquit consistently.

Paxton received 16 nay votes and 14 in favor for most of the articles, and was acquitted on every one. On Article 5, he picked up an extra vote, with 13 in favor and 17 opposed. Article 8 saw an even bigger departure from the yay column, with only 8 voting to impeach and 22 opposed. He received 18 nays for Article 9. Votes on articles 11-14 were skipped, and then Patrick announced a vote on Article 17 after the votes on 15 and 16, for which Paxton was acquitted.

After the acquittal votes, a motion wsa brought to dismiss charges 11-14, and that motion was granted.

Article 10 was perhaps one of the more contentious of the batch. It alleged that "While holding office as attorney general, Warren Kenneth Paxton engaged in bribery in violation of Section 41, Article XVI, Texas Constitution. Specifically, Paxton benefited from Nate Paul providing renovations to Paxton's home. Paul received favorable legal assistant from, or specialized access to, the office of the attorney general."

The allegations are that Paul aided Paxton in facilitating an affair and provided renovations for his home. Paxton's wife, Angela, is also a state senator but was barred from voting in the impeachment trial due to the obvious conflict of interest.

An interesting moment came on day seven, when a witness for the prosecution revealed during questioning that it did not appear Paxton had made any renovations to his home, in contrast to what impeachment article 10 claims.

Attorney for Paxton, Tony Buzbee, questioned former Paxton personal assistant Andrew Wicker about the alleged renovations made to the Paxton’s home. Wicker had to admit that, despite the allegations, no renovations were made to the kitchen in question.

Sometimes, it feels like it was just yesterday that I was in Afghanistan for the last time, watching my unit draw down, already feeling as though my sacrifices were for naught years before watching the eventual botched withdrawal on television. Other times, it feels as though it could’ve been a lifetime ago, probably because so many like me gave lifetimes in service to their country in a war with no real objective, that was destined to fail.

Now that we are done in Afghanistan – for now, that is – and have shifted our foreign policy towards the proxy war with Russia in Ukraine, many in the Beltway are posturing and preparing for the next war. But the war that may be on the horizon is one we haven’t fought in many generations.

Former GOP Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake announced Saturday that she and her legal team filed an appeal in her election case with the Arizona Court of Appeals.

"New evidence produced by Maricopa STRONGLY suggests County officials intentionally sabotaged the 2022 General Election, then gave false testimony attempting to cover up their misconduct," she wrote on X, the platform previously called Twitter.

In the appeal, Lake alleged the co-director of elections gave false testimony about the root causes of the problems that happened the day of the 2022 election.

"Maricopa’s Co-Director of Elections, Scott Jarrett, gave false testimony about the causes and the extent of the Election Day tabulator ballot rejections caused by misconfigured, speckled, or faded BOD-printed ballots," the appeal alleged.

"In reality, vote-center tabulators rejected BOD-printed ballots at a rate of over 7,000 every 30 minutes from 6:30 am, shortly after the polls opened, through 8:00 pm, after the polls closed," the appeal continued. 

After 10 months of court battles over the 2022 election, Arizona Republican Kari Lake still has some fight left.

Lake has claimed that the election for governor, which she narrowly lost to Democrat Katie Hobbs, was tainted by misconduct that included malfunctioning election systems and improper signature verification of early voters’ ballots. She launched multiple efforts in Arizona’s state court system to have the results overturned but has not been successful.

She filed her latest appeal of a court ruling that went against her in May, according to the Arizona Republic. That appeal, which dealt with election issues in Maricopa County, was transferred to an appeals court based in Tucson.

Lake’s opening brief in the case says there is new evidence to support her allegations.

“New evidence demonstrates that Maricopa falsely certified its 446 vote-center tabulators passed mandatory L&A certification testing prior to Election Day and strongly suggests Maricopa planned the Election Day debacle,” the brief filed with the court said. L&A stands for “logic and accuracy.”

 A video emerged showing a suspect using his car to drag a State Trooper along a busy street while allegedly attempting to escape a traffic stop Wednesday in southeastern Massachusetts.

 Business magnate Jann Wenner has been removed from his position on the board of directors of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation after he made some controversial remarks about Black and female musicians, as reported by Variety.

 Despite the Biden administration’s touting of a “humane” immigration system, the U.S. southern border is the world’s deadliest land route for migrants, Jennie Taer, an investigative reporter with the Daily Caller News Foundation, told the One America News Network.

 Authorities in Massachusetts indicted a woman on charges of allegedly murdering her three children, according to a statement released Saturday.

The rollout of the CBDC's, or Central Bank Digital Currency, is ramping into high gear as the Fed gets ready to remove cash from circulation. Make no mistake about it this is all about controlling everything you do. Dozens of countries have now moved out of the pilot program phase and are getting close to launching their CBDC's.

