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US Attorney General Merrick Garland defended the Justice Department on Thursday against what he called unfounded attacks and said prosecutions under his leadership were driven by “justice, not politics.”Garland, in an emotional farewell speech to Justice Department employees, also stressed the importance of maintaining the independence of the department from the White House and Congress.   Garland did not specifically mention Donald Trump or the president-elect’s nominee to be his successor as attorney general, Pam Bondi, in his speech. But some of his remarks were clearly aimed at the incoming administration.”I know that you have faced unfounded attacks simply for doing your jobs,” the outgoing attorney general told Justice Department staff. “But the story that has been told by some outside of this building about what has happened inside of it is wrong.”You have worked to pursue justice, not politics.”During his tenure, Garland appointed a special counsel who brought two federal cases against Trump — for seeking to overturn the results of the 2020 election and mishandling classified documents after leaving the White House.Neither case came to trial and both were dropped in line with a Justice Department policy of not prosecuting a sitting president, after Trump won the November election.Trump has threatened to pursue individuals he perceives as his political enemies but Bondi, during her Senate confirmation hearing on Wednesday, pledged that she “will not politicize” the office of attorney general.”I will not target people just because of their political affiliation,” she said. “There will never be an enemies list within the Department of Justice.”Garland said law enforcement decisions should be “based only on the facts and the law” and the Justice Department must maintain its independence from the White House and Congress.”We make that commitment not because independence is necessarily constitutionally required, but because it is the only way to ensure that our law enforcement decisions are free from partisan influence,” he said.”It is the obligation of each of us to adhere to our norms even when — and especially when — the circumstances we face are not normal,” he said.Garland also appeared to have some words of advice for his successor, saying it was incumbent upon the attorney general to ensure that the Justice Department does things “the right way.””The attorney general must ensure that this department seeks justice only with justice,” he said.

David Lynch — the singular and surreal director of “Mulholland Drive” and television’s “Twin Peaks,” who depicted the darkness lurking beneath the wholesome surface of American life — has died. He was 78 years old.An enigmatic artist who turned his hand to arthouse and blockbuster film, television, painting and music, Lynch was considered one of US cinema’s great auteurs.”It is with deep regret that we, his family, announce the passing of the man and the artist, David Lynch,” read a statement on his official Facebook page.The cause and location of death were not specified. Lynch, who lived in Los Angeles, had suffered from emphysema after years of heavy smoking.He emerged on the US indie scene with his creepy 1977 horror “Eraserhead,” and drew both acclaim and a cult following with sadomasochist mystery “Blue Velvet” (1986) and surreal thriller “Mulholland Drive” (2001).But he may be best remembered for his mesmerizing 1990s series “Twin Peaks,” which paved the way for many a prestige television drama.With four Oscar nominations, including a trio of best director nods, the filmmaker recognizable by his shock of white hair took home just one honorary statuette, in 2019.- ‘Fearless’ -Tributes from across Hollywood swiftly poured in.Steven Spielberg called Lynch “a singular, visionary dreamer who directed films that felt handmade,” while fellow director Ron Howard hailed “a gracious man and fearless artist” who “proved that radical experimentation could yield unforgettable cinema.”Kyle MacLachlan, who starred in “Twin Peaks” and several Lynch films, called Lynch “an enigmatic and intuitive man with a creative ocean bursting forth inside of him.””I owe my entire career, and life really, to his vision,” he wrote on Instagram.Born in small-town Montana in 1946, the son of an agricultural research scientist, Lynch travelled extensively around Middle America as a young man.He attended fine arts colleges in Boston and Philadelphia before joining the American Film Institute, where he began work on “Eraserhead.”That was followed by 1980’s “The Elephant Man,” also