Multi-platinum Canadians Finger Eleven will release their first album in a decade next year - we asked what they've been doing in the meantime

Trump, the new GOP president-elect, has selected former Republican Representative Lee Zeldin to serve as EPA administrator in his new cabinet. 

RFK Jr. knows where the problems are at NIH, and he’s ready to fire 600 of them. “We need to act fast, and we want to have those people in place on Jan. 20, so that on Jan. 21, 600 people are going to walk into offices at NIH and 600 people are going to […] The post Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Wants to Fire 600 People at NIH appeared first on www.independentsentinel.com.

Sen. Marco Rubio will become Secretary of State. The report comes via the New York Times. Sources told them Donald Trump is expected to name Senator Marco Rubio of Florida as his secretary of state. He could change his mind, but the three sources said he appears to have settled on Mr. Rubio. He had […] The post Rep. Waltz Will Be the NSA, Rubio Secretary of State, Potentially Patel for CIA appeared first on www.independentsentinel.com.

Residents of a small Florida city were shocked to find out their homes were skipped by federal relief workers because of a directive from a FEMA supervisor telling them to bypass the homes of people with Trump flags or signs.  Reactions poured in from Lake Placid residents after they learned that a now-fired FEMA supervisor had instructed relief workers to “avoid homes advertising Trump” as they canvassed the community in the aftermath of Hurricane Milton. Whistleblowers told The Daily Wire, which first reported on the guidance, that at least 20 homes were skipped from late October and into early November because of the directive.  Angela Wrench, whose property was damaged by tornadoes caused by Hurricane Milton last month, said it was wrong that her home was skipped because of the Trump flag in her yard.  “I think it’s horrible. I think it’s a horrible thing that anybody thought that was OK,” Wrench told local outlet WFLA. “We pay our taxes. We have just as much right to that money as anyone. It shouldn’t have anything to do with our political beliefs, none whatsoever.” Wrench said that FEMA showed up to her house on Saturday, a day after The Daily Wire report was published.  “I said ‘you are here because of the news, correct?’ They didn’t want to answer right away but one of them did finally say ‘yes, we’re just here trying to make things right’,” she told WFLA.  Jack Wolfe, another resident of Lake Placid, said that relief decisions should not be made for political reasons.  “It was disappointing. I know that there’s a lot of people with a lot of emotions when it comes to this time of year for election and I don’t think it should matter how you voted or who you are,” Wolfe told WFLA.  FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell announced Saturday that Marn’i Washington, the employee who issued the guidance, had been fired and that the agency believed it was an “isolated incident.”  Local and federal officials were quick to condemn the actions of Washington. Lake Placid is located in Highlands County, which voted 70% for Trump in last week’s election.  Congressman Scott Franklin, who represents Lake Placid, called the guidance “utterly disgusting” and told his constituents to call his office if they had issues with FEMA.  “I commend the individual who had the courage to bring this to light, as well as FEMA for taking swift action to terminate the supervisor who instructed disaster relief workers in Highlands County to ‘avoid’ assisting pro-Trump homes,” he said.  “FEMA must conduct a full investigation,” he added. “Similar reports have surfaced across the state, and those responsible must be held accountable. The agency must take immediate action to ensure this never happens again.” Highlands County commissioner Chris Campbell said that residents of Lake Placid would be receiving more visits from FEMA. “For a supervisor of FEMA to do that, I think it was just appalling. It shocked everyone,” Campbell said. “They’re going to knock on every door, whether they applied for assistance or not, whether they received it or not and just go through the process.” Investigations at the state and federal level have been launched into FEMA and Criswell has been asked to speak in front of the House Oversight Committee on November 19.

MSNBC’s and CNN’s ratings plummeted after President-elect’s Donald Trump’s landslide victory against Vice President Kamala Harris was announced in the early morning hours on Wednesday after the election. According to Nielsen data, the viewership on MSNBC on Thursday, analyzing Trump’s win, brought in a total for all day of 596,000 viewers — and in the coveted age demographic, of ages 25-54, a total of 71,000 viewers, Mediaite reported. Over on CNN, coverage of Trump’s election victory throughout the day on Thursday brought in 419,000 total viewers and in the key age demographic, just 91,000 viewers. Primetime coverage for both networks was even worse, with MSNBC host Alex Wagner experiencing her lowest-rated show ever and Chris Hayes’ show scoring its worst audience since May of 2016, the outlet noted. Year over year, MSNBC’s numbers were also down 23 percent, while CNN’s audience was down 40 percent. Meanwhile, wall to wall election coverage of Trump and his electoral and popular win was a boom for Fox News — whose viewership on Thursday was around 2.6 million, with 375,000 viewers watching from the key age demo. The audience for Fox News was up by more than 60 percent compared to a year prior, the outlet noted. MSNBC Ratings Crater As Viewers Tune Out Trump Victory Coverage https://t.co/EN3NY0oCYu — Mediaite (@Mediaite) November 11, 2024 Election night coverage — between 8-11 p.m. EST  — on Tuesday gave MSNBC its first ratings victory ever over CNN, whose audience was basically cut in half to 5.1 million, from the audience it had in 2020 of 9.6 million.  However, both networks failed to even come close to the monster viewership Fox News had on Tuesday, of 10.3 million during the primetime hours. ABC, NBC, and CBS also experienced a drop in viewers from the audience they had for their election night coverage of then-President Trump and Joe Biden in 2020, the Hollywood Reporter reported. ABC’s audience on Tuesday of 5.9 million viewers was a drop of 6 percent from where viewership was four years ago.  By that same token, NBC also experienced a slight drop from 2020 of five percent to 5.51 million viewers for coverage of Trump and Harris election.  However, CBS was the hardest hit of the three networks, when its election night coverage on Tuesday experienced a drop of 20 percent to 3.61 million compared to where it was in 2020 for its election broadcast.

