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President Donald Trump doesn’t often give Democrats much credit.
But in an interview Thursday, he praised Democrat Scott Colom, who defeated Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R) in Mississippi in the midterms, for meeting with voters outside a Trump rally last month.
“I heard it the other day, where I had a rally there, and we had lines that went 10 miles long, and he campaigned on that line, telling everybody on the line what a good job he did,” Trump said during an interview on Stephen A. Smith’s “Straight Shooter” podcast. “I give him a lot of credit for that.”
Colom made reaching out to Trump supporters central to his campaign in Mississippi, reflecting how the state has consistently voted for Republicans and backed Trump by 22 percentage points in the 2024 presidential election. Colom’s visit to the Trump rally gained widespread attention online.
“What are you expecting? I’ve never been to a Trump rally,” Colom asked people in line. “What matters to you as a veteran right now?” he asked one man, who told him about gun rights. Other voters told him they were worried about high gas prices and the Iran war.
“I walked the Trump rally line to listen, not make assumptions. I talked with voters, asked questions and heard what matters to them,” Colom wrote about his interactions.
For weeks, the weather community has been buzzing about an unusual phenomenon unfolding one atmospheric layer above us in the stratosphere.
It’s called a sudden stratospheric warming and involves temperatures rising rapidly and winds weakening significantly some 20 miles above the North Pole.
These warming events are most common during winter, but they can sometimes can happen in late fall or early spring — and right now, the earliest one on record is occurring, among records dating to 1958.
This warming is destabilizing the polar vortex and has caused it to stretch beyond its typical length. The vortex normally keeps frigid air locked up near the pole, but this disturbance could unleash it southward into areas where more people live.
That would only happen if stratospheric patterns filter down to the troposphere, which is the atmospheric layer where weather takes shape. Meteorologists liken this atmospheric-filtering process to “dripping paint.”
Late last November, a stratospheric warming event quickly dripped from the stratosphere to the troposphere, influencing a cold and snowy stretch across the United States that lasted for a month or two.
This year, the influence of this polar vortex disruption is looking less concrete, though some meteorologists are increasingly flagging the potential for it to play some role in U.S. weather patterns from late November into December.
However, its effects could be muted by a record El Niño, which has fueled an exceptionally mild start to November across much of the country.
If the polar vortex unleashes even a brief surge of icy air into the U.S., it would probably increase the chances for a blockbuster winter storm or two before the end of the year — especially when combined with El Niño’s heightened levels of atmospheric moisture.
Sam Hartman, a 27-year-old quarterback on the Washington Commanders’ practice squad, will be the next star of ABC’s “The Bachelor.”
Hartman, who will be asked to date 20 to 30 women at once before choosing a fiancée, said Friday on “Good Morning America” that he’s “very nervous.”
“I have a tough time holding conversation with one girl,” he said. “30 is going to be pretty tough.”
Hartman set various school records while playing college football at Wake Forest. In 2022, he was diagnosed with Paget-Schroetter syndrome and received the ACC’s Brian Piccolo Award for courage. He transferred to Notre Dame for his final season in 2023.
Hartman signed with the Commanders as an undrafted free agent in 2024. He has not yet appeared in a regular season game, spending most of his time on the team’s practice squad.
Asked what he looks for in a partner, Hartman said he likes “competitiveness.” He continued, “They have a drive for something that motivates me to wake up every day and chase them.”
His casting came after ABC pulled Taylor Frankie Paul’s season of “The Bachelorette” three days before its debut in the wake of domestic abuse reports. Season 30 of “The Bachelor” will premiere March 21 on ABC.
Sweet potatoes aren’t just for holiday dinners.
Beyond a marshmallow crown, they seemingly can do it all, including main courses, salads and even desserts. And their flavor offers loads of options, too — the vitamin-packed tubers’ earthy sweetness works just as well with the heat of chili powder as it does with baking spices.
Celebrate the sweet potato every day with these recipes. And if those don’t hit the sweet (potato) spot, you’ll find more here and in The Washington Post’s vast recipe database.
Loaded Sweet Potatoes With Chili Black Beans (pictured above): Potatoes sub for tacos when topped with all kinds of Tex-Mex fillings, such as cilantro and pickled jalapeños. (You can get creative with whatever condiments and bits of vegetables you have in your fridge, and do a taco-bar-style serving setup.) This hearty dish is a meal in itself.