shot in black-and-white and deeply tragic, but decidedly more mainstream and accessible, earning his first best director Oscar nomination.Based on the diary of Joseph Merrick, the so-called “Elephant Man” born in the United States in 1862 with a condition that gave him a severely deformed physical appearance, it starred Anthony Hopkins and John Hurt.An attempt to adapt sci-fi novel “Dune” in 1984 would be one of Lynch’s less well-received efforts, though it still has its admirers.Lynch pivoted back to his arthouse roots with “Blue Velvet,” about a young man whose discovery of a severed ear leads him to the sinister side of his small town.It starred Isabella Rossellini — whom Lynch dated for several years — and is often heralded as his greatest work, earning a second Academy Award nomination for directing. After winning the Palme d’Or at Cannes with “Wild at Heart” in 1990, Lynch turned to television with “Twin Peaks,” which captivated and shocked Americans from its 1990 launch.The tale of a tight-knit northwestern town reacting to the rape and murder of a popular but troubled high school girl, it was years ahead of its time.But ratings plummeted as the show’s second season lost direction after the purported meddling of ABC executives, and it was cancelled. An even darker 1992 prequel film was initially panned, but is now considered a classic.- ‘Big hole’ -In 2001, Lynch made his second undisputed masterpiece, “Mulholland Drive,” which brought a third best director Oscar nomination.Naomi Watts plays a naive actress who meets a mysterious brunette suffering amnesia, before everything gets inverted in an astonishing twist that has fans arguing over its meaning to this day.Film writer David Thomson called it “one of the greatest films ever made about the cultural devastation caused by Hollywood.”Lynch’s final full-length feature film was 2006’s inscrutable “Inland Empire,” although he returned to the world of “Twin Peaks” with an acclaimed sequel series for cable network Showtime in 2017.But he never retired, continuing to produce short films, music and paintings, and practice his beloved daily transcendental meditation, from his studio and home — appropriately located just outside Hollywood, on Mulholland Drive.He regularly posted whimsical weather updates to YouTube, underlining the optimistic and playful man behind his often troubling art.”There’s a big hole in the world now that he’s no longer with us,” said his family’s statement.”But, as he would say, ‘Keep your eye on the donut and not on the hole.'”

Homeowners in areas of the United States with the highest climate-related risks saw declining access to insurance, a Treasury Department report released Thursday said.Average insurance non-renewal rates were about 80 percent higher for consumers in high-climate-risk areas than for those in the lowest-risk ones, the report found. It showed that “homeowners insurance is becoming more costly and harder to procure for millions of Americans as the costs of climate-related events pose growing challenges,” the department said.The report, providing a view of the homeowners insurance market, comes as a climate-related crisis unfolds in Los Angeles, and with millions across the country rebuilding from the effects of hurricanes and other disasters last year.Los Angeles has been battling deadly wildfires that have killed at least 24, destroyed thousands of buildings, and forced tens of thousands to flee their homes.The “analysis comes at a time of devastating tragedy, loss of life, and destruction from the wildfires in the Los Angeles area,” said Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen in a statement.”While it’s far from clear what the exact financial costs of this disaster will be, it is a stark reminder of the impacts of the growing magnitude of natural disasters on the US economy,” she added.The report, released by the Treasury Department’s Federal Insurance Office, is based on data covering more than 330 insurers on over 246 million homeowners insurance policies, running from 2018 to 2022.Homeowners living in communities hit by “substantial weather events are paying far more than those elsewhere,” the Treasury said.Across the country, homeowners insurance costs have been rising — with average premiums per policy growing 8.7 percent faster than the rate of inflation in the 2018-2022 period.”Data and analysis, like those in this report, are critical for helping policymakers understand how substantial climate-related property losses are being spread across homeowners, insurers, and governments,” said Under Secretary of Domestic Finance Nellie Liang.

