📌 Trump Conviction Was Likely, Peace In Gaza? More

Donald Trump would have been convicted for attempting to overturn the 2020 election, Jack Smith, special counsel, said.

Smith, who indicted the former and future president, said in his final report on the case submitted to Congress today, that his re-election altered that from happening.

Trump was charged by Smith with four felony counts in August 2023 for his efforts to maintain power following his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden.

However, amid litigation, the special counsel was forced to move to dismiss the case after Trump defeated Vice President Kamala Harris in November. In doing so, Smith cited the long-held Justice Department policy that, based on the Constitution, forbids the prosecution of a sitting president.

Following litigation over releasing the final report on the case, the 150-page document, obtained by

The New York Times

, was submitted to Congress early Tuesday, meticulously detailing the case built against Trump.

“But for Trump's election and imminent return to the Presidency, the Office assessed that the admissible evidence was sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction at trial,” Smith wrote in the document.

Negotiators meet in Doha today seeking to finalize details of a plan to end the war in Gaza.

President Joe Biden said a ceasefire and hostage release deal he has championed was on "the brink" of coming to fruition. “The deal ... would free the hostages, halt the fighting, provide security to Israel, and allow us to significantly surge humanitarian assistance to the Palestinians," Biden said.

Mediators gave Israel and Hamas a final draft of an agreement on Monday, an official briefed on the negotiations said, after a midnight 'breakthrough' in talks attended by envoys of both the outgoing US president and President-elect Donald Trump.

If successful, the deal would cap over a year of start-and-stop talks and lead to the biggest release of Israeli hostages since the early days of the conflict, when Hamas freed about half of its prisoners in exchange for 240 Palestinian detainees held by Israel.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the ball was in Hamas' court. Hamas said it was keen to reach a deal to end the fighting. An Israeli official said negotiations were in advanced stages for the release of up to 33 hostages as part of the deal.

TikTok denied a report China is looking at potentially selling the app to Elon Musk to keep TikTok operational in the US.

On Monday, Bloomberg reported “Chinese officials are evaluating a potential option that involves Elon Musk acquiring the US operations of TikTok” if an American law goes into effect that would require parent company ByteDance to divest its TikTok stake or effectively ban the app in the US.

Under “one scenario” discussed by the Chinese government, X would “take control of TikTok US and run the businesses together,” according to the Bloomberg report, noting it is “unclear whether Musk, TikTok, and ByteDance have held any talks about the terms of any possible deal.”

“We can’t be expected to comment on pure fiction,” a TikTok rep said.

TikTok is in danger of being outlawed in the US under a law set to take effect on Jan. 19, unless the Supreme Court issues a ruling stopping it. On Jan. 10, it heard arguments seeking to block the law, with TikTok and ByteDance arguing the law violates the First Amendment rights of its 170 million US users.

But the justices seemed to lean toward being more receptive to the government’s position — that TikTok represents a national security threat, as it falls under the jurisdiction of the Chinese Communist Party.

A study finds that developing dementia among Americans older than 55 is over twice the risk reported by older studies.

That dementia risk translates into an estimated half-million cases this year, rising to 1 million cases a year by 2060, according to the new work. The study authors attribute the previous underestimates to unreliable documentation of the illness in health records and on death certificates.

Dementia involves progressive declines in memory, concentration, and judgment. The increasing cases are tied to the aging of the US population. A high risk of dementia is linked to genetic factors, high rates of hypertension and diabetes, obesity, unhealthy diets, lack of exercise, and poor mental health.

The study relies on information gathered from the ongoing Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Neurocognitive Study, which, since 1987, has closely tracked the vascular health and cognitive function of nearly 16,000 participants as they age.

The study concludes from 1987–2020, 3,252 participants were documented as having developed dementia. This translates to an overall lifetime risk for dementia among middle-aged Americans of 42%. Another key finding was that the lifetime risk of dementia increases to over 50% among those who reach age 75

The study results forecast a dramatic rise in the burden of dementia in the US over the coming decades, with one in two Americans expected to experience cognitive difficulties after 55.

Researchers have discovered an underground aquifer in Oregon’s Cascade Range that contains a massive volume of water.

Researchers from the University of Oregon mapped the underground water reserves beneath the volcanic rocks at the crest of the central Oregon Cascades. They discovered an aquifer holding at least 21 trillion gallons.

The volume is nearly three times the maximum capacity of Lake Mead, the depleted reservoir on the Colorado River that supplies water to California, Arizona, and Nevada. It also holds over half the volume of Lake Tahoe.

“This region has been handed a geological gift, but we are only beginning to understand it,” said Gordon Grant, a geologist with the Forest Service.

“In conducting this basic research, we discovered … the incredible volume of water in active storage in the Cascades and also how the movement of water and the hazards posed by volcanoes are linked together,” Grant said.

At least 16 civilians mistaken for criminal gangs in Nigeria's north-western Zamfara State were killed in a military air strike.

Residents told local media the victims were members of local vigilante groups and civilians defending themselves from armed gangs notorious for kidnapping people for ransom. The Nigerian Air Force (NAF) said it was investigating "reports of vigilante losses”.

“While the operation successfully eliminated several bandits and led to the recovery of some kidnap victims, the NAF views with grave concern reports of the loss of civilian lives in the course of the operation,” it said in a statement.

Rights group Amnesty International Nigeria put the death toll at 20 and said dozens of others were injured in the attack on Tunga Kara village and called on authorities to “immediately and impartially” investigate the incident.

“Launching air raids is not a legitimate law enforcement method by anyone's standard. Such reckless use of deadly force is unlawful, outrageous and lays bare the Nigerian military's shocking disregard for the lives of those it supposedly exists to protect," it said in a statement.

A man recreated a scene from

The Wedding Singer

and proposed to his girlfriend mid-flight — with flight attendant’ help.

Sam Riber and Lissy Alden were traveling to Mexico on Lissy’s birthday when Sam proposed on their flight just like Adam Sandler’s character Robbie did in

The Wedding Singer

— he serenades his love, Julia, with the song

Grow Old With You

while on an airplane.

Sam managed to smuggle a ukulele onto the plane without his girlfriend knowing and worked with flight attendants to create codewords to pull off the surprise.

Halfway through their flight from Charlotte, North Carolina, Sam serenaded Lissy with the song and proposed, getting an almighty ‘Yes!’ in response.

The couple are movie buffs. “We’ve sung versions of that song to each other because we often quote or act out movies to entertain each other, but she had no clue about my wider plan,” he said.