Briefing Board

Briefing Board Contact information, map and directions, contact form, opening hours, services, ratings, photos, videos and announcements from Briefing Board, News & Media Website, new york, New York, NY.

09/05/2026

BREAKING: Widow of Alabama Airman Killed in Iran War Speaks Out After Being Denied Benefits Because Iran War Was Never Officially Declared

Libby Klinner buried her husband. Then the government told her that because Congress never formally declared war, some of the benefits owed to her and her three young children weren't coming.

Major Alex Klinner, chief of squadron standardizations and evaluations at the 99th Air Refueling Squadron in Birmingham, was one of six service members killed March 12 when their KC-135 refueling aircraft crashed over friendly territory in western Iraq while supporting operations against Iran. He left behind a 2 and a half year old son and 7 month old twins.

Marking six months since his death, Libby posted on Instagram: "Six months of a war we can't call a war... The Air Force recently told me that because we haven't officially declared war, my kids and I aren't eligible for some benefits. So not only was my husband killed in a war he never wanted to participate in, but now the benefits we're left with are being dictated by semantics and public perception."

She specified the gap involved combat pay related benefits, including hostile fire and imminent danger pay and combat zone exclusions, benefits tied specifically to the legal designation of a war that officially isn't one.

Her going public worked. Within a day, the Air Force's director of mortuary affairs reached out to her directly, and the branch has now initiated an audit to ensure her family receives everything they're entitled to. An Air Force spokesperson said officials "spoke with Libby Klinner today to ensure she is receiving all eligible benefits she and her family are entitled to," adding, "we remain committed to providing clear information and continued support to Mrs. Klinner, as well as all the families of the Airmen who died in the KC-135 crash."

She's also had to defend simply speaking at all. "To the comments asking why my husband joined the military if he didn't want to be in a war: No one joins the military because they want to go to war," she wrote. "To those commenting that I'm posting this for attention: I suggest that you reserve judgment about what I'm doing until you've had to bury your spouse."

A widow raising three kids under three had to go public just to get the government to check whether her family was owed what they'd already earned. It shouldn't take a viral post to make that happen.

09/05/2026

BREAKING: Whistleblower Warns Trump-Ordered USPS System Could "Catastrophically Fail" and Disenfranchise Millions of Voters

Trump ordered USPS to build a system to limit mail-in voting. A whistleblower just warned it's rushed, broken, and could disenfranchise millions of Americans.

Senator Richard Blumenthal revealed the warning Monday, saying USPS began building a complex new ballot-screening portal around June 15, directly tied to Trump's executive order restricting mail-in voting. The work stopped and started repeatedly as a federal judge issued rulings temporarily blocking that same executive order, rulings the Trump administration is appealing rather than abandoning.

"The whistleblower's allegations also provide disturbing information suggesting that USPS may have violated a court order by continuing to implement the EO despite being ordered to cease all such work," Blumenthal wrote in a letter to Postmaster General David Steiner.

The whistleblower described the portal's development as "rushed," "risky and haphazard," with standard testing eliminated entirely and team members holding conflicting understandings of how the system was even supposed to function. That confusion, according to Blumenthal's letter, creates "the substantial risk of a catastrophic failure of the system that could derail the midterm elections." Whistleblower Aid, representing the source, said the target was to have the portal active as soon as Tuesday, warning that "potentially millions of American voters may not receive their mail-in ballot this election cycle in a timely manner, or at all."

Blumenthal placed the blame squarely on the administration that ordered this built in the first place. "Their system is set up to fail, and risk the right to vote for millions of Americans who cast their ballots by mail," he said. "Given this new information, such sloppiness and haste seems clearly part of a purposeful attempt to create chaos and prevent people from voting."

This traces directly back to Trump's own executive order, built on years of unfounded claims that mail-in voting is used to "rig" elections, claims he's never backed with actual evidence. Now there's a system built on that same shaky foundation, moving fast enough to break, right before the midterms.

09/05/2026

BREAKING: Iconic Weeping Willow Trees at the Kennedy Center, Symbols of National Grief, Have Been Cut Down By Trump

The weeping willows that once lined the Kennedy Center's terrace, facing the Potomac, are gone.

Testimony in a court hearing over the Kennedy Center's ongoing renovation confirmed that Trump's proposed changes to the building include swapping the weeping willow trees, which were planted to symbolize the nation's grief as part of the living memorial to President Kennedy, for cherry or maple trees instead. The Kennedy Center's director testified that any renovations would aim to "honor the original center's symbolism," suggesting weeping cherry trees as a replacement, though no final decisions on materials or design had been made at the time.

The willows are already gone regardless. Photos from the terrace now show stumps where the grove used to stand, in the same spot photographed for years as one of the building's most recognizable features.

This isn't an isolated incident. The Kennedy Center renovation project has also included repainting the building's gold columns white and placing Trump's name before Kennedy's on the facade, changes to a building Congress specifically created as a living memorial to the assassinated president. Similar tree removals have played out elsewhere under Trump's direction, including magnolia trees at the White House commemorating past presidents and over 60 cherry trees originally gifted by Japan decades ago.

