Ex-president rails against ban on attacking key people connected to the trial; longtime Trump assistant asked whether boss distracted while signing checks
Trump defense attorney Emil Bove has resumed his cross-examination of Pecker.
“We were talking about Hope Hicks, right?” Bove asked, referring to the former campaign and White House aide to Trump. Pecker answered in the affirmative.
Continue reading...US activist, 69, speaks to NBC amid growing effort to prevent I Am Ruby Bridges and other works being available to school students
Increasingly, the US civil rights icon Ruby Bridges – the first Black child to integrate a school in Louisiana – has seen some adults seek to prevent grade-school students from accessing the books and films that chronicle her story, saying the tale makes white children feel bad about themselves.
But that justification is “ridiculous” because “my biggest fans are kids all around the world”, Bridges told NBC’s Meet the Press moderator Kristen Welker in an interview airing on Sunday morning’s episode of the show.
Continue reading...Congressman Adam Smith says ‘totalitarian’ protesters are ‘trying to silence anyone who dares to disagree with them’
Protesters calling for Israel to cease fire in its war with Hamas who have disrupted US public events and infrastructure are practicing “leftwing fascism” or “leftwing totalitarianism”, a senior US House Democrat said, adding that such protesters are “challenging representative democracy” and should be arrested.
“Intimidation is the tactic,” said Adam Smith of Washington state, the ranking Democrat on the House armed services committee. “Intimidation and an effort to silence opposition … I don’t know if there’s such a thing as leftwing fascism. If you want to just call it leftwing totalitarianism, then that’s what it is. It is a direct challenge to representative democracy now.”
Continue reading...At least 34 arrested at University of Texas in Austin and 50 more detained at University of Southern California while House speaker jeered at Columbia University
Dozens of protesters were arrested on Wednesday while participating in pro-Palestine demonstrations across US college campuses.
At least 34 protesters, including a member of the media from a local news station, were arrested during protests at University of Texas in Austin and at least 50 more were detained by police at University of Southern California (USC).
Continue reading...President says legislation is ‘going to make the world safer’ after months of congressional gridlock threatened support for Kyiv
Joe Biden has signed into law a bill that rushes $95bn in foreign aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, a bipartisan legislative victory he hailed as a “good day for world peace” after months of congressional gridlock threatened Washington’s support for Kyiv in its fight to repel Russia’s invasion.
The Senate overwhelmingly passed the measure in a 79 -18 vote late on Tuesday night, after the package won similarly lopsided approval in the Republican controlled House, despite months of resistance from an isolationist bloc of hardline conservatives opposed to helping Ukraine.
Continue reading...The $95bn package allots funds to Israel, Taiwan and Ukraine, which desperately needs munitions for its war with Russia
Joe Biden praised congressional leaders and lawmakers for what he called an effort “to answer history’s call at this critical inflection point” after the US Senate voted resoundingly in a bipartisan majority on Tuesday to approve $95bn in aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.
The Senate passed the bill in a sweeping 79 to 18 vote, after similarly lopsided approval in the House last weekend. The president, who had pushed Congress for months to deliver the foreign aid measure, said he would sign it into law on Wednesday and immediately begin the process of sending badly needed weapons to Ukraine as early as this week.
Continue reading...More than 60 people, including a journalist, arrested at University of Southern California and University of Texas at Austin. This blog is now closed.
Mike Johnson, the Republican House speaker, will visit Columbia University today to speak to Jewish students and hold a press conference “regarding the troubling rise of virulent antisemitism on America’s college campuses”, his office has said.
New York House Republicans have called on Columbia’s president, Minouche Shafik, to resign immediately for failing to end the protests.
Continue reading...The TikTok investor is also linked to funding challenges to progressive politicians and against Obama’s Iran nuclear deal
Top Republican donor and TikTok investor Jeff Yass is connected to over $16m in funding to anti-Muslim and pro-Israel groups that have advocated for a US war with Iran and other militaristic policies in the Middle East, according to an investigation by the Guardian and Responsible Statecraft.
Media reports on Yass, the billionaire co-founder of Susquehanna International Group, a trading and technology firm, have focused on his outsized role in the Republican party, to which he is now the largest political donor in the 2024 election cycle, contributing more than $46m thus far.
Continue reading...The Senate, in a bipartisan super-majority, overwhelmingly voted to advance the measure, which Joe Biden is expected to sign
The US Senate voted resoundingly on Tuesday to approve $95bn in wartime aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, as a bipartisan super-majority united to send the long-stalled package to Joe Biden’s desk for signature. The final vote was 79 to 18.
The bill easily cleared a key procedural hurdle earlier in the day. The Senate overwhelmingly voted to advance the measure in a step hailed by the Senate majority leader as “one of the greatest achievements the Senate has faced in years”.
Continue reading...State’s voters still had options in presidential contests, with tallies to provide window into how state will swing in November
Joe Biden and Donald Trump both won their primaries in Pennsylvania shortly after polls closed.
Pennsylvanians had gone to the polls on Tuesday to cast ballots in the state’s primary races – the results provide a window into where voters in the crucial battleground stand roughly six months out from the general election.
Continue reading...Ex-Democrat, reported contender for Trump running mate, sued Clinton for Russia remark but dropped case
Tulsi Gabbard, the former Democratic congresswoman, has repeated a discredited claim about Hillary Clinton that previously saw Gabbard lodge then drop a $50m defamation suit in a new book published as she seeks to be named Donald Trump’s running mate for US president.