Is Ukraine stuck? Wars can be very unpredictable – especially in their early weeks – but there are a lot of signs that Ukraine has run into political and military trouble. 

It is not that its forces are likely to be defeated or that the Russians are about to sweep into Kiev. Far from it. They are in a mess too. 

It is that the large-scale recapture of the land lost to Russia in 2022 looks less and less likely as the days shorten. Those who invested heavily in a summer offensive against Russia have so far been disappointed. And what then?

The USA is still (wisely) dead set against involving itself directly in the war, so what will break the stalemate? Does this just have to go on and on filling graveyards and doing severe economic damage to Ukraine and Europe? With what aim?

 The average American spends as much as seven hours in front of a screen every day. But according to a study presented at the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) Congress 2023, children who are inactive and have too much screen time may be at risk of developing various heart issues.

 The shores of Italy have been inundated with migrants lately, and it reached a breaking point this week when nearly 7,000 people arrived on the island of Lampedusa in less than 24 hours.

 Plants produce a wide variety of chemicals to ensure their survival. Many of these compounds happen to be beneficial to humans because of their outstanding biological properties.

 A popular smartphone from Apple is now banned in France after regulators there determined that it emits "above-threshold radiation levels."

Elon Musk and Andrew Tate have backed Russell Brand's claims that he is a victim of a 'co-ordinated media attack', as the comedian took to his YouTube channel to 'absolutely deny' what he called 'very serious criminal allegations' made against him.

The video comes ahead of a much-anticipated Channel 4 Dispatches investigation set to air at 9pm tonight, with speculation building over who or what could at the centre of the investigation.

Sources said the long running current affairs documentary series will feature details about a well-known celebrity, which the Mail have been told are shocking.

There is no indication that Brand will feature in the programme, however, last night he made a video address to fans where he insisted any relationships he had 'during his time of promiscuity' were 'consensual'.

 Through the rest of the month, the Panama Canal Authority (ACP) has suspended all bookings for super vessels in an attempt to mitigate the escalating backlog of ships waiting to proceed through the canal to their final destinations.

 Fifth-graders at a Long Island, New York, middle school got an assignment Monday — the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks — that led to the teacher's removal from the classroom.

 Susanna Gibson, a candidate for the Virginia statehouse who solicited money from people online for her to perform sex acts on video with her husband, may have violated Virginia’s prostitution law, two attorneys in the state told The Daily Wire.

 The 2024 Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Homeland Threat Assessment highlighted numerous aspects of the failed policies from President Joe Biden and his administration.

 Under President Joe Biden, the United States Military is far behind its top adversaries — Russia and communist China — in having hypersonic missiles ready for combat use.

 President Joe Biden faced backlash online Thursday afternoon after a video of him went viral saying that the “workers without high school diplomas” in the U.S. are “African American and Hispanic workers.”

 Dove is facing backlash, including from X owner Elon Musk, after it was revealed that the company was partnering in a “fat liberation” campaign with a Black Lives Matter Activist accused of wrecking a white female student’s life with uncorroborated accusations.

 Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm blamed her “fantastic young staff” for blocking an electric vehicle charging station with a gas-powered vehicle earlier this summer, which reportedly resulted in a young family calling the police.

Hundreds of illegal immigrants were released on a street in San Diego, California on Thursday. Three unmarked white buses pulled up along 30th Street near the Iris Avenue Trolley Station and let them loose. According to reports, some of the illegals released in San Diego were from China, Pakistan, and even the Republic of Georgia!

One of the illegals asked a border patrol agent, “Is it ok if I go to Chicago, no arrest?” The Border Patrol agent replied, “You are free to go.”

Many of these illegals are military-aged men, which will guarantee a surge in crimes like theft and assault.

“These are Biden’s buses, not Texas,” Fox News reporter Bill Melugin said.

Female long-haul trucker Maybi Izquierdo said she spent her birthday in jail last year after using her gun to defend herself at home against an aggressive male roommate. 

One year later, her case in California has been dismissed, and she’s reflecting on how the Second Amendment helped protect her from violence and the unexpected. 

"I think I cried," Izquierdo told Fox News Digital of her Sept. 25, 2022 arrest. "I wanted to talk to my mom. I wanted to talk to my dad … and let them know what happened."

Kiev Mayor Vitaly Klitschko on Friday ordered the closure of 74 churches belonging to the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), citing its alleged “direct ties” to the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Klitschko’s decree is similar to that used to seize the Kiev Pechersk Lavra, or Monastery of the Caves, which Ukrainian police stormed last month. The world-famous holy site, which is nearly 1,000 years old, was handed over to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, a rival organization set up by the government in 2018.

The Lavra is technically state property but the church administered it under a 2013 agreement, which Kiev declared null and void earlier this year, claiming that the UOC violated it by having ties to “enemy nation” Russia. Ukrainian courts rejected the UOC’s appeals.