Sweet Potato Salad With Orange-Maple Dressing: This side dish can be a vibrant accompaniment to a holiday meal, but you don’t need to wait for a special occasion to break it out. The ingredients both lean into the potatoes’ sweetness (that’s a job for raisins and maple) and serve as a foil for it (think zesty orange and verdant parsley).
Sweet Potato Spice Cake: Molasses and baking spices are classic companions in this Bundt cake, which is so beloved by readers that it made our hall-of-fame lineup. You can swap in a can of pumpkin puree if you have one left over from holiday pies.
ZAPORIZHZHIA, Ukraine — President Volodymyr Zelensky reported that problems with the Ukrainian military’s Starlink satellite service persisted Friday, just days after Ukrainian, Russian and U.S. negotiators met for trilateral talks in Abu Dhabi — indicating that the latest diplomatic rift between Washington and Kyiv is far from over.
“Unfortunately, along the entire front line and in the temporarily occupied territory of Ukraine, the speed limit for our forces remains at 161 kilometers per hour (100 miles per hour), which makes it impossible, among other things, to use interceptors against jet-powered ‘Shahed’ drones,” Zelensky wrote in a post on social media. “There are still no clear explanations.”
According to the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, the speed limit was imposed on occupied Ukrainian territory — where Ukraine carries out midrange strikes against Russian forces using drones connected to Starlink — but not on the territory that is controlled by Ukraine. The ministry said Friday that it had reached out to SpaceX and the U.S. Defense Department to seek an explanation and resolve the situation.
A commander from the Lazar’s Group battalion leading midrange strikes from Ukraine’s southern front confirmed to The Washington Post that his unit had been impacted by the speed restrictions, which apparently resurfaced Thursday after initial disruptions began last month.
U.S. senators have called for an investigation into the Trump administration and Elon Musk, who owns Starlink parent company SpaceX, over the restrictions in Ukraine.
Just three months after Mauricio Pochettino signed up for another four-year cycle as U.S. men’s soccer coach, the Argentine is departing to take over troubled English power Manchester United.
U.S. Soccer confirmed Pochettino’s exit Friday morning before the 54-year-old coach addressed the media from the federation’s training center in Fayetteville, Georgia.
“It was a really tough decision,” Pochettino said. “I think the federation is in great hands, and I think you have everything — the capacity, the knowledge and the power and the country behind [you] — that can be amazing in the future.”
Pochettino will coach the Americans through two Concacaf Nations League games against Haiti in the coming days before taking over a storied United club that hasn’t won the Premier League since 2013 and sits 18th out of 20 teams this season.
His early departure wasn’t entirely unexpected: When U.S. Soccer hired Pochettino in September 2024, it was widely assumed the decorated manager — formerly of Tottenham, Paris Saint-Germain and Chelsea — would leave when his initial contract expired after the 2026 World Cup.
Although the federation would have preferred to retain Pochettino’s services long term, the timing of his exit — 3½ years before the next World Cup — provides plenty of time for the next coach to find his footing. And Pochettino, who became the winningest U.S. men’s coach in World Cup history this summer, laid the groundwork for success by raising the program’s profile and implementing an aggressive, attractive style of play that the Americans’ youthful core can carry forward.
President Donald Trump defended the U.S. war against Iran in a pair of interviews that aired Thursday evening, falsely claimed that no American troops had been killed in the past five months and said he hasn’t escalated the conflict at the request of other countries in the Middle East.
Trump told “The Hugh Hewitt Show” that “nobody’s been killed in the last five months.”
“We haven’t lost a soldier in five months, and we control the Gulf,” he said.
The Pentagon has reported the deaths of 23 deaths American service members in the Middle East during the war with Iran, 11 deaths from enemy fire and 12 in nonhostile circumstances. In July, three soldiers died in an enemy attack on an air base in Jordan, another died during a controlled drone detonation at an air base in Iraq and a Navy captain died during an emergency landing in the Arabian Sea.
In a separate interview, Trump told Stephen A. Smith that he could end the war swiftly but has not because neighboring countries have asked him not to escalate the conflict. He said the countries were “tremendous investors” in the United States and they “would rather have me do it the way I’m doing it now.”
“I could end it immediately, but at the request of the nations that I’m looking to protect, we are doing it a little bit longer way,” Trump said. “All of them would much prefer the waiting period. … So, they’ve asked me to do that. … I’m not sure I agree with it.”
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