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Instead of seeing this as an opportunity to course-correct the copious funding allocated to the Pentagon, the White House came out swingingMany say that Washington is more divided than ever, but political quarrels in the nation’s capital and beyond are easily cast aside to unify against even the mere suggestion that perhaps the defense department’s budget might be a bit too high.That’s what happened when reports emerged late last week that Representative Kevin McCarthy had secured a deal with rogue Republicans to become the next House speaker. In exchange for their votes, the Freedom Caucus – a group of more rightwing House GOP lawmakers – received assurances that the federal budget will freeze at FY2022 levels, which could effectively mean a cut to the Pentagon budget by anywhere from $75bn to $100bn.Ben Armbruster is the managing editor of ResponsibleStatecraft.org, the news and analysis publishing platform of the Quincy Institute Continue reading...

Legislatively, the Republican party seems primed to play the role of hostage-taker rather than lawmakerThe Republican party didn’t exactly start 2023 hot out of the gate.Despite a new House majority, the Republican members of Congress spent their first few days in office in an embarrassing protracted squabble over the speakership. Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, who has spent the last few years assisting members of the extremist conspiracy-mongering Trumpian Republican radicals in their rise to power, found himself predictably on the receiving end of the extremist conspiracy-mongers, who wanted one of their own in charge as well as a series of rule changes. After largely capitulating to his party’s lunatic fringe, McCarthy squeaked through on the 15th vote. Continue reading...

The possibility of the Biden administration regulating gas stoves due to new safety fears has the right wing fired upAfter Joe Biden’s administration announced it was considering regulating – or banning – gas stoves, Richard Trumka of the US consumer product safety commission (CPSC) offered some words of clarity: “To be clear, CPSC isn’t coming for anyone’s gas stoves,” he tweeted.“You will have to pry my gas stove from my cold dead hands,” replied Matt Walsh, the rightwing political podcaster and Daily Wire columnist. Continue reading...

More than 38,000 signatures collected for proposal that would decriminalize abortion in city despite statewide banCampaigners in San Antonio, Texas, on Tuesday delivered more than 38,000 signatures to the city clerk’s office, petitioning for a May vote that would decriminalize abortion in the city.Abortion in Texas has been banned since August 2022, following the supreme court decision to overturn Roe v Wade last summer. Continue reading...

A generation was born and came of age since the prison opened. Four US presidents have served. Yet 35 men remain thereThe US prison at Guantánamo Bay opened 21 years ago this Wednesday. For 21 years, the extrajudicial detention facility has held a total of 779 men between eight known camps. In two decades, Guantánamo grew from a small, makeshift camp of chainlink cages into a maximum-security facility of cement bunker-like structures that costs close to $540m a year to operate.Twenty-one years is a long time – a generation was born and came of age in that time. Four American presidents have served. The World Trade Center was rebuilt.Mansoor Adayfi is an artist, advocate, and former Guantánamo prisoner, released in 2016 after being detained without charge or trial for more than 15 years. He is the author of the memoir Don’t Forget Us Here: Lost and Found at Guantánamo Continue reading...

From Jennifer Coolidge to Colin Farrell, Eddie Murphy to Michelle Yeoh, some of the entertainment industry’s biggest names were on hand to collect their awards Continue reading...

The former president’s retention of papers at Mar-a-Lago appears to satisfy more criteria for prosecution than the find at Biden’s instituteDonald Trump’s retention of documents marked classified at his Mar-a-Lago resort has aggravating factors that might support his criminal prosecution unlike the discovery of some documents also marked classified stored at Joe Biden’s former institute from his time as vice-president, legal experts said.The US justice department has clear criteria for prosecuting people who intentionally mishandle highly-sensitive government documents, and the facts of the Trump documents case appear to satisfy more elements than in the Biden documents case. Continue reading...