Hollywood power couple Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds are being targeted in a $400 million defamation suit by Justin Baldoni, Lively’s co-star on bleak romance “It Ends With Us” — the latest caustic twist in the legal battle engulfing the film.  The suit from Baldoni, who also directed the film, comes weeks after Lively filed a sexual harassment complaint against him, protesting her treatment on set, and then a lawsuit accusing him of launching a retaliatory media campaign against her. The war between the stars was dragged into the spotlight when fans noticed during promotion of the film that they did not follow one another on social media.It soon emerged that Lively had complained of Baldoni’s behavior on the set, accusing him of — among other things — speaking inappropriately about his sex life and seeking to add intimate scenes into the film that she had not previously agreed to. Lively also said lead producer Jamey Heath had watched her while she was topless, despite having been asked to turn away.Then, Lively alleges, Baldoni ignited a PR campaign to smear her and divert attention away from complaints she might make about the men’s alleged actions. Baldoni also sued The New York Times after it published a piece into that alleged smear campaign, including what it said were emails and texts discussing the media outcry. Baldoni countered in the newly filed court documents that Lively hijacked the production of “It Ends With Us” and that she defamed him and, with Reynolds, sought to extort him.”Plaintiffs now have no choice but to fight back armed only with the truth — and the mountain of concrete evidence disproving Lively’s allegations,” the lawsuit alleged. “Heartbreakingly, a film that Baldoni envisioned years ago would honor the survivors of domestic violence by telling their story, with the lofty goal of making a positive impact in the world, has now been overshadowed beyond recognition solely as a result of Lively’s actions and cruelty.”The film, based on the book by Colleen Hoover, touches on issues of domestic violence and abuse.Baldoni’s attorney Bryan Freedman added in a separate statement that “Lively will never again be allowed to continue to exploit actual victims of real harassment solely for her personal reputation gain at the expense of those without power.”

Americans were bracing Thursday for frigid temperatures that forecasters said could produce life-threatening conditions, with Donald Trump’s inauguration expected to be the coldest in 40 years.The bitter weather — tied to an Arctic “polar vortex” blast — is expected to bring nighttime lows as cold as minus 23 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 31 degrees Celsius) over the weekend for some of the northernmost parts of the United States. President-elect Trump, who takes office Monday, will see his swearing-in ceremony in Washington hit by freezing temperatures and winds of up to 30 miles per hour.”It’s going to be pretty gusty,” said Marc Chenard, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service (NWS). He told AFP that a “few inches” of snow is forecast on Sunday in the US capital, which is still blanketed in ice from a winter storm earlier this month.Trump’s inauguration — set to draw more than 200,000 visitors to Washington — will go ahead under chilly conditions of no more than 21 degrees Fahrenheit (minus six degrees Celsius), according to the NWS.If the forecast is correct, US media reported it will be the coldest inauguration since Ronald Reagan’s in 1985, when the temperature was seven degrees Fahrenheit.Chenard said central and eastern parts of the United States would face the most below average temperatures in the coming days, cooled by winds pushed south by a weakening of the polar vortex.The polar vortex is an air mass above the North Pole, located high in the stratosphere. Humans dwell in the troposphere, and the stratosphere is just above it.Chenard added that temperatures “could certainly be life-threatening” for some people who find themselves outdoors during the cold snap due to the risk of hypothermia.While the link between global warming and heat waves is very direct, the behavior of winter storms is governed by complex atmospheric dynamics that are more difficult to study.In December 2022, a fierce winter storm left at least 61 people dead in the United States, with some victims found outside and others in their homes or cars.The latest temperature drop comes two weeks after parts of the country were blanketed by a large swath of snow and ice, contributing to at least five deaths and disrupting travel for millions. Extreme weather has also struck the western United States, with Los Angeles ravaged by wildfires this month that left two dozen people dead and large areas of the city in ruins.Conditions have since eased and firefighters have begun making progress to contain the blazes.

