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US Monthly Headline News April 2022 - Page 4
By News and Guts

Why is the GOP obsessed with a loser? Donald Trump’s undeniable grip on the Republican Party is particularly confounding given his electoral track record. This is a man, after all, who lost the popular vote in consecutive presidential elections and his insistence that the 2020 vote was rigged tanked the GOP’s chance of retaining the Senate. Writing in The Atlantic, Mark Leibovich argues that Never Trump Republicans ought to take off their kid gloves if they want to dismantle his kingmaker status: Trump’s bizarre and enduring hold over his party has made it verboten for many Republicans to even utter publicly the unpleasant fact of his defeat—something they will readily acknowledge in private. I caught up recently with several Trump-opposing Republican strategists and former associates of the president who argued this restraint should end. The best way for a Republican to depose Trump in 2024, they said, will be to call Trump a loser, as early and as brutally as possible—and keep pointing out the absurdity of treating a one-term, twice-impeached, 75-year-old former president like a kingmaker and heir apparent. In other words, don’t worry about hurting Special Boy’s feelings.
Why do some Americans continue to honor traitors

Members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans were met by counterprotesters - the two sides separated by a fence - during a rally to mark Confederate Memorial Day at Stone Mountain Park on Saturday, April 30, 2022.
Lawyers for groups challenging Republican say text Greene sent to Meadows, released by House panel, shows she lied in testimony
Martin Pengelly

Lawyers for voters seeking to bar the far-right Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene from Congress over her support for the January 6 insurrection have accused her of lying in a hearing in the case.
Senate candidate JD Vance greets former President Donald Trump at a rally at the Delaware County Fairgrounds, 23 April 2022. In a filing Friday, lawyers for groups challenging Greene said a text from the Georgia congresswoman to then White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, released by the House committee investigating January 6, shows she lied in testimony. At the hearing in Atlanta earlier this month, a fractious affair in front of an administrative judge, Greene said she could not recall advocating for Donald Trump to impose martial law after the Capitol attack, as the then president sought to remain in power despite losing the 2020 election to Joe Biden.
by Randi Weingarten and Jonah Edelman

Just as extremists have used the Big Lie about the 2020 presidential election to undermine American democracy, far-right advocates of privatizing public education are using Big Lies to undermine public schools. Supporters of public schools must see these ugly attacks for what they are and take a stand against them. In a recent lecture at ultra-conservative Hillsdale College, culture war orchestrator Christopher Rufