NTD News Today

FBI Director Kash Patel announced Friday that a Chinese researcher on a J-1 visa in the United States has been charged with smuggling E. coli into the country and making false statements.President Donald Trump will travel to North Carolina on Friday, seeking to convince Americans that his handling of the economy is sound ahead of a midterm election year.

The annual inflation rate in the United States slowed sharply to 2.7 percent in November, suggesting price pressures are cooling even as tariff-related costs continue to filter through the economy.Trump Media & Technology Group will merge with a nuclear fusion power company in an all-stock deal that the companies said on Thursday is valued at more than $6 billion.

Warner Bros Discovery's board rejected Paramount Skydance's $108.4 billion hostile bid on Wednesday, saying it failed to provide adequate financing assurances. The board said it found Paramount's offer "inferior" to the merger agreement with Netflix.The House Judiciary Committee is questioning former special counsel Jack Smith behind closed doors on Wednesday. Smith's deposition is regarding his two prosecutions of President Donald Trump over alleged mishandling of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort and actions challenging the results of the 2020 presidential election. Smith has continually denied that his work was politically motivated and has said that he is willing to testify publicly.

Congress continues investigating a September strike that hit a drug boat in the Caribbean. Secretary of war Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and others briefed members of the House and the Senate on Tuesday. Hegseth says video of the strike will be shown to the House and Senate Armed Services Committees Wednesday, but the full video will not be released to the public.U.S. economy added 64,000 new jobs last month following a decline of 105,000 in October, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. November’s jobless rate rose to 4.6 percent—the highest since September 2021— from 4.4 percent in September.

Hollywood actor and director Rob Reiner and his wife were confirmed dead after an apparent double homicide at their home in Los Angeles on Dec. 14. The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) said in a statement that two people were found dead at Reiner’s home in the Brentwood neighborhood and that homicide detectives are involved in the investigation.Jimmy Lai, a former newspaper publisher and one of Hong Kong’s most outspoken critics of the Chinese Communist Party, has been convicted in a national security trial—a case that has drawn international scrutiny amid Hong Kong’s continued erosion of freedoms. Lai, who has pleaded not guilty to all three charges, will be sentenced at a later date. He could face life in prison. Lai was arrested in August 2020 and has been imprisoned for more than 1,800 days since being charged in December 2020.