US President-elect Donald Trump named controversial movie legends and long-standing supporters Sylvester Stallone, Mel Gibson and Jon Voight as special envoys to Hollywood on Thursday in a bid to make the entertainment industry “stronger than ever before.”The trio of stars, who have 10 Oscar nominations between them and three wins, stand out in Tinseltown, breaking ranks with the bulk of their colleagues who have long leaned to the Democrats.But all three are as famous for their personal lives as their politics and two — like Trump — have been in very serious scrapes with law enforcement.”It is my honor to announce Jon Voight, Mel Gibson, and Sylvester Stallone, to be Special Ambassadors to a great but very troubled place, Hollywood, California,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. “They will serve as Special Envoys to me for the purpose of bringing Hollywood, which has lost much business over the last four years to Foreign Countries, BACK — BIGGER, BETTER, AND STRONGER THAN EVER BEFORE!”Jon Voight made headlines in 2020 when fellow actor Frank Whaley accused the star of slapping him while they worked on the crime drama Ray Donovan — but his controversies have otherwise mainly been tied to his support of Trump.Gibson, on the other hand, has been plagued by accusations of anti-Semitism, homophobia, racism and domestic violence. He has been on a comeback since being shut out from Hollywood after his 2006 Malibu drunk-driving arrest during which he went on an anti-Jewish rant.The scandal was followed by leaked tapes in 2010 where Gibson used racist slurs against the mother of one of his nine children, Oksana Grigorieva, who later alleged that he was physically abusive. Stallone — who recently called Trump the “second George Washington” — has faced a string of sexual assault allegations, all of which he has denied.In 2018, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office said there was not enough evidence to prosecute the star over allegations that he sexually assaulted a woman in 1987 and 1990.In 2007, Stallone admitted importing 48 vials of banned human growth hormone into Australia. He said he was taking them under doctor’s orders and had not intended to break the law.”These three very talented people will be my eyes and ears, and I will get done what they suggest. It will again be, like The United States of America itself, The Golden Age of Hollywood!” added Trump, who has 34 felony convictions of his own.Trump and the Republicans have traditionally received scant support from the entertainment industry, and a galaxy of stars from Taylor Swift to George Clooney backed Democrat Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election. Underlining the limited impact of star endorsements, Trump sidestepped Hollywood by tapping into a targeted subset of well-known, hypermasculine YouTube influencers.

For seven years, US director David Lynch drank the same chocolate milkshake each day at the same time from the same place in Los Angeles because he believed it helped his creativity.But given the famously weird apparitions in his work, from a human ear in the grass to telephones ringing in empty rooms and dancing dwarves in red suits, his imagination hardly needed to be fired up.From the sadomasochist intrigue “Blue Velvet” (1986) to the lesbian thriller “Mulholland Drive” (2001), Lynch — who has died aged 78 — gained a global cult following with his unsettling portraits of American life. He may be best remembered for his mesmerising network series “Twin Peaks”, which blazed a trail for the prestige television dramas that would follow.”It would be tough to look at the roster of television shows any given season without finding several that owe a creative debt to ‘Twin Peaks’,” said The Atlantic in 2016, hailing his influence on directors from Quentin Tarantino to the Coen brothers.With four Oscar nominations including a trio of best director nods, the filmmaker recognizable by his shock of white hair took home just one honorary statuette, in 2019.- Monstrous attraction -Lynch had a peripatetic childhood, born in Montana on January 20, 1946 but moving around several times as one of five children with a scientist father and teacher mother.He began painting and shooting short films at arts college in Pennsylvania in the 1970s.From the start, his work spotlighted weird and marginal characters: his first feature in 1977 was “Eraserhead”, a grainy black-and-white film about a deformed monstrous baby.Supporting himself with odd jobs, Lynch shot his creepy and now cult classic on a shoestring budget, taking five years because he kept running out of money and had a wife and daughter to support.”A dream of dark and troubling things” is how the then 33-year-old Lynch described “Eraserhead” when it finally appeared, set in the depressed industrial landscape of Philadelphia and infused with an eerie calm that would become one of his hallmarks.Few people who saw it forgot the experience, including another Hollywood master-in-the-making Stanley Kubrick, who expressed admiration.Lynch pursued his penchant for bringing human deformities to the screen in “The Elephant Man”, dramatizing the tragic life of Joseph Merrick, who was born with severe physical deformities.”Loving textures to start off with”, Lynch said about why he was drawn to the subject, “and this idea of going beneath the surface was intriguing to me. There is the surface of this elephant man and beneath the surface is this beautiful soul”.An unrecognisable John Hurt in the title role earned one of the film’s eight Oscar nominations, while Anthony Hopkins played the doctor who befriended Merrick in the years before his death by suicide at the age of 27.The international hit propelled Lynch into the Hollywood limelight, but his star power dimmed after he followed it with a calamitous $40 million flop adaptation of the sci-fi novel “Dune”.