Accusing Democrats of making up “a conspiracy theory that [Trump] was ‘colluding’ with the Russians to win the election” in 2016, Gabbard claims: “Hillary Clinton used a similar tactic against me when I ran for president in 2020, accusing me of being ‘groomed by the Russians’.”
Continue reading...The former British PM went all Trumpy at the Heritage, with an audience hanging on her every word as she promoted her book
Was that Donald Truss? Or Liz Trump? A former British prime minister turned up in Washington on Monday channeling the Maga menace who once lorded it in the Oval Office and now spends his days in a dingy courtroom.
Liz Truss was at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative thinktank in Washington, within sight of the US Capitol dome, to promote her grandly titled book Ten Years to Save the West. Why does she keep coming back to America? It was not hard to figure out.
Continue reading...Ukrainian president urges Senate to ratify aid package so that country can strengthen frontline with Russia
Ukraine’s president has said the vote by the US House of Representatives to pass a long-delayed $61bn (£49bn) military aid package demonstrated that his country would not be abandoned by the west in its effort to fight the Russian invasion.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in an interview with US television that Saturday’s vote showed Ukraine would not be “a second Afghanistan”, whose pro-western government collapsed during an US-led pullout in the summer of 2021.
Continue reading...Former president told thousands of supporters gathered at Wilmington airport the event would be rescheduled ‘bigger and better’
Donald Trump called for debates with Joe Biden before cancelling his own appearance at a planned rally in Wilmington, North Carolina as a rain storm approached the airport where it was staged on Saturday.
Trump called as he was approaching the international airport to tell rally goers that the event would be rescheduled “bigger and better”. This would have been the first time he addressed supporters in public after a week of relative silence in a New York courtroom.
Continue reading...Bill – with updated language that extends deadline to a year for ByteDance to divest of TikTok – to go before Senate next week
The House of Representatives voted 360 to 58 on the updated divest-or-ban bill that could lead to the first time ever that the US government has passed a law to shut down an entire social media platform.
The Senate is expected to vote on the bill next week and Joe Biden has said he will sign the legislation.
Continue reading...Ukraine aid component threatens to throw the Republican party into disarray – and endangers the speakership of Mike Johnson
The US House of Representatives will finally vote on Saturday on a series of foreign aid bills, bringing an end to a months-long standoff in Congress led mostly by Republicans who refuse to support funding Ukraine’s ongoing military defense against Russia’s invasion.
House members will hold separate votes on four bills that represent $95bn in funding altogether – including roughly $26bn in aid for Israel, $61bn for Ukraine, $8bn for US allies in the Indo-Pacific region and $9bn in humanitarian assistance for civilians in war zones, such as Gaza.
Continue reading...As the speaker of the House finally allows a vote to go forward on aid, GOP infighting is tearing apart the party
Republican divisions over military support for Ukraine were long simmering. Now, before Saturday’s extraordinary vote in Congress on a foreign aid package, they have erupted into open warfare – a conflict that the vote itself is unlikely to contain.
Mike Johnson, the speaker of the House of Representatives, triggered an all-out split in his own party’s ranks last week by finally agreeing, after months of stalling, to a floor vote on the $95bn foreign aid programme. Passed by the Senate in February, it contained about $60bn for Ukraine, $14bn for Israel, and a smaller amount for Taiwan and other Pacific allies.
Continue reading...The enigmatic former first lady to appear at fundraiser on Saturday, marking a return to her husband’s side as he seeks re-election
Her biggest fashion statement as first lady was a green jacket emblazoned with the words “I really don’t care, do u?” More recently, Melania Trump has given the impression that she doesn’t care whether her husband, Donald, returns to the White House. That is about to change.
On Saturday Melania, 53, will appear at a fundraiser at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, for the Log Cabin Republicans, the biggest Republican organisation dedicated to representing LGBT conservatives. It will be her first appearance at a political event since Trump, 77, launched his bid to regain the presidency.
Continue reading...This live blog is now closed. For the latest on Trump’s criminal trial, read our full report:
Judge Merchan, in directing the press not to use physical descriptors to describe jurors, complained specifically about mentioning one of the jurors had an Irish accent.
“We just lost” what would have been a good juror for the case, Merchan said, after one of the jurors was excused after she told the court that she had concerns about her ability to be impartial. Merchan added:
She said she was afraid and intimidated by the press, all the press.
I would recommend the press simply apply common sense and refrain from anything that has to do, for example, with physical descriptions. It’s just not necessary, it serves no purpose.
Continue reading...Bridget Thorne, a Republican elected in Fulton county in 2022, has spread election fraud lies and accused county employees of crimes
A Fulton county commissioner in Georgia has been operating a private Telegram channel for years, propagating debunked claims about the 2020 election, and spreading accusations of crimes by county employees, including Ruby Freeman, an election worker defamed by Rudy Giuliani in the wake of Donald Trump’s 2020 loss.
Bridget Thorne, a Republican representing the relatively conservative cities of Fulton county north of Atlanta, indirectly identifies herself as the creator and administrator of the Fulton County Elections channel on Telegram, a mobile messaging platform, in multiple posts to its page. The channel uses the official logo of the Fulton county board of registration and elections.
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