Miley Cyrus’ new album fell from No. 1 to No. 157 on the Billboard 200 in its second week, the steepest drop Variety could find for a record in the week after a No. 1 debut.
“Bass Persuades” had opened at the top. When Billboard posted the top 10 of the next chart on Sunday, it was not there. The full list put it at No. 157, Variety reported Tuesday.
Miley Cyrus’ new album suffers one of the biggest drops from No. 1 in Billboard chart history https://t.co/Nv6CiWPzjM https://t.co/zYRwLthnWS
“Bass Persuades” was a new release. Variety said the title track had peaked at No. 35 on the Hot 100, and that reviews found the rest of the album less of a dance record than the single suggested.
Cyrus has since released a video for a follow-up, “Different Religion.”
The debut itself was narrow. Parade reported that the album opened with about 61,000 equivalent units, only 70 more than Ella Langley’s “Dandelion,” after Atlantic issued 16 vinyl variants, nine CD versions, six downloads, and a cassette, and cut the digital price.
Before that push, the album had been projected to open outside the top five.
CONGRATS to Miley Cyrus for making bilboard HISTORY After 81 years of the Billboard 200, she now holds the biggest free fall by a solo artist EVER, dropping 156 spots in ONE week after her label used fraudulent tactics to inflate her sales and force a No. 1 debut https://t.co/h34Dd1Vcmt
Three weeks before the chart fall, Cyrus had talked as if the audience were already settled. On Apple Music’s Zane Lowe show, she said two Hollywood Bowl dates, set for Oct. 16 and 18, were a dress rehearsal for a residency close to home.
She told Lowe her bed would be about a 10-minute drive from the venue after the show, People reported.
Nearly 1.5 million people entered the presale queue for those two nights, People and Entertainment Weekly reported.
The Bowl holds about 17,500, so the pair of shows could seat about 35,000. Both sold out within 10 minutes, Variety reported. They are her first major dates since a Mexico City festival set in November 2022.
Lowe told her she would need something like 80 Bowl shows to meet that demand. Cyrus said that had been the idea. “I’ve learned now through the queue that my calculations are correct, and people will come to me. I don’t need to drive to you,” she said. Page Six quoted a longer version of the same remark: “Proven. That was a test. I win.”
Cyrus has also taken blunt political shots at President Donald Trump.
After Super Tuesday in 2016, Cyrus posted a screenshot of the results and wrote that she was going to “move out da country,” the Washington Examiner reported. She called Trump a “f***ing nightmare,” posted a photo of herself crying, and finished with, “Honestly f*** this s*** I am moving if this is my president! I don’t say things I don’t mean!”
Lizzo’s album failed Miley’s album failed
all these failing albums. I wonder why!
Miley Cyrus hit with devastating career blow as new album Bass Persuades suffers biggest chart fall in Billboard history
In a 2019 Vanity Fair interview, she called the leaving talk something “we all said” and did not mean, then asked whether she would feel proud “running away from, and leaving everyone else here to live under, a completely racist, sexist, hateful a**hole.”
She stayed, and the country she said she would flee is the one whose chart just recorded the fall.
A protestor also interrupted an Angel Mom as she recounted her son’s murder.
PROTESTER INTERRUPTS ANGEL MOM AS SHE RECOUNTS SON’S MURDER AT TRUMP RALLY
Maria Vega, whose son Javier Vega Jr. was a Marine veteran and Border Patrol agent, is interrupted by a protester while recounting the 2014 attack that killed him and wounded her husband.
“Had we not been able to exercise our Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms, none of us would be alive today.”
“Read my lips. The border is closed. Follow the necessary steps to come to America.”
President Trump holds midterm rally in San Antonio, Texas – October 7, 2026
President Trump will deliver remarks tonight in San Antonio, Texas, during his second stop this month in the Lone Star State.
Trump has been holding rallies almost every day during the final October campaign blitz ahead of the Midterms.
Last week, Trump held rallies in Texas, Oklahoma, Alabama, and Ohio to turn out voters for Republican Senate and gubernatorial candidates. On Monday, Trump also spoke in Nebraska.