House panel refers John Eastman, Jeff Clark, Rudy Giuliani and Kenneth Chesebro to DoJ for offering Trump bogus legal coverFour lawyers who gave Donald Trump erroneous legal advice that aided his drive to overturn the 2020 US election now face heightened prospects of criminal charges after a House panel released an exhaustive report on the January 6 insurrection, and referred the lawyers for possible prosecution to the justice department, say ex-federal prosecutors.John Eastman, Jeff Clark, Rudy Giuliani and Kenneth Chesebro played overlapping roles, offering Trump bogus legal cover that included promoting a fake electors ploy to replace electors Joe Biden won with ones for Trump, in an effort to block Congress from certifying Biden on 6 January. Continue reading...

The expansion of family owned fast food company, founded in 1948, has been met with great enthusiasmIn-N-Out Burger, the famous California fast food chain, is expanding eastward as far as Tennessee, a move Tennessee’s governor called “life-changing”.The family-owned burger company will open an “eastern territory office” in Tennessee, as well as several Nashville-area restaurants, by 2026, according to state officials, and In-N-Out’s owner said further eastward expansion was in the works. Continue reading...

Floods and mudslides forced thousands of people to evacuate as more than 100,000 homes and businesses left without power

Fatalities call attention to the grave risks posed by extreme weather to those living outside in SacramentoCalifornia’s devastating winter storms have killed at least two unhoused people, deaths that call attention to the grave risks extreme weather poses to more than 116,000 people living outdoors in the state.Both deaths occurred in Sacramento, which endured winds of 60mph (96.5km/h) over the weekend and saw thousands of people lose power. Rebekah Rohde, 40, died after a falling tree crashed into her tent along the American River on Saturday. Steven Sorensen, 61, died on Sunday when a tree fell on his tent next to a light rail station. Continue reading...

Weisselberg, 75, pleaded guilty to 15 tax crimes and agreed to testify against Trump Organization after being arrested in 2021After testimony that helped convict Donald Trump’s company of tax fraud, Allen Weisselberg, a longtime senior executive, was given five months in jail for accepting $1.7m in perks without paying tax.Weisselberg, 75, was promised the sentence in August when he agreed to plead guilty to 15 tax crimes and testify against the Trump Organization, where he has worked since the mid-1980s and was chief financial officer at the time of his arrest. Continue reading...

Anthime Gionet, 35, given two months in prison after live-streaming his participation in deadly January 6 riotAnthime Gionet, a far-right social media personality known to followers as Baked Alaska, was sentenced on Tuesday to two months in prison for his participation in the US Capitol attack – participation he live-streamed.In court in Washington DC, the US district judge Trevor McFadden told Gionet, 35: “You did everything you could to publicise your misconduct. You were there encouraging and participating fully in what was going on.” Continue reading...

House Republicans prepare to use new majority to launch investigations into BidenRepublican leader of the House intelligence committee Mike Turner has asked top security official Avril Haines to asses what damage the secret documents found at Joe Biden’s former office may have done to US national security.In a letter sent today to Haines, who serves as director of national intelligence, Turner asked for “an immediate review and damage assessment following numerous reports that then Vice-President Biden removed, and then retained highly classified information at an undisclosed and unsecure non-government office in Washington, D.C., for a period of at least six years.” Continue reading...

Documents found in boxes at UPenn’s Biden Center for Diplomacy in Washington six days before November midtermsSome of the classified documents from Joe Biden’s time as vice-president that were found last year in a private office included US intelligence memos and briefing materials concerning Ukraine, Iran and the UK, CNN reported, citing a source familiar with the matter.The documents were found in boxes stored at the University of Pennsylvania’s Biden Center for Diplomacy in Washington, where he was an honorary professor until 2019. They were found when his personal lawyers were closing out the office space just before the midterm elections. Continue reading...

Democratic congresswoman announces candidacy for seat held by Feinstein, 89, who has not yet said if she will retireDemocratic representative Katie Porter, the progressive former law professor known for her sharp questioning of witnesses and her use of a whiteboard during hearings, said she will seek the California Senate seat currently held by Dianne Feinstein.Feinstein, a fellow Democrat, is the oldest member of the chamber, and has not yet said if she will retire. Continue reading...

A relentless parade of atmospheric rivers is battering the whole state – and more storms are expected this week Continue reading...