- ‘Twin Peaks’ phenomenon -“Blue Velvet” got Lynch back on track — made the same decade he was ritually downing milkshakes — and also marked the beginning of a five-year relationship with the star of the film, Isabella Rossellini.He returned to the A-List in 1990 with arguably his most influential work: “Twin Peaks”. Set in the fictitious town of Twin Peaks in Washington near Canada’s border, Lynch’s tale began with the simple mystery of the young and beautiful Laura Palmer found in a body bag fished out of the lake.But over eight episodes, a quirky normality curdled and the killing became buried under layers of mystery investigated by the endearing FBI agent Dale Cooper, played by frequent Lynch collaborator Kyle MacLachlan.A hit when it first aired on ABC, the show was part of a bumper year for Lynch, who also scooped Cannes’ top prize that year with his road movie “Wild at Heart”.Lynch made a second season of “Twin Peaks” and a spin-off film a year later, before again returning to the world with an acclaimed sequel series for cable network Showtime in 2017.- Meditation and photography -The dark side of the American dream was a Lynchian leitmotif, but he strayed from the theme in “The Straight Story” to tell the true tale of a man who rode his lawnmower from Iowa to Wisconsin to visit his sick brother.In 2006, with the release of “Inland Empire”, a bleak portrait of Tinseltown starring an unhinged Laura Dern as a dejected actress, Lynch called it a day on moviemaking.That year, he also married and then divorced his third wife, Mary Sweeney, a film director and producer who was among his long-time collaborators.In 2009, he wed a fourth time — with the actress Emily Stofle, with whom he had a fourth child.Consumed by his work, he was often absent as a father figure.”You gotta be selfish. And it’s a terrible thing”, Lynch said in 2018 about his parenting skills. “I never really wanted to get married, never really wanted to have children. One thing leads to another and there it is.”In the last decades, the pack-a-day smoker and coffee guzzler explored other mediums from photography and song to becoming a champion of transcendental meditation.

Cuba on Thursday released jailed opposition leader Jose Daniel Ferrer, the dissident’s family confirmed, part of a landmark deal struck with departing US President Joe Biden in return for sanctions relief.”Thank God we have him home,” Nelva Ortega told AFP of her husband, who has been in and out of prison for the past two decades, his latest stint stretching to three-and-a-half years.Ferrer, 54, is the most high-profile of the prisoners that Cuba began releasing Wednesday after Biden agreed to remove the communist island from a list of terrorism sponsors — part of an eleventh-hour bid to cement his legacy before handing power next Monday to Donald Trump.Under the deal, Cuba has promised to release 553 prisoners. So far it has only released about two dozen, according to rights groups. They were mostly people arrested for taking part in mass July 2021 anti-government demonstrations sparked by recurring power outages and food shortages.AFP saw four prisoners emerge from the San Miguel del Padron prison on the outskirts of the capital Havana on Thursday morning. All were jailed for taking part in the 2021 protests.Marlon Brando Diaz, who was serving an 18-year sentence, said he was thankful to “be given a new chance in life.””It’s a new start,” he said, his voice trembling with emotion as he was reunited with waiting family members.Cuba’s removal from Washington’s list of state terrorism sponsors paves the way for increased US investment in the Caribbean island, which has been under a trade embargo for over six decades.In a sign that the thaw may be short-lived, Trump’s pick for secretary of state, Florida Senator Marco Rubio, suggested he could reverse Biden’s decision.The son of Cuban immigrants, Rubio is vociferously critical of that country’s government and said Trump’s incoming administration was not bound by Biden’s policies.”There is zero doubt in my mind that they meet all the qualifications for being a state sponsor of terrorism,” he told his US Senate confirmation hearing on Wednesday.Analysts said Cuba’s drip release of prisoners was aimed at ensuring Trump upholds the deal agreed with Biden when he returns to the White House, with the remaining prisoners acting as Havana’s bargaining chip with the Republican leader.”We’re in a kind of hostage negotiation here,” Michael Bustamante, chair of Cuban studies at the University of Miami, told AFP.- ‘Stayed the course’ -Ferrer, from the eastern province of Santiago, has been in and out of prison for the past 20 years.A fisherman and father of six, he was one of 75 political prisoners sentenced to 25 years imprisonment in 2003, as part of the so-called Black Spring wave of repression unleashed by authorities.He was released in 2011, alongside 130 other political prisoners, following mediation by the Catholic Church, but resisted pressure to go into exile.Later that year, he founded the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU), one of the most active opposition organizations in a one-party state that bans opposition political parties.He was re-arrested on July 11, 2021, after trying to join the biggest protests since the communist revolution that brought Fidel Castro to power in 1959.A month later, he was sent back to prison to finish serving a term of four-and-a-half years imposed in 2020 on charges that included beating a man, which he denies.His imprisonment has been a point of contention between Havana and Washington, which along with the European Union and the Catholic Church has regularly called for his liberation.Bustamante described his release as “pretty big” news.”He is someone who has stayed the course,” Bustamante said, noting his “long history of political activism.”