Trump is now returning to Texas to campaign again for Ken Paxton, unfazed by the Democrats’ manufactured scandal about the Texas Attorney General and US Senate Nominee.
Thousands of supporters were lined up outside the Freeman Coliseum hours early to see Trump speak.
Via Fox:
MORE:
Lines as far as the eye can see for the big Trump rally today in San Antonio. Onward to victory, Texas! pic.twitter.com/EVKiVbS890
Warnings that U.S. withdrawal from the WHO will strengthen China raise the question of why American taxpayers should fund resistance that other member nations could organize themselves. Photo courtesy of the White House.
Warnings that America’s withdrawal from the World Health Organization will expand China’s influence raise a question for European governments: Why must American taxpayers finance the resistance to Beijing? Washington was the WHO’s largest donor, yet its contributions failed to resolve the administration’s concerns about Chinese influence. If European governments believe remaining in the organization can restrain China, they must explain how they intend to accomplish what they expected the United States to do.
The Trump administration refused on September 25, 2026, to back a UN political declaration on pandemic preparedness. By then, President Donald Trump had taken the United States out of the WHO, ended talks on the WHO Pandemic Agreement, and turned down changes to the International Health Regulations. To justify those moves, the administration pointed repeatedly to China’s sway over the organization.
At the September UN meeting, the U.S. representative opposed language in the declaration tied to pathogen access and benefit sharing, a framework still under negotiation, among other concerns. China’s delegate called for progress on the pandemic agreement and urged developed countries to provide financial and technological support to developing nations. The objections prevented adoption by consensus that day, leaving the declaration for further consideration by the General Assembly.
When the withdrawal became final on January 22, 2026, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. issued a joint statement saying all U.S. funding and staffing of WHO initiatives had ended. They accused the organization of obstructing the timely sharing of critical information and said public health cooperation would continue through direct partnerships with other countries and institutions.
The following day, Democrat representative Gregory Meeks, ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, warned that withdrawal would “grant China an unprecedented opportunity to assert greater influence.” Meeks also argued that leaving the organization would weaken America’s ability to prevent infectious diseases from reaching the United States.
Similar objections came from Europe during Trump’s first withdrawal attempt. In July 2020, Ulrich Lechte, then chairman of the German parliament’s UN subcommittee, criticized the withdrawal, arguing that Washington was giving in to China instead of confronting it within international organizations. His criticism placed responsibility on the United States to remain and resist Beijing, raising the question of what European members could accomplish themselves.
Those warnings must be considered alongside the funding Washington supplied while it remained a member. In 2022–2023, no donor gave the WHO more than the United States, which provided $1.284 billion. China contributed approximately $156 million, including about $115 million in assessed dues and $41 million in specified voluntary contributions. China’s contribution was approximately 88 percent less than America’s.
Despite that financial disparity, the Trump administration repeatedly accused the WHO of yielding to Beijing.
In a May 18 letter in 2020 to WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Trump accused the organization of an “alarming lack of independence from the People’s Republic of China.” He said the WHO had ignored early reports of COVID-19 spreading in Wuhan, relied on Chinese government accounts, and praised China’s transparency despite reports that authorities had silenced doctors who spoke about the virus.
Trump’s letter also alleged that Taiwanese authorities had provided information indicating human-to-human transmission by December 31, 2019, but that the WHO had not shared it. Separately, then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo condemned Taiwan’s exclusion from the World Health Assembly and said Tedros had declined to invite it under pressure from China. Taiwan had participated as an observer from 2009 to 2016.
Trump restarted the withdrawal on January 20, 2025, with Executive Order 14155. The order pointed to the WHO’s pandemic response, its failure to reform, and its lack of independence from political influence. It also pulled the United States out of talks on the Pandemic Agreement and the International Health Regulations amendments.
In a May 20, 2025, World Health Assembly address, Kennedy said that while the United States had historically supplied much of the WHO’s funding, China had exerted undue influence over its operations.
That same day, Chinese Vice Premier Liu Guozhong announced an additional $500 million for the WHO over five years. He defended multilateral cooperation, supported the organization’s leading role, and warned that unilateralism and power politics threatened global health security.
The additional pledge averages $100 million annually, approximately 16 percent of the $642 million the United States contributed annually on average in 2022–2023. It does not replace the historical American contribution, although Beijing could gain greater influence without assuming Washington’s financial burden.
Rubio and Kennedy formally turned down the International Health Regulations amendments on July 18, 2025. They argued the changes did nothing to protect the WHO from political pressure and censorship during outbreaks, with China as the chief source.
A 2026 study suggested that China could become the WHO’s largest payer of mandatory member dues after America’s departure. The researchers identified additional avenues for Chinese influence, including placing more Chinese experts in WHO positions and using bilateral health partnerships to build support among developing countries.
The distinction between financial contributions and political influence matters. Under the WHO’s constitution, each member has one vote in the World Health Assembly, regardless of how much it contributes. American financial dominance therefore did not provide corresponding voting power.
Rubio and Kennedy framed their rejection of the amendments as a defense of America’s right to set its own health policy. Greater Chinese influence within the WHO does not itself give Beijing authority to dictate American health policy.
The argument for remaining rests on the claim that American participation can restrain Beijing. Yet the administration’s objections concerned Chinese influence while the United States was still a member and the largest donor. Critics of withdrawal must explain how continued participation would overcome the problems Washington cited, and why other members cannot organize that resistance themselves.
A Minnesota sheriff is demanding a metro-wide crackdown on Somali gang violence in the Twin Cities. The sheriff who actually covers the suburb where a homecoming game was shot up on Friday is telling him to stay on his own side of the river.
Bob Fletcher is the sheriff of Ramsey County, the St. Paul side of the Twin Cities. At a Tuesday news conference, he backed the idea of a regional task force and asked other agencies to join in staffing it.
He said the criminal crews move from suburb to suburb, across jurisdictional lines, and that police will need shared intelligence, more arrests, and prosecutors willing to take the cases. He named two Hennepin County officials he wants in: Sheriff Dawanna Witt and County Attorney Mary Moriarty.
“We need to go out and get the perpetrators,” Fletcher said, according to KSTP-TV in St. Paul.
Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher threw his support behind a regional task force to tackle Somali gang violence while blaming weak prosecution of crime for letting the issue fester, specifically calling out Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty. https://t.co/JsdnHJ91du
Witt runs the sheriff’s office in Hennepin County, which covers Minneapolis and the western suburbs, including the city where Friday’s shooting happened. At her own news conference, she brushed Fletcher off.
“He just has a habit of talking about stuff he don’t know nothing about,” she said, according to KMSP-TV in St. Paul. “So he shouldn’t mind Ramsey County business.”
KMSP reported that she described her office as already shifted toward gang work and said it was already passing tips to other departments.
The game was Friday night in Eden Prairie and gunfire outside the stadium emptied the stands during a homecoming matchup, KSTP reported. Two people were hit. Police said the wounds were not life-threatening, the victims were not students at either school, and the shooting appeared to be targeted.
The game was suspended.
KSTP reported that three law enforcement sources said the gunfire was tied to Somali gang activity. The Minnesota Star Tribune reported that the two wounded were Somali teens.
The school called off Saturday’s homecoming dance. Principal Jaysen Anderson wrote families in a Facebook post that a dance less than a day after “a trauma in our community feels out of place,” even if the district could have secured it. The football game was played out Monday night.
Eden Prairie Mayor Ron Case then asked for a regional effort against what he called “gang activity among East African youth.” Fletcher’s briefing was cast as an answer to that request and to shootings in Eden Prairie and Edina that police have tied to gangs.
Fletcher put the number of youths involved at about 300. On KMSP, he said that is a thin slice of a Somali population he put above 100,000. However, he said only a run of arrests would convince the groups that shootings would draw a response.
“We need to arrest 50 of these 300 kids,” he said.
