State Department glow up: Secretary of State Marco Rubio is shuttering the Biden administration’s Office of Palestinian Affairs (OPA), “a Biden-era creation that elevated relations with the Palestinian Authority,” our Adam Kredo scoops. The move aims to restore “the Trump administration’s first-term vision for a unified U.S. diplomatic mission in Israel’s capital” and eliminates what critics have described as a de facto Palestinian consulate in Jerusalem.
“The office repeatedly earned the ire of Republican lawmakers for its anti-Israel advocacy during the Biden-Harris administration,” Kredo reports. “In the early hours of Hamas’s October 7 attack, the OPA called on Israel to stand down and forgo any retaliation.”
The OPA “has come under fire in the past for its potential violation of the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995,” which mandates a single U.S. embassy in Israel. Rubio’s directive also eliminates the position of Special Envoy to the Palestinians. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out!
READ MORE: Marco Rubio To Close State Department’s De Facto Palestinian Embassy
What vibe shift? The Pulitzer board handed out prizes this week—we forgive you if you’re a normal, well-adjusted person who missed the big event—and it turns out the media still hasn’t gotten the memo about the post-2024 political landscape.
“The winners of this year’s Pulitzer Prizes, announced Monday, suggest the media remain as determined as ever to advance their radical left-wing political agenda despite the fact that most Americans find it weird and obnoxious,” writes our Andrew Stiles.
Among the honorees: a “reconsideration” of Huckleberry Finn from the slave’s perspective, a “musical call to action” on climate change, and a “Palestinian” poet who told NPR the media should “stop talking about Hamas.” Feature writing honors went to a journalist who covered a mayor’s suicide after being exposed for posting erotic fiction and pornography, including images of children from his own town, on social media.
Doug Mills of the New York Times, meanwhile, won for his dramatic photos of Trump during his 2024 assassination attempt—images that several journalists feared could be used by the Trump campaign to “further their agenda.”
No reporting on former president Joe Biden’s decline—and the White House’s attempts to conceal it—received an award.
READ MORE: What Vibe Shift? Pulitzer Prize Board Affirms Media’s Obsession With Woke Politics
Fanigate rolls on: When Fulton County DA and cash hoarder Fani Willis fired a member of her executive staff, Amanda Timpson, after Timpson blew the whistle on improper spending, Willis alleged that Timpson had physically threatened her colleagues. Our Andrew Kerr obtained a recording of that meeting, however, and it shows “the alleged threats of physical violence appear to be fabrications by Willis’s deputy chief of staff.”
“The recordings, reported here for the first time, add to a growing body of evidence that Willis is running an office rife with dysfunction,” writes Kerr. Timpson alleges in a whistleblower lawsuit that Willis “embarked on a retaliatory campaign to destroy her reputation” after she informed the district attorney “that one of Willis’s top aides had tried to misappropriate federal funds for ‘swag’ and computers.” Lawmakers in the House, Senate, and Georgia state legislature opened investigations into those claims last year following a Free Beacon report, and Timpson’s attorneys expect her case to go to trial as soon as July.
“Timpson’s case could mark yet another embarrassing setback for Willis. The liberal darling was a rising star in the progressive legal world when she indicted President Donald Trump on state racketeering charges in 2023. She proved to be her own worst enemy, however, and the case derailed last year after an attorney for Trump discovered the district attorney had romantic entanglements with Nathan Wade, the man Willis had hired to lead the prosecution.”
Away from the Beacon:
- Donald Trump can implement his executive order barring transgender troops from serving in the military while appeals work their way through the courts, the Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday.
- India launched strikes on Pakistan in response to a terror attack on Indian nationals in Kashmir, sparking conflict between the two nuclear powers. For background reading, check out a recent column from the Hudson Institute’s Mike Watson here.
- Democrats are facing some heat for posting a swanky photo of Kamala Harris at the Met Gala on the party’s official X account. New York’s Mike Lawler might have summed it up best: “Because nothing quite says ‘TAX THE RICH’ like attending the Met Gala.”
- House GOP Conference Chair Lisa McClain accused Jasmine Crockett of cutting in front of disabled passengers to board a Delta flight.
Check out our full Wednesday lineup below.
