Army Gen. Mark Milley delivered a full-throated defense of democracy and not-so-subtle swipes at former President Donald Trump during a packed ceremony on Friday as he closed out his four, often tumultuous years as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Under cloudy skies at Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall, Milley never mentioned the former president by name. But he practically shouted on two different occasions that the U.S. military swears to protect the Constitution “against ALL enemies, foreign AND domestic.”

“We don’t take an oath to a king or a queen or to a tyrant or a dictator. And we don’t take an oath to a wannabe dictator,” he said. “We don’t take an oath to an individual. We take an oath to the Constitution, and we take an oath to the idea that is America, and we’re willing to die to protect it.”

Milley is retiring after more than four decades of military service, including multiple combat deployments and two often turbulent years as Joint Chiefs chairman under Trump. And it was those years, and the battles he fought against Trump, that formed much of the underpinning of his farewell address and also were sprinkled throughout other speeches in the ceremony.

As chairman, Milley pushed back against a host of Trump’s plans, including demands to pull all troops out of Iraq and Syria and his desire to put active-duty troops on Washington’s streets to counter racial protests. Several books have described Milley’s deep concerns about Trump’s fitness as commander in chief and his worries that Trump would try to use the military to help block President Joe Biden’s election.

Just a week ago, Trump railed against Milley in a post on Truth Social, condemning him as a treasonous, “Woke train wreck” whose actions have been “so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH!” The post, which some interpreted as a threat, has prompted Milley to ensure his family has adequate protection.

But seemingly in response, Milley said, his voice booming, the military will protect the Constitution, no matter the personal price, and “we are not easily intimidated.”

Biden, who spoke at the ceremony, continued the democracy theme, praising Milley’s staunch defense of the Constitution, which “has always been Mark’s North Star.” And he said the general has been a steady hand guiding the military during one of the most complex national security environments.

Freddie O’Connell, a progressive member of Nashville’s metro council, has resoundingly won the race to become the next mayor of the Democratic-leaning city, according to unofficial results.

Results from the Davidson County Election Commission show O’Connell defeated conservative candidate Alice Rolli in Thursday’s runoff election by a wide margin, with all precincts reporting. Candidates in the race do not run with party affiliations.

Since 2015, O’Connell has served on the combined city-county government’s council, representing a district that covers downtown Nashville. He succeeds Mayor John Cooper, who decided not to seek reelection.

O’Connell, whose campaign touted him as the “only truly progressive candidate running for mayor,” said he wants to make the city “more ’ville and less Vegas,” a reference to the “Nashvegas” moniker sometimes used to liken the huge boom in tourism in the city to Las Vegas.

“Every part of this city deserves the public resources that bind neighborhoods and neighbors together — schools, parks and libraries,” O’Connell said in a victory speech. “And when we do that, our interactions with our local government should leave us feeling satisfied that a real person worked to solve our issue.”

Down the ballot, Olivia Hill won an at-large metro council seat to make history as the first transgender candidate to be elected to office in Tennessee, according to the LGBTQ+ Victory Fund. Hill’s victory stands in contrast to Tennessee’s Republican leadership in state government, where lawmakers have passed a series of restrictions on the rights of transgender people.

Angry, frustrated and unable to lead a fractured and unruly Republican majority, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Thursday told the colleagues threatening to oust him: Do it.

The embattled Republican leader essentially dared his hard-right flank to quit holding the risk of a vote to remove him from the job.

If you’re going to do it, go ahead and try, McCarthy told the Republicans behind closed doors. With a government shutdown looming, McCarthy is confronting the same stubborn problem that has driven Republicans before him from the speaker’s job — trying to lead a ruptured GOP majority that’s split between what’s left of the traditional party and a harder-right element largely allied with former President Donald Trump.

Even his decision to launch an impeachment inquiry against President Joe Biden did little this week to appease the demands of the Freedom Caucus and others as they threaten to shut down the government in pursuit of deep spending cuts or move to a motion to oust him from office.

“I showed frustration in here because I am frustrated with some people in the conference,” McCarthy said after the meeting in the Capitol basement as lawmakers were wrapping up for the week.

“But when we come back, we’re going to get this done. Nobody wins in a government shutdown.”

This may be the toughest moment yet for McCarthy who is trying to survive his first year as House speaker and live to fight another day.

“I showed frustration in here because I am frustrated with some people in the conference,” McCarthy said after the meeting in the Capitol basement as lawmakers were wrapping up for the week.

“But when we come back, we’re going to get this done. Nobody wins in a government shutdown.”

This may be the toughest moment yet for McCarthy who is trying to survive his first year as House speaker and live to fight another day.

An interruption in government services would ripple across the country, almost certain to hurt his party politically as Republicans are blamed for the disruption and disarray.

Biden said in a speech Thursday that McCarthy and House Republicans seem unable to honor the commitments they made as part of a June debt-limit deal and are now seeking deeper cuts. In his remarks, the president did not address the impeachment inquiry nor the indictment Thursday of his son, Hunter, on gun-purchasing charges.

Maui County released the names of 388 people still missing Thursday more than two weeks after the deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than a century, and officials asked anyone who knows a person on the list to be safe to contact authorities.

The FBI compiled the list of names. The number of confirmed dead after fires on Maui that destroyed the historic seaside community of Lahaina stands at 115, a number the county said is expected to rise.

“We also know that once those names come out, it can and will cause pain for folks whose loved ones are listed,” Police Chief John Pelletier said in a statement. “This is not an easy thing to do, but we want to make sure that we are doing everything we can to make this investigation as complete and thorough as possible.”

Names on the list were deemed validated if officials had a person’s first and last name and a verified contact for the person who reported them missing, officials said.

An additional 1,732 people who had been reported missing have been found safe as of Thursday afternoon, officials said.

On Wednesday, officials said 1,000 to 1,100 names remained on the FBI’s tentative, unconfirmed list of people unaccounted for, but DNA had been collected from only 104 families, a figure far lower than in previous major disasters around the country.

Pelletier said Tuesday that his team faced difficulties in compiling a solid list. In some cases, people provided only partial names, and in other cases names might be duplicated. Hawaii officials had expressed concern that by releasing a list of the missing, they would also be identifying some people who have died.

X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, has threatened to sue a group of independent researchers whose research documented an increase in hate speech on the site since it was purchased last year by Elon Musk.

An attorney representing the social media site wrote to the Center for Countering Digital Hate on July 20 threatening legal action over the nonprofit’s research into hate speech and content moderation. The letter alleged that CCDH’s research publications seem intended “to harm Twitter’s business by driving advertisers away from the platform with incendiary claims.”

Musk is a self-professed free speech absolutist who has welcomed back white supremacists and election deniers to the platform, which he renamed X earlier this month. But the billionaire has at times proven sensitive about critical speech directed at him or his companies.

The center is a nonprofit with offices in the U.S. and United Kingdom. It regularly publishes reports on hate speech, extremism or harmful behavior on social media platforms like X, TikTok or Facebook.

The organization has published several reports critical of Musk’s leadership, detailing an increase in anti-LGBTQ hate speech as well as climate misinformation since his purchase. The letter from X’s attorney cited one specific report from June that found the platform failed to remove neo-Nazi and anti-LGBTQ content from verified users that violated the platform’s rules.

In the letter, attorney Alex Spiro questioned the expertise of the researchers and accused the center of trying to harm X’s reputation. The letter also suggested, without evidence, that the center received funds from some of X’s competitors, even though the center has also published critical reports about TikTok, Facebook and other large platforms.

“CCDH intends to harm Twitter’s business by driving advertisers away from the platform with incendiary claims,” Spiro wrote, using the platform’s former name.

Imran Ahmed, the center’s founder and CEO, told the AP on Monday that his group has never received a similar response from any tech company, despite a history of studying the relationship between social media, hate speech and extremism. He said that typically, the targets of the center’s criticism have responded by defending their work or promising to address any problems that have been identified.

Elon Musk said Sunday that he plans to change the logo of Twitter to an “X” from the famous blue bird, marking what would be the latest big change since he bought the social media platform for $44 billion last year.

In a series of posts on his Twitter account starting just after 12 a.m. ET, Twitter’s owner said that he’s looking to make the change worldwide as soon as Monday.

“And soon we shall bid adieu to the twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds,” Musk wrote on his account. The change isn’t surprising given Musk’s long history with the name “X,” says Allen Adamson, co-founder of marketing consultancy Metaforce. The billionaire Tesla CEO tweeted last October that “buying Twitter is an accelerant to creating X, the everything app.”

Musk’s rocket company, Space Exploration Technologies Corp., is commonly known as SpaceX. And in 1999, Musk founded a startup called X.com, an online financial services company now known as PayPal.

“Not sure what subtle clues gave it way, but I like the letter X,” Musk tweeted Sunday.

But the change on Twitter was met with sharp criticism on the social media platform.

The change will be very confusing to a huge chunk of the Twitter’s audience, which has been already souring on the social platform given a slew of other major changes Musk has made, Adamson said.

“They won’t get it,” he said. “It’s a fitting end to a phenomenal unwinding of an iconic brand and business.”

The Biden administration on Wednesday proposed new guidelines for corporate mergers, took steps to disclose the junk fees charged by landlords and launched a crackdown on price-gouging in the food industry.

The announcements will be discussed as part of President Joe Biden’s scheduled meeting with the White House Competition Council, a group of officials established under a 2021 executive order.

The council has focused on creating more transparency for consumers and finding approaches to limit the concentration of industries in ways that the Biden administration says lead to higher prices and hurt the ability of start-ups and small businesses to grow. Republican lawmakers and some business group critics counter that the Democratic president’s effort will lead to greater regulatory costs that leave the economy worse off.

The Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission are proposing revised guidelines for how they evaluate mergers. Their goal is to provide more clarity on the impact mergers can have on workers and to update the guidance for a digital economy that is shaped by companies such as Apple, Amazon, Alphabet and Meta.

The government first issued its guidance on mergers in 1968. Officials stressed that the new guidance conforms to the laws set by Congress and the precedents of court rulings.

Republican lawmakers have accused FTC Chair Lina Khan of “harassing” Twitter since it was acquired by billionaire Elon Musk. They say her push to break up the concentration of corporate power amounts to government interference in business practices. Khan has said such interventions will enable more competition within the U.S. economy in ways that are positive for consumers, workers and new businesses.