Evening Wire: Diddy Verdict & UPenn Settlement Title IX Settlement | 7.2.25
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Sean Diddy Combs dodges his most serious charges, Trump scores a big payout in his suit against Paramount, and a Pennsylvania mortgage lender comes under fire for marketing to illegal immigrants. I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire executive editor John Bickley. It's Wednesday, July 2nd, and this is Evening Wire.

John Diddy Combs escaped the most serious charges. The music mogul was found not guilty of the Rico racketeering charge and the two sex trafficking charges, but he was found guilty of two lesser charges of transporting women for prostitution, one for his former girlfriend, Cassie Ventura, and one for another victim simply referred to as Jane. Each charge could result in a 10-year jail sentence.

The defense has asked for Combs' release, but the prosecution says it wants jail time. After the verdict was read, Combs got on his knees, then stood up, faced the gallery, and clapped. The audience erupted in applause. Cassie Ventura's attorney praised her in a statement saying, quote, By coming forward with her experience, Cassie has left an indelible mark on both the entertainment industry and the fight for justice. Here's Ventura's attorney reacting to the verdict.

We're pleased that Cassie's brought to light everything that has happened in this trial. I just spoke with her and with the U.S. Attorney's Office team, and she's in a good place. She's pleased that, again, that the jury has found him liable, or at least guilty of two federal crimes. The judge will decide the sentence after considering letters from both attorneys, which are due today.

President Trump has settled his election interference lawsuit with CBS parent company Paramount Global. Daily Wire deputy managing editor Tim Rice has the details.

Paramount has agreed to pay Trump $30 million to settle an election interference lawsuit. The president will receive $16 million upfront with additional funds expected for conservative ads and public service messages. The network has also agreed to a new editorial rule, dubbed the Trump Rule, requiring full transcripts of candidate interviews be released.

Trump sued CBS for allegedly editing a Kamala Harris interview to protect her ahead of the 2024 election. CBS denies wrongdoing and says the settlement includes no admission of guilt. In a major victory for women's sports advocates, UPenn will revoke three swimming records held by trans-identifying male athlete Leah Thomas. The revocation is part of a federal civil rights settlement announced on Tuesday. Those NCAA titles and records will be given to the female athletes who actually won the events.

The suit also requires that the school adopt a new policy barring males from competing in female sports going forward. The move follows a U.S. Education Department investigation that concluded that Penn had violated Title IX. Morning Wire spoke to Paula Scanlon of the American Principals Project, who was on that Penn swim team at the same time as Thomas.

This ruling actually is a very historic win. I'm really excited about it. I think it shows really two things. One, that the University of Pennsylvania is admitting that they were in the wrong when they put a man on my team. But also it shows how effective the Trump administration is on delivering their promises. This is something that they campaigned on and promised to get done. And I'm very pleasantly surprised to see them come to this resolution so quickly.

The left-leaning magazine The Atlantic says liberals need to break through the quote misinformation bubble surrounding so-called gender-affirming care for minors. Daily Wire reporter Maraida Lordy has more. In a piece by staff writer Helen Lewis, she notes that the common line, would you rather have a dead son than a live daughter, presents a false choice and there is no evidence supporting a link between gender transition and suicide prevention. Lewis points out that the ACLU administration

admitted as much in arguments before the Supreme Court last year in the now decided case of United States versus Scrimeti. The court announced the six to three decision last month, which upholds a Tennessee law banning gender transition treatments for minors. Iran is still picking up the pieces after the U.S. hit their nuclear facilities last month.

Satellite images show a new road, an excavator and cranes at the Fordow nuclear site, suggesting Tehran is inspecting underground damage caused by U.S. bunker-buster bombs. The White House says the strikes obliterated Iran's nuclear capability. Iran appears to be focused on salvaging equipment and material from the site.

Hamas says it's ready for a war-ending deal with Israel, but hasn't fully endorsed President Trump's proposed 60-day ceasefire. Trump posted Tuesday that Israel accepted the terms following meetings with U.S. envoys and urged Hamas to take the deal, warning it will not get better. The ceasefire proposal was brokered with help from Qatar and Egypt and could pause the nearly 21-month war that began with Hamas' attack. Talks with mediators are set to continue today in Cairo.

A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration from ending temporary protected status for over 500,000 Haitian immigrants. Judge Brian Kogan ruled today that DHS Secretary Kristi Noem acted unlawfully by failing to follow congressional guidelines when she moved to revoke the protections. The TPS program shields immigrants from deportation due to unsafe conditions in their home countries. The ruling allows the Haitians to stay and work in the U.S., at least for now.

A Pennsylvania-based mortgage lender is facing backlash for targeting undocumented immigrants with home loans. Here with the details is Daily Wire investigative reporter Spencer Lindquist.

Pennsylvania-based Amre's is marketing individual taxpayer identification number loans to non-citizens, including those who lack social security numbers. The company says that these loans, quote, bridge the gap for immigrants seeking homeownership, citing cases of multiple illegal aliens who received the loans, like a single mother from Guatemala and a Mexican immigrant who used an ITIN to buy a home.

Critics, however, warn that the practice incentivizes illegal immigration and undermines federal efforts to enforce deportations. Immigration authorities and the IRS recently signed a deal to share ITIN data, which could expose borrowers to removal proceedings. Hi, I'm Richard Karn, and you may have seen me on TV talking about the world's number one expandable garden hose. Well, the brand new pocket hose copperhead with pocket pivot is here, and it's a total game changer.

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A new abortion clinic in Chicago says it's now conducting abortions in the third trimester. Hope Clinic says it will provide abortions through all trimesters. It allows abortions until fetal viability and beyond that point if necessary to protect the mother's life or health. That includes mental health.

A recent NIH study found that over 90 percent of babies born at the start of the third trimester survive. California Governor Gavin Newsom calls on President Trump to increase federal funding for wildfire prevention. Newsom noted that the state oversees only 3 percent of forest lands in the Golden State, while 57 percent belong to the federal government. The governor presented a mock executive order to the public that he says would bring parity between federal and state support.

The federal government has not made the kind of investments the state's making. That's why we're asking the president of the United States to sign a simple executive order. We are actually giving him a template. All it requires is a signature to basically match the rhetoric around protecting our forests, dare I say raking our forests, and the reality of the lack of resources to get the job done.

White House Deputy Press Secretary Anna Kelly pointed out that the California state legislature cut $144 million from a wildfire and forest resilience fund last year, and that Newsom should, quote, "own up to his failure and prepare for fire season." California has rolled back a landmark environmental law in a move to encourage new development. Daily Wire reporter Tim Pearce has more. Golden State lawmakers passed a measure on Monday that would exempt certain projects from the California Environmental Quality Act.

For over 50 years, the CEQA has been used by environmental activists to block development projects and slow homebuilding. Under the new bill, some high-priority projects would be exempted from the CEQA, such as new housing in developed areas and advanced manufacturing facilities, including semiconductor factories and electric vehicle plants.

Governor Gavin Newsom threatened to pull his support from the state budget unless the environmental rollback passed, calling the bill a, quote, game changer, which will be felt for generations to come. How proud are you to be an American? The divide between Democrats and Republicans on that question is bigger than ever.

Gallup reports this week that national pride is at an all-time low, but most of that is the result of Democrat responses. According to the survey data, Democrats accounted for the largest drop in American pride, with only 35 percent saying they were extremely or very proud, down sharply from 62 percent last year. But Republican pride has hovered at or above 90 percent since the poll began in 2001 and increased noticeably over the past year.

Amazon warehouses may soon be more machine than man as the e-commerce giant continues to innovate. The Wall Street Journal reports that more than one million robots have been deployed to its warehouses and employees are being trained to manage them. Seventy-five percent of Amazon's global deliveries are currently robot-assisted, and the company expects to reduce the size of its human workforce within the coming years.

And a main couple appears to have redefined double jeopardy. Jason Singer won the July 1st episode of the iconic quiz show exactly four years after his wife, Susan McMillan, became a Jeopardy champion herself. The Jeopardy team says they may be the first married couple ever to both win the game. Here's what the couple told ABC News when asked if Susan gave Jason any advice.

I told him he really needs to be on point with the buzzer timing. Everyone there knows pretty much all the information. Just the fact of being her husband is the greatest preparation one could ever get because she's so curious and surrounds herself with such interesting and cosmopolitan things all the time that by osmosis, I almost have had to get better. The couple says their love for trivia helped spark their relationship, and 20 years later, they're still practicing questions over lunch.

All right, there's your drive home updates. To learn more about these stories, go to dailywire.com. And in case you missed it this morning, we covered some major stories, including the president's spending bill heading back to the House, Trump and DeSantis burying the hatchet at Alligator Alcatraz, and Brian Koberger avoiding the death penalty. Thanks for tuning in. We'll be back tomorrow morning with a special edition of Morning Wire.