Edina held a public meeting the night before Fletcher spoke. Mayor Jim Hovland opened it by calling the metro problem a “Somali youth gang-type problem,” and told residents not to read that as a judgment on Somali families, according to the conservative Minnesota news site Alpha News.
Witt was in that room, along with the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension superintendent and the police chiefs of Edina and Eden Prairie.
Speakers got about three minutes. A school bus driver blamed Minneapolis “spillover” and said crime was “brought on by the sanctuary policies” of Gov. Tim Walz, according to Alpha News.
WATCH: Edina residents speak out amid recent Somali gang violence
“I don’t go shopping at the Lunds to get shot at. I don’t go to workout to get shot at. My two daughters that workout there have a rule now that when it comes to gym time, I’m with them,” said one resident who listed off some of the violent incidents in the city in recent years.
After that meeting, Eden Prairie police confirmed gunfire at a Speedway convenience near the high school. No one was hurt, and four people were held. Sources told Alpha News that Somalis were involved.
A predawn shooting Tuesday in Bloomington, also in Hennepin County, was tied to Somali gangs by sources who spoke to the same outlet. Alpha News also reported that Edina’s police chief later said a shots-fired call on a church-and-school campus involved Somalis.
Fletcher has used the figure of about 300 since summer. The Star Tribune reported that he has come under fire from the leader of a local Islamic center who wants him to see “crime as crime,” rather than a matter of ethnicity.
Case wants state and local police, prosecutors, schools, social services, youth groups, and Somali leaders to join forces to crack down on crime. Fletcher said he wants Hennepin’s sheriff and prosecutor to crack down with some arrests and prosecutions.
President Trump speaks to reporters in the Oval Office
President Trump, on Wednesday, in a stunning moment, told reporters that he had his shot to go after Biden, Obama, and Hillary Clinton for abuses of power and various crimes, and still does. Still, he told “plenty of people” that he “can’t do that to the presidency.”
Fox’s Peter Doocy noted that Trump has been talking about the Democrats’ plans to impeach him recently, asking what charges they would bring
Trump said that the Democrats don’t even know what they will impeach him for, calling out the Democrats for plotting an impeachment but being unable to say what for. Then, Trump reminded people what he could have done to the crooked Democrats while in office.
“I could have done very bad things to Hillary Clinton. I could have done very, very bad things to Joe Biden. I could have done very bad things to Barack Hussein Obama,” Trump said.
“I thought it was inappropriate to do so because you have to treat the office of the presidency with respect.”
Trump went on to point out that the Democrats have done “very bad” and “very illegal” things to him and his supporters.
They rigged elections. They jailed Trump supporters by the thousands for peacefully protesting a stolen election. They treated parents as “domestic terrorists” for opposing highly sexualized materials in school. They spied on Republican members of Congress. They spied on Trump and his family– starting in 2016. They tried to bankrupt Trump and his allies and throw them all in prison. And so much more.
“I can do whatever I want if I want,” he said. “But I view the presidency as a very sacred position, a very sacred position, very important, very sacred, a position where it has to be treated properly.”
“You can’t treat the presidency with disrespect,” he added.
“And again, I’ve had my shot and still do at Biden, at Hillary Clinton and Barack Hussein Obama, and I’ve had plenty of people say, ‘Let’s go get ’em,’ and I said, ‘No, you can’t do that to the presidency.’”
WATCH:
Notably, this response came after Trump responded to the newly declassified documents revealing how the Biden Regime spied on his wife, Melania, and minor son, Barron Trump, during the Mar-a-Lago classified documents investigation.
One would think Trump would go after every single one of them, but he only responded by calling them “sick” and “mean.”
As TGP reported last week, a political canvasser tied to Pennsylvania Democrat Janelle Stelson’s bid to unseat Republican Rep. Scott Perry was caught with his pants down, literally, in a Mechanicsburg neighborhood full of kids, dog-walkers, and a public park, according to court records reported by WHP 580.
East Pennsboro Police said they were sent shortly after 3 p.m. Sunday to Delwood Drive near the Acri Road intersection after an unknown man had been sitting in his vehicle for several hours.
