Defense Secretary nominee Pete Hegseth appears poised to at least make it to his confirmation hearing early next year after a round of meetings with key GOP senators have avoided raising any overt red flags.

The topic of "aliens" -- as in extraterrestrials -- led the trends on X on Wednesday. Some 44,400 posts mentioning aliens appeared by late afternoon, along with 5,838 posts centered on unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAPs. One state in particular was part of this phenomenon: New Jersey, site of recent mystery "drone activity" in the last week.

The House approved a key defense bill Wednesday that extends a big pay raise to junior troops, while overcoming Democratic objections to a prohibition on the use of military health insurance for gender dysphoria treatments for transgender youth.

The political left is giving Luigi Mangione the Che Guevera treatment.

Sen. John Fetterman advocated for President-elect Donald Trump in his first Truth Social post, calling for Mr. Trump to be pardoned of the conviction from the New York hush-money case.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken personally apologized Wednesday to the families of 13 U.S. troops killed by a suicide bomber during America's disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, but said the withdrawal itself has not turned out as badly as his critics had feared.

House Oversight Chair James Comer on Wednesday renewed his push to include his measure meant to woo the Washington Commanders back to the District in the current negotiations on a year-end funding deal to keep the government open.

Senate Democrats on Wednesday failed to guarantee their party retains control of the National Labor Relations Board for the first two years of the Trump administration, as two of their former party members blocked a key nominee.