A grove of trees meant to represent the nation's collective grief is now a row of stumps, with cherry or maple trees floated as a replacement for a symbol nobody asked to have replaced.

09/05/2026

BREAKING: Christopher Cross Apologizes to Canada for America's "As***le President" During Toronto Concert

Christopher Cross took the stage in Toronto and decided the crowd deserved an apology before the music even really started.

Opening for Toto at the RBC Amphitheatre on Sunday, Cross began his set with "Dreamers," paired with a clip of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech, telling the crowd that America's dark civil rights era "is happening again." Then he got personal.

"I'm just very sorry and embarrassed that we have an as***le for a president," Cross told the audience, urging them not to "give up on us" ahead of the next U.S. election.

The timing wasn't random. Just a day earlier, Trump posted an AI-generated video to Truth Social depicting himself as a Canada goose commanding a machine-gun-toting goose army over the Toronto skyline, captioned "Lake America, Protected by Donald Ducks," part of the ongoing fallout from his executive order renaming Lake Ontario. Ontario Premier Doug Ford had already pushed back publicly, telling Trump he "can call it whatever he wants, but I can tell you the rest of the world will always call it Lake Ontario," adding that Canadians "will never ever back down from a bully, ever."

Cross is currently finishing up a 32-date North American tour with Toto. His 1980 hit "Ride Like the Wind" has found a new audience recently thanks to a placement in HBO's Euphoria.

Sometimes the apology doesn't come from a diplomat or a press release. Sometimes it's a guy with a guitar telling a room full of Canadians that not all of us feel this way.

09/05/2026

BREAKING: Thomas Massie Reads Names of Epstein Co-conspirators on House Floor, Launches New Push for Full File Release

Thomas Massie isn't done fighting for transparency on the Epstein files, even after his own party tried to shut him down.

On the House floor Sunday night, the Kentucky Republican read the names of several individuals he says should be investigated and prosecuted in connection with Jeffrey Epstein's crimes. He also announced he's begun collecting signatures for a discharge petition, the same procedural tool he used successfully last year, to force a vote on the Epstein Files Transparency Act II.

This is Massie picking up a fight he's been running for over a year. His original bill, co-authored with California Democrat Ro Khanna, passed the House nearly unanimously in November after Massie forced the vote using a discharge petition, overcoming resistance from both Republican leadership and Trump himself. Since then, Massie and Khanna have argued the Justice Department hasn't actually complied with the law, withholding files that should have been public and botching redactions in ways that exposed survivors' names instead of protecting them.

The follow-up bill, introduced this week, gives members of Congress, state officials, and Epstein's own survivors the legal standing to challenge the DOJ in court when it fails to comply. "I never anticipated that the highest law enforcement officer in the land would not enforce the law once it became a law," Massie said. "That's what this addresses."

Massie has been blunt about who he thinks is responsible for the stonewalling, accusing Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel of having "effectively both perjured themselves" by claiming there's no one else named in the files. He's continuing the fight even after losing his own primary in May, a defeat that hasn't slowed him down at all.

A congressman who already forced one transparency bill into law through sheer persistence just started building the coalition to force a second one.

09/04/2026

BREAKING: Apple Refuses to Rename Lake Ontario Even After Direct Pressure From Trump Himself

Google folded within days. Apple has held the line, even with Trump personally calling to push them.

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum confirmed Monday that Trump reached out to Apple directly, asking the company to change Lake Ontario to "Lake America" on Apple Maps. "I know that the president reached out to Apple directly, so I'm sure that we may be seeing that change coming up soon," Burgum said on Fox Business.

Apple hasn't budged. As of Monday morning, Apple Maps still displays "Lake Ontario" for U.S. users, direct presidential outreach and all. It's a notably slower pace than Google, which switched over the weekend, citing its policy of following the U.S. Geographic Names Information System after Trump's executive order took effect August 27. This isn't new territory for Apple either. When Trump renamed the Gulf of Mexico last year, Google made the switch in eight days. Apple took over three weeks, and eventually complied, but only after significant delay.

Apple hasn't commented publicly on the president's outreach or given any timeline for a decision. So far, the company that once needed three weeks to fold on the Gulf of Mexico is taking even longer this time, holding steady even with the White House applying direct pressure.

Not everyone is waiting to see what Apple decides. MapQuest posted flatly on social media that it has no intention of changing anything at all. "We're not changing the name of Lake Ontario. Name it whatever you want at your leisure," the company wrote in a post that went viral.

A sitting president personally calling a tech company about a lake's name, and getting nowhere so far, is a strange kind of standoff.

09/04/2026

BREAKING: 588 Days Into the Trump Administration, DHS Secretary Is Still Blaming Biden for Everything

Nearly 600 days into Trump's second term, his own Homeland Security Secretary is still talking like the previous administration is the one running the department.

"The Biden administration is failing the American people," the DHS Secretary said, 588 days into an administration that isn't Biden's. It's not an isolated talking point. DHS press releases throughout the year have repeatedly framed current agency shortcomings as leftover damage from the Biden era, even while touting record deportation numbers and border statistics as evidence of Trump-era success in the very same breath.

It's a strange needle to thread. Take credit for the wins, but keep blaming the guy who's been out of office for over a year and a half for anything that isn't going well.

At some point, nearly two full years into a presidency, the excuses have to run out. Homeland Security still hasn't found that point.

09/04/2026

BREAKING: "Trump-Epstein Bookmobile" Loaded With 3.5 Million Pages of Files Is Headed Straight for Trump's Own Midterm Convention

Trump wanted his midterm convention to be a two-day celebration of himself. A bookmobile full of Epstein files is crashing the party.

Former Homeland Security chief of staff Miles Taylor announced that a "Trump-Epstein Bookmobile" is en route to Dallas, timed to arrive right alongside the Republican Party's first-ever midterm convention. The tour, run through Taylor's organization DEFENSE and the Institute for Primary Facts, is hauling roughly 3.5 million publicly available pages connected to the Justice Department's Epstein investigation, with survivors of Epstein's abuse expected to attend as well.

"If the GOP wants this week to be all about Trump, then let's have the convention attendees see for themselves the scandal that epitomizes his corruption," Taylor said. "And let's make sure they hear from the survivors of Trump-Epstein abuse, who will be flying into Dallas to be there."

The timing couldn't be more pointed. House Republicans running for reelection are being asked to pay upward of $25,000 just to attend Trump's own convention, all while Trump has yet to open his campaign coffers to help fund their races. "It doesn't get Trumpier than that," Taylor said. "The whole event apparently exists to celebrate him, to tell the stories he wants to tell, and to paper over his misconduct with confetti. Well, the president can count on one thing next week: there will be paper. We're going to make sure of it."

This isn't a one-stop stunt. Dallas is just the first stop. The documents are scheduled to keep moving across the country for two months, straight through the midterms.

"My former boss, Donald Trump, thinks he can outrun his own corruption and evade the Epstein survivors," Taylor said. "He cannot. That's why we put the files on the road."

Trump built a convention to control the story. A truck full of paper just showed up to tell a different one.

09/04/2026

BREAKING: Trump Attacks Federal Judge Overseeing Kennedy Center Case, Calling Him "Highly Conflicted" After Losing in Court

Trump lost in court over putting his name on the Kennedy Center. His response was to go after the judge who ruled against him.

U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper ruled in May that Trump's name had to come off the outside of the building, pointing out that only Congress has the authority to rename the Kennedy Center. That didn't stop the venue's MAGA-aligned board from voting in August to add "Restored and Renovated By President Donald J. Trump" beneath the center's name anyway, prompting Democratic board member Joyce Beatty to file an emergency motion accusing her colleagues of a "breathtaking assault on the rule of law."

Cooper heard two hours of arguments last week without ruling, but reportedly pressed Kennedy Center lawyers hard to explain their reasoning for restoring Trump's name.

Trump didn't wait for a decision. In a Sunday night Truth Social post, he trashed the building itself, calling it "an old and decrepit building that is badly in need of a major construction and public relations fix." Then he turned on the judge directly. "It has been losing a fortune for many years, and will continue to do so if the highly conflicted judge on the case doesn't allow us to do what has to be done," he wrote.

Cooper, appointed by President Obama in 2014, hasn't ruled yet, and Trump is already trying to discredit him before he does.

Beatty's legal team has already dismantled the administration's core financial argument. Documents obtained by the Washington Post show ticket revenue and fundraising actually dropped after Trump's name was added to the building's facade in December, directly contradicting claims that the venue is in financial freefall without it.

Beatty didn't mince words about what she thinks is really happening. "This is a president that we know likes tearing things down, he likes putting his name on buildings, and he has lost in court because it's unlawful," she said on MS NOW. "This is a living memorial, the only memorial to an assassinated president that was beloved by many." She added bluntly, "Donald Trump is acting like a spoiled kid. 'I didn't get my way, I'm throwing a tantrum, and now I will tear it down.'"

A judge hasn't even ruled yet. Trump is already trying to bully him into the outcome he wants.

09/04/2026

BREAKING: Kristen Welker Rattles Trump So Badly With One Accurate Sentence That He Threatens the FCC

Kristen Welker said one true sentence on live TV. It got so far under Trump's skin that he threatened her career over it.

Appearing on NBC 4 Washington to preview Meet the Press, Welker calmly noted that Trump has had a mixed record backing candidates in recent GOP primaries. "He's going to loom large over these midterms," she said. "He, of course, has endorsed a slate of candidates in the primaries. He's had some mixed results, but most recently, his pick of Senator Darline Graham... was successful in her primary battle."

That was the whole comment. Measured, factual, delivered without an ounce of drama. It clearly hit its mark anyway.

Trump fired back on Truth Social, calling her the "Unpopular 'Hostess'" of "Meet the Fake Press" and threatening to report her to the FCC for "purposeful inaccuracy." NBC News didn't hesitate for a second. "Kristen is one of the best in the business and we stand by her," a spokesperson said.

It says something when the president of the United States can't let one honest sentence go unanswered. Welker didn't flinch, didn't walk it back, and didn't need to. The facts were already on her side.

Address

New York
New York, NY

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Briefing Board posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Shortcuts

Share

Category