Navy veteran Warren ‘Butch’ Marion plans to pay off house and visit family after businessman raises $100,000 on social mediaA Walmart cashier in his 80s, one of scores of Americans forced to continue working into old age, has been able to retire thanks to a collective act of kindness.Warren “Butch” Marion, 82, a US navy veteran from Maryland, got the surprise of a lifetime when he received a check for more than $100,000 after a local business owner, Roy McCarty, organized a collection online. Continue reading...

Classified documents found by president’s personal lawyers while closing out office at UPenn’s Biden Center for DiplomacyThe US justice department is investigating a number of documents bearing highly sensitive classified markings stored at Joe Biden’s former institute in Washington from his time as vice-president in the Obama administration, the White House acknowledged in a statement on Monday.The documents were found by Biden’s personal lawyers at the start of November when they closed out office space at the University of Pennsylvania’s Biden Center for Diplomacy, a thinktank where he was an honorary professor until 2019. Continue reading...

Donald Trump pays tribute to Hardaway who formed political commentary team with her sister Rochelle RichardsonLynette Hardaway, the conservative commentator known as Diamond who formed half of the pro-Donald Trump entertainment duo Diamond and Silk, has died at the age of 51.Hardaway’s death was announced via the duo’s social media pages on Monday. Continue reading...

New House rules package sets up showdown on federal debt limit with Republicans expected to push for deep spending cutsFollowing the passage of a new House rules package on Monday and with Donald Trump urging House Republicans to “play tough” on raising the federal debt limit, Democrats are warning of a chaotic 118th Congress that could see the government cease to function normally.The rules package passed the House under the Republican party’s slim majority by a 220-213 vote. A single Republican, Representative Tony Gonzales of Texas, voted against the package, as did all Democrats. Continue reading...

Ali Alexander, who originated campaign based on lie that inspired the January 6 attack, was banned on 10 January 2021The founder of the campaign that promoted the lie that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump has had his Twitter account reinstated.Ali Alexander, who originated the “Stop the Steal” campaign that inspired the January 6 insurrection, was permanently banned from Twitter on 10 January following the Capitol riot. Continue reading...

Senior Trump adviser expected to be sentenced to five months at New York City’s Rikers Island jail complexAllen Weisselberg, a longtime executive for Donald Trump ’s real estate empire whose testimony helped convict the former president’s company of tax fraud, is set to be sentenced on Tuesday for dodging taxes on $1.7m in job perks.New York judge Juan Manuel Merchan is expected to sentence Weisselberg, a senior Trump Organization adviser and former chief financial officer, to five months in jail, in keeping with a plea agreement reached in August. Continue reading...

Heavy floods continued to affect California on Monday after a deluge of rain left areas almost totally submerged. An estimated 10,000 people around the Montecito, Santa Barbara and Santa Cruz areas were given evacuation orders as more rain was forecast. In footage taken on Monday, people could be seen wading through waist-deep water. Tens of thousands of people have been left without power and 12 people have died as a result of violent weather over the past 10 days. Ellen Degeneres, one of several celebrities who live in Montecito, posted a video calling for nature to be treated better

Its support is critical to the conflict, but the US is failing to learn the lessons of its sprawling wars in Iraq and AfghanistanThe just and necessary fight for Ukraine places recent disastrous wars of choice such as Iraq and Afghanistan into the squalid context they deserve. However, there are disturbing signs that western policymakers have not learned the most vital lesson of those conflicts – the necessity for clear objectives and an unambiguous strategy for success.It may seem obvious, but it bears restating that this is a military campaign, and when it comes to military support the US is, if not the only player, by far the most significant. As matters stand the US has failed to articulate its war aims. We hear plenty about what the US “supports”, such as “Ukraine’s territorial integrity”. The US supports many things: human rights, democratic processes and so forth. These are not the same as its war aims. Nato’s aims in the Kosovo war of 1999, for example, were clear: Serbian forces out of Kosovo; a peacekeeping force and international civilian administration deployed; and a return of refugees. The objectives of the Gulf war of 1991 were even simpler: to expel Iraqi forces from Kuwait. It is worth remembering, and not coincidental, that these were the west’s last successful military campaigns. Continue reading...

There is immense pressure to buy a place – and to do so is obviously a massive privilege. So why does homeownership seem so overrated?Here are a few things that I have Googled in the nine months or so since I bought a Victorian terrace home in Philadelphia:Does a crack in the lintel mean my house is going to collapse?Ways to tell if your house is about to fall downHow to tell if your pipes are frozen and are going to burstCan you die of asbestos poisoning by accidentally breathing in lots of dust while sticking your head into a hole in the wall to check if your pipes are frozen?Is buying a house a terrible idea even though everyone tells you it’s the pinnacle of adulthood and what everyone should aspire to? Continue reading...

The book is out and as the royal gone awol speaks his truth, you have to ask: if this is Britain’s first family, what are the others like?Day 127 of J.Crew Hamlet and Prince Harry’s memoir has finally dropped. It needed to. I feel like I’ve had babies I’ve been less organised for than this particular arrival. There have, it is fair to say, been one or two thousand pre-publication spoilers for Spare, each of which a lot of people have consumed without really meaning to. There’s something about it having all taken place over the turn of the year that reminds you of eating nothing but Christmas food for days and days and days. After about a week of it, you do find yourself screaming: “I never want to see this stuff again! Can we please, PLEASE have a Chinese or a curry?” That said, I do still have one box of mince pies and one royal tell-all left, and I think we both know I’m going to get through them. It’s called duty – look it up.Anyway, on to the reaction. As I type this, Harry’s entire home of Montecito is under evacuation amid floods some will no doubt choose to see as biblical. We can only guess how the book has gone down in Windsor Elsinore. Some judge that Harry has opened a hail of literary gunfire on a royal family whose courtiers constantly emphasise are limited in the ways they can fight back. Maybe this is a metaphor. As one of the more eye-catching passages of Prince Harry’s book reveals, during the conflict in Afghanistan he killed 25 Taliban fighters out of his $50m helicopter, a form of warfare which even the most committed Taliban-loathers among us always had to admit was a bit asymmetric. Then again, the Taliban won in the end, so we should certainly consider the possibility that the monarchy will be the last ones standing in the rubble when Harry’s barrage ends. Continue reading...

They might seem like creatures who plod along thoughtlessly, but people who care for them know betterDonkeys are having a moment, not that they care. The sturdy creatures, famous for their stoicism, are screen sirens now. Donkeys have starring roles in two of the most celebrated films released this year: British-Irish director Martin McDonagh’s The Banshees of Inisherin and Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski’s EO, which premiered at Cannes and took home the jury prize.Skolimowski cast a donkey, not the most elegant of equines, as his lead after coming across one and being taken by the liquid beauty of his eyes. In an interview with NPR, he said: “What struck me was the size of his eyes and a specific melancholic expression of those eyes, which I thought could be read as a comment on every situation the donkey would find himself in. And then, by cutting to these enormous eyes, one at least could imagine what was going on in the donkey’s head.” Continue reading...

I was told that my fellowship at the Kennedy School was vetoed over my and Human Rights Watch’s criticism of IsraelDuring the three decades that I headed Human Rights Watch, I recognized that we would never attract donors who wanted to exempt their favorite country from the objective application of international human rights principles. That is the price of respecting principles.Yet American universities have not articulated a similar rule, and it is unclear whether they follow one. That lack of clarity leaves the impression that major donors might use their contributions to block criticism of certain topics, in violation of academic freedom. Or even that university administrators might anticipate possible donor objections to a faculty member’s views before anyone has to say anything. Continue reading...

Politics watchers tend to look at Europe for analogies to our history, but our hemispheric neighbors share more of our foundational pathologiesAmerican politics-watchers tend to look across the Atlantic, to Europe, for analogies to our own history. But the better analogy has never been to the US’s east, but to our south, in the Latin American democracies. It is those countries – our hemispheric neighbors – that share more of the US’s foundational pathologies.Like us, they were founded on early violence that casts long shadows over our subsequent attempts at equality and pluralism: chattel slavery and the dispossession and genocide of indigenous peoples. Like us, they are host to racially and religiously heterogenous populations, aspiring to national projects based not so much in shared ethnic identity as in shared ideals. And like us, these Latin American nations have an authoritarian streak, one that has historically been encouraged, both tacitly and explicitly, by the US itself. Continue reading...