On Monday, Republicans were projected to keep control of the House nearly one week after Election Day, completing a 2024 sweep that also included the GOP winning the Senate and President-elect Donald Trump securing another term in the White House. Decision Desk HQ (DDHQ) said it determined at 7:13 p.m. ET that Republicans would take at least 218 seats, just enough for the majority, just as Rep. Juan Ciscomani (R-AZ) was projected to win re-election. A handful of races have yet to be called, so the final makeup of the lower chamber — which has 435 voting members — was not immediately clear. As of press time, Democrats had taken 209 seats. Republicans face the prospect of grappling with another slim majority. GOP leadership elections in the House are expected to take place on Wednesday. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) is also running to stay put, though whoever gets the gavel will be determined by the entire House, likely in January. House Democrats are slated to hold their leadership elections next week. RELATED: Mike Johnson Running Again For Speaker, Readies GOP’s ‘Biggest Offense Of Our Lives’ House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) sent a letter to GOP colleagues last week, seeking their support for another stint in his leadership role and laying out a “First 100-Day Agenda” that aligns with Trump’s agenda on tax cuts, energy, and border security. One immediate issue that has arisen, as Trump picked Reps. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) and Mike Waltz (R-FL) to be his U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and national security adviser, respectively, would be to select their replacements through special elections in what the New York Times said were safe districts for the GOP. DDHQ previously called the Senate for the Republicans just before midnight on Election Day and — as of Monday evening — it said the GOP had a net gain of three seats, leaving Republicans with 52 seats while the Democrats and the independents who caucus will have 47 members. The one Senate race DDHQ has not called is the contest in Pennsylvania. With more than 95% of the vote counted, it showed Republican challenger Dave McCormick leading Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA) by 3,370,959-3,335,896 votes or 49%-48.5%. However, the Associated Press did already call the race in favor of McCormick, and the Republican declared victory. Casey, who is seeking a fourth term, so far has refused to concede the race while there were still ballots left to count.

“Yellowstone” fans took to social media to make it clear they are furious with the way Kevin Costner’s character Governor John Dutton was written off the show when the final season premiered on Sunday. In the first 30 seconds of the hit Paramount series, fans learned that creator Taylor Sheridan apparently didn’t have plans for any kind of heroic ending for its leading man for the second half of Season 5 — two years after the first half of the season debuted, and a year after fans learned that Costner wouldn’t be part of the series any longer. Spoiler ahead: The series opened with Dutton’s daughter Beth (played by Kelly Reilly) driving up to the Governor’s mansion and getting out crying. When she and her brother, Kaycee (Luke Grimes), both finally get past the authorities, fans see a blood splatter on a bathroom wall and a partial view of Costner’s character in his boxers with a gun next to his hand.  His death is initially portrayed as suicide, but in a short amount of time we learn there’s much more going on with his death, which is likely a murder. John Dutton deserved to go out like a gladiator, not a victim. Completely undoes the series. I’m not a fan at all how #Yellowstone handled Costner’s departure. pic.twitter.com/mECsM6gluf — @Matthew Betley (@MatthewBetley) November 11, 2024 However, many disgusted with the exit of the fan favorite let producers know on social media, Fox News reported. “Yellowstone has its first episode without Kevin Costner and they already ruined it in the first 5 minutes,” one person wrote. Another added, “John Dutton deserved to go out like a gladiator, not a victim. Completely undoes the series. I’m not a fan at all how #Yellowstone handled Costner’s departure.” A third person went on an expletive-filled rant, writing, “Waited 2 years for a new episode just to watch 3 minutes and change the channel. F**k you Taylor Sheridan, and f**k you [Kevin Costner] for not settling your differences.” A fourth person wrote, “John Dutton was a fantastic character, and despite the Kevin Costner drama, he deserved a better goodbye than Yellowstone gave him.” The “Waterworld” star previously told GQ that a scheduling conflict had nothing to do with his departure from the series amid reports that blamed him for halting production on the second half of the season due to filming for his western movie “Horizon: An American Saga-Chapter 1,” followed by the writers’ and actors’ strikes, as previously reported. Costner said he offered options for killing off his character so he could make both work, saying, “‘Well, if you want to kill me, if you want to do something like that,’ I said, ‘I have a week before I start. I’ll do what you want to do.’” The “Dances with Wolves” star said despite everything that has happened, he was open to returning to the series, Deadline noted. Paramount later released a statement to Fox News about Costner’s GQ comments and said, “Kevin has been a big part of ‘Yellowstone’s’ success,” while wishing him the best. Related: Kevin Costner Talks Killing Off ‘Yellowstone’ Character As Season 5 Production Finally Gets Underway