Donald Trump on Thursday unveiled his official photo as the 47th US president — an image that bears a striking resemblance to his viral 2023 mug shot.In the new photo, the soon-to-be commander-in-chief is leaning slightly forward and looking defiantly at the camera, an eyebrow furrowed and lips sealed —  a pose which drew comparisons with the picture taken of him in an Atlanta prison as he was facing charges of trying to overturn the 2020 election.Unlike the mug shot, where Trump is wearing his trademark red tie, this time around the tie is blue, and there is an American flag pin on the lapel of his navy blue jacket.A year and a half ago, after being released from jail on a $200,000 bond, Trump posted his mug shot on X with the caption “NEVER SURRENDER!”The post marked the Republican billionaire’s return to the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, where his membership was suspended following the violent assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, by his supporters.He was reinstated on the platform shortly after Elon Musk, world’s richest man and now Trump’s political ally, acquired the company.Trump, who called the election interference case a “witch hunt,” used the mug shot to raise funds for his election campaign. T-shirts, mugs, stickers and beverage coolers bearing the image — arguably now the most famous photo of a US president in the country’s history — brought in millions of dollars. Trump returns to the White House on Monday stronger than ever, despite his status as the first felon to be elected US president after being convicted in a separate case of covering up hush money payments to a porn star.

The US Federal Reserve could cut rates three or four times this year if inflation data cooperates, with a first cut possible before July, a senior bank official said Thursday. Headline consumer inflation rose for a third straight month in December as energy prices jumped, according to data published Wednesday, but a widely watched measure eased slightly, raising hopes that underlying inflation may be moderating.”The inflation that we got yesterday was very good,” Fed governor Christopher Waller told CNBC, noting that underlying price pressures excluding volatile food and energy costs had been close to target on a monthly basis. The US central bank has been paring back interest rates in recent months, cutting by a full percentage point since September to bolster the labor market. But in recent months, headline inflation has ticked higher, raising concerns that the Fed may have to pause further cuts throughout much of 2025. At the most recent rate decision in December, Fed policymakers voted to cut rates by a quarter percentage-point to between 4.25 and 4.50, and penciled in just two rate cuts this year. Waller, who is a permanent voting member of the Fed’s rate-setting committee told CNBC that he could support lowering rates as many as four times this year, depending on the data. “I may be a little more optimistic about inflation coming down than the rest of my colleagues,” he said, adding that if the data didn’t “cooperate”, the Fed may be back to cutting just once or twice this year. Asked about the timing of cuts, Waller said if the data came in as he expected, it was “reasonable” to think rate cuts could come in the first half of the year. He also refused to rule out supporting a cut as soon as the Fed’s March rate decision, if the data supported it. “I can certainly see rate cuts happening sooner than maybe the markets are pricing in,” he said. Futures traders assign a roughly 70 percent chance that the Fed will remain on pause through the March rate decision, and a roughly 80 percent probability of no more than two cuts this year, according to data from CME Group. – Tariff inflation shock unlikely -Waller was also asked about the likely impact of President-elect Donald Trump’s tariff proposals, which included threats to impose sweeping tariffs of as much as 20 percent on all goods entering the United States. Many economists have said these policies could push up prices, at least in the short term, while Trump and his allies have either dismissed these concerns, or insisted that any pressures would be counteracted by other policies, including energy deregulation.”I don’t think tariffs are going to have a significant impact or persistent effect on inflation,” Waller said. “But we’ll just have to wait and see what happens.”He said most of the analysts on Wall Street estimate that Trump’s tariff plans would have “some marginal effect and short-lived effect on prices,” but that it would not lead to “persistent” inflation.