Non-profit affiliated with utility DTE Energy funded effort to repeal Michigan governor’s emergency order powersA dark money non-profit linked to power utility DTE Energy funded a group behind the effort to repeal the emergency order powers of Michigan’s Democratic governor, Gretchen Whitmer, and end the state’s Covid-19 lockdowns and restrictions.Internal Revenue Service records revealing a $100,000 donation made in 2020 were not publicly available until late 2021, and show the funds were contributed to another dark money non-profit that served as a primary funder of the Unlock Michigan repeal campaign. Continue reading...

Partisan lines divided the vote on rules, with no Democrats voting for them and only one Republican voting against. Plus, how US state agencies got funnyGood morning.The Republican-led US House of Representatives yesterday adopted a package of internal rules that give rightwing hardliners more leverage over the chamber’s newly elected Republican speaker, Kevin McCarthy.What do the Democrats say is wrong with the package of rules? Democrats denounced the legislation as a rules package for “Maga extremists” that would favor wealthy corporations over workers, undermine congressional ethics standards and lead to further restrictions on abortion services.What else is going on? The rapper Dr Dre has spoken out against the use of his song Still DRE in a self-promotional video by the Republican representative Marjorie Taylor Greene to celebrate her role in electing fellow GOP lawmaker Kevin McCarthy as speaker of the House. “I don’t license my music to politicians, especially someone as divisive and hateful as this one,” he said.Why is Biden in the news regarding classified documents? The US justice department is investigating a number of documents bearing highly sensitive classified markings stored at Joe Biden’s former institute in Washington DC from his time as vice-president in the Obama administration, the White House acknowledged in a statement yesterday. Continue reading...

Warhammer achieves record sales of £200m in half-year but says figures for US are flatThe two companies behind Warhammer miniature figures and Scalextric racing sets have enjoyed a good Christmas, while warning about the impact of the cost of living crisis.Games Workshop – which last month struck a deal with Amazon to create a series based on Warhammer – achieved record sales of more than £200m in the six months to 31 December, its first half. Continue reading...

Why have there been so many $1bn jackpots recently? And how much do you actually win?Millions of Americans are purchasing lottery tickets for the chance to nab the Mega Millions $1.1bn jackpot, the drawing for which takes place on Tuesday night.If you are getting deja vu looking at the US headlines about the billion-dollar jackpot, it is not just you: this is the third billion-dollar jackpot in the last six months. Continue reading...

Government recently persuaded judge to force Trump lawyers to turn over names of people who searched for retained documentsThe US Department of Justice is intensifying its investigation of Donald Trump’s unauthorized retention of national security materials at Mar-a-Lago as it prepares to question the people who searched the former president’s Florida properties at the end of last year and found more documents with classified markings.The department was given a general explanation from Trump’s lawyers at the time about who conducted the search – a company known to Trump with experience handling classified records cases – when the new documents marked as classified were returned to the government around Thanksgiving last year. Continue reading...

Police chief gives first detailed description of last week’s classroom shooting that has shocked USThe shooting of a Virginia teacher by a six-year-old boy in her classroom last week happened without warning, and with no fight or physical struggle, authorities have said.“What we know today is that she was providing instruction. He displayed a firearm, he pointed it and he fired one round,” said the Newport News police chief, Steve Drew. Continue reading...

The Indiana Pacers guard is the latest in a long line of players dedicated to making life as uncomfortable as possible for their opponentsTJ McConnell, a 6ft 1in backup point guard for the Indiana Pacers, welcomes the pressure.“Where I’m from,” McConnell tells the Guardian ahead of his team’s late December matchup (and eventual win) against the Boston Celtics, “the NBA isn’t a possibility for most guys. It’s been a crazy ride.” Continue reading...