When officers arrived, 25-year-old Chimaobim Adedayo Igbojekwe opened the door of his silver Ford SUV wearing only a shirt, with his genitals exposed.
He told police he was waiting to hand out flyers for Stelson’s campaign and pointed to the literature in the SUV.
According to the court records, Igbojekwe said he did not understand why it was a problem for him to have his genitals exposed while parked in a residential neighborhood.
Igbojekwe was originally charged with indecent exposure, a second-degree misdemeanor, and a summary count of disorderly conduct. Magisterial District Judge Jonathan R. Birbeck set bail at $49,000. He was held at Cumberland County Prison after he could not post it.
However, the charges disappeared and he was only charged with third-degree misdemeanor disorderly conduct.
On Wednesday, it was revealed that Igbojekwe is an illegal alien from Nigeria.
Janelle Stelson’s campaign claimed that they never hired Igbojekwe.
He may have been hired by a contractor or a volunteer.
“This individual is not and has never been employed by the Janelle Stelson campaign. If he is an illegal immigrant who committed a crime he should be deported. We never hear of him prior to the news of his arrest. We are grateful to law enforcement for acting swiftly to arrest him,” the statement read.
UPDATE: Stelson says this man has never been employed by her campaign and says he should be deported if he’s in the U.S. illegally & committed a crime.
Christa Pike’s lawyer reveals his client’s first words after she regained consciousness and provides an update on her condition. Credit: Fox News screenshot
The very first words of convicted murderer Christa Pike have allegedly been revealed following her botched execution, and there has been another update on her condition.
As The Gateway Pundit reported on Tuesday, Pike is conscious and speaking at a hospital nearly one week after the botched execution.
“Against all odds, Christa Pike is conscious, speaking, and continues to receive critical medical care. Despite the severe damage she endured to her arms, she is still handcuffed and shackled to the bed. Her recovery is medically unprecedented. Her prognosis remains unclear but, at a minimum, we expect a long recovery,” attorneys for Pike said in a statement, according to The Associated Press.
Christa Pike’s attorney, Randy Spivey, shared more information with the media during a brief press conference on Wednesday afternoon.
Spivey said that Pike’s first words once she regained consciousness were: “Where am I and who are you?”
He also said that while Pike remains awake, she remains cognitively confused. This should not come as a surprise to anyone.
Spivey added during his brief press conference, saying that Pike has asked about multiple individuals. These include her legal team and her victim’s family.
He concluded by noting that he believed that Pike was “angry and confused about everything now.”
WATCH:
BREAKING: Christa Pike is awake but remains cognitively confused following her failed execution, according to her attorney Randy Spivey.
He says he was told her first words when she gained consciousness were, “Where am I and who are you?”
Spivey says Pike wants to know what happened and has asked about several people, including members of her legal team and the victim’s family.
“I think she is angry and confused about everything right now,” Spivey says.
As TGP readers know, Pike was sentenced to death after stabbing, torturing, and beating of 19-year-old Colleen Slemm in a jealous rage. The incident occurred back in January 1995.
This evil monster and her boyfriend at the time carved an inverted pentagram into Slemmer’s chest during the brutal murder.
Pike was 18 at the time of the murder. Pike’s boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, was also convicted of the 1995 murder.
Last Wednesday, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals voted 2-1 to halt the execution to determine whether Pike’s allegations of childhood sexual abuse were taken into consideration during her death penalty sentencing.
Tennessee’s Attorney General immediately appealed to the Supreme Court. A few hours later, the Supreme Court allowed Tennessee to go forward with the execution.
But the all-female execution team failed to put Pike out of her misery.
White House Communications Director Steven Cheung went off on the “slope-brained retards” and “Kamala-rejects” behind a Democratic Party X account on Monday after they accused him of distancing himself from the GOP operatives leading Trump’s midterm operations.
James Blair, who previously served as Trump’s White House deputy chief of staff for legislative, political, and public affairs, and Chris LaCivita, who was 2024 Campaign Co-Manager for Trump, are now leading the Republican Party’s midterm strategy. They came under fire this week for an alleged conflict of interest in consulting work with Trump, the GOP, and foreign governments in Europe.
After Trump responded to the news, the team behind @HQNewsNow, formerly @KamalaHQ, a 2024 campaign social media account for Kamala Harris, attempted to start a hoax, claiming that Cheung unfollowed Blair and LaCivita on X “after Trump threw them under the bus and threatened to ‘terminate’ them.”
Cheung, however, responded with fire. “Wrong, you slope-brained retards. I know it sucks to be Kamala-rejects, but the truth is that I unfollow deactivated WH/47 accounts,” he wrote.
Wrong, you slope-brained retards. I know it sucks to be Kamala-rejects, but the truth is that I unfollow deactivated WH/47 accounts. https://t.co/aZHbBlsfhW
Additionally, according to the list of accounts Cheung follows, he still follows their personal X pages.
This comes after a New York Times report that Blair and LaCivita were in Europe last week advising the government of Republika Srpska, a small self-governing territory in the Balkans, ahead of its elections. The report suggested that the Russia-aligned country has “sought favor from the U.S. president while bucking the international community” and that Blair and LaCivita are capitalizing on their connections to the White House.
Reacting to the report this morning, Trump said on Truth Social earlier that he would terminate the two “if there’s a conflict,” but also said they’re “allowed to do work for others, just like all consultants in Washington, D.C.”
Chris LaCivita and James Blair are outside consultants. They do not work for me, other than as outside consultants. They most likely have numerous clients, but for that, you would have to ask them. They are allowed to do work for others, just like all consultants in Washington, D.C. I do not have any idea who else they work for but will, on reflection, ask them and, if there’s a conflict, I will terminate them, immediately! Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DONALD J. TRUMP
He made similar comments in an Oval Office press conference this afternoon when asked if he’s spoken to Blair or LaCivita about a potential conflict. Trump maintained that the two are “independent” from the White House and “don’t work for me.” Trump added, “If I thought they had a conflict here, I would terminate, but all they are is consultants.”
Prosecutors in New York are expected to bring new charges against former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores over the alleged torture of Americans who were held in Venezuelan government custody in recent years, according to multiple people familiar with the investigation.
An announcement could come as soon as Thursday, the people said.
The new charges relate to what the US government has said was the wrongful detention of more than a dozen US citizens in Venezuelan prisons during the time Maduro led a repressive regime in Venezuela, the people briefed on the investigation said.
Investigators have also discussed charging several additional people for their alleged role in the torture of Americans, according to a source familiar with the matter.
Fox News also confirmed that Maduro and his wife will be facing additional charges.
President Trump ordered military strikes on Venezuela earlier this year as special operators captured Maduro.
Delta Force captured Maduro and dragged him out of his bedroom amid military strikes earlier this year.
According to Reuters, Delta Force created an exact replica of Maduro’s safe house and practiced how they would enter and capture him. The CIA had an asset on the ground in Venezuela who infiltrated Maduro’s inner circle.
The asset monitored Maduro which helped the Army’s Delta Force locate and extract him.
Maduro was indicted on four counts by a federal grand jury in the Southern District of New York.
The grand jury indicted Maduro, his wife, Cilia Flores and four others on four counts: Narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices.
“Nicolas Maduro Moros, the defendant, now sits atop a corrupt, illegitimate government that, for decades, has leveraged government power to protect and promote illegal activity, including drug trafficking,” the indictment read.
“That drug trafficking has enriched and entrenched Venezuela’s political and military elite, including Minister of the Interior, Justice and Peace Diosado Cabello Rondon, the defendant, and former Minister of the Interior and Justice Ramon Rodriguez Chachin, the defendant,” the charging document read.
After 81 years of the Billboard 200, she now holds the biggest free fall by a solo artist EVER, dropping 156 spots in ONE week after her label used fraudulent tactics to inflate her sales and force a No. 1 debut https://t.co/h34Dd1Vcmt
(@KarluskaP) October 6, 2026