Controversial newly elected congressman who appears to have made up most of his résumé is subject of FEC complaintThe newly sworn-in Republican congressman George Santos, whose campaign résumé has been shown to be largely made-up, is the subject of a complaint filed with the Federal Election Commission.The complaint concerning the New York representative was filed with the FEC on Monday by the Campaign Legal Center (CLC), a non-partisan watchdog group. Continue reading...

He was either ‘corrupt’, ‘in love’ or had ‘completely lost’ his mental edge, says grandson who blew whistle on Holmes’s schemeFormer US secretary of state George Shultz’s support for Elizabeth Holmes and her fraudulent blood testing company, Theranos, which devastated his family and caused a bitter feud with his grandson, receives fresh scrutiny in a biography published on Tuesday.Shultz was Ronald Reagan’s top diplomat at the end of the cold war. Before that, he was secretary of the treasury and secretary of labor under Richard Nixon. He is now the subject of In the Nation’s Service, written by Philip Taubman, a former New York Times reporter. Continue reading...

The order, issued in November, also asks the former mayor to provide testimonyRudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor, who helped to amplify Donald Trump’s false claims about widespread fraud in the 2020 election, has been subpoenaed by federal prosecutors seeking documents about payments he received from Trump or his presidential campaign, a person familiar with the matter said on Monday.The subpoena, which was issued in November, also asks Giuliani to provide testimony, said the person, who declined to be identified as they were not authorized to speak publicly on the matter. Continue reading...

Harry and Meghan are just another ultra-rich, out-of-touch couple but even the most privileged face the ordinary suffering of growing upIn the inescapable story that is Harry v William, what is most striking is how petty some of the grievances sound.Prince Harry is upset his brother didn’t like his beard. Continue reading...

Communities including in celebrity enclave of Montecito, Santa Barbara and Santa Cruz told to evacuate as more rain is expectedA series of deadly and destructive storms continued to hammer California on Monday, as the drought-stricken state grapples with the sudden onslaught of a very wet January.Joe Biden issued an emergency declaration for California on Sunday, unlocking federal aid to support recovery as mud slides, engorged rivers and streams, and wind-strewn trees wreaked havoc on already-inundated infrastructure across the state. The California department of water resources warned that more than a dozen places were at high risk of flooding. Continue reading...

This blog is now closed. You can read our main story on the rules package here.The Guardian’s Kira Lerner reports that the GOP has been waging a legal assault on voting nationwide, with more lawsuits aimed at restricting ballot box access filed last year than ever before:The Republican party filed a record number of anti-voting lawsuits in 2022, a sign that they are shifting the battle over voting access and election administration to courtrooms in addition to state legislatures. Continue reading...

Incoming majority also created new special subcommittee to investigate justice department and intelligence agenciesHouse Republicans moved to pre-emptively kill any investigations against its members as it curtailed the power of an independent ethics office just as it was weighing whether to open inquiries into lawmakers who defied subpoenas issued by the House January 6 select committee last year.The incoming Republican majority also paved the way for a new special subcommittee with a wide mandate to investigate the US justice department and intelligence agencies, which could include reviewing the criminal probes into Donald Trump and a Republican congressman caught up in the Capitol attack inquiry. Continue reading...

Nurses walked off the job at the Mount Sinai and Montefiore medical centers in Harlem and the Bronx over staffing issuesMore than 7,000 nurses at two New York City hospitals went on strike on Monday, saying their concerns around staffing issues had not been addressed by management.Talks failed on Sunday night. At 6am on Monday, nurses went on strike at Mount Sinai medical center on the Upper East Side and Montefiore medical center in the Bronx. Continue reading...

Partisan lines divided the vote on rules, with no Democrats voting for them and only one Republican voting againstThe Republican-led US House of Representatives on Monday adopted a package of internal rules that give rightwing hardliners more leverage over the chamber’s newly elected Republican speaker, Kevin McCarthy.Lawmakers voted 220-213 for the legislation, with only one Republican voting against. All 212 Democrats voted against the rules package, saying it was full of concessions to the right wing of the Republican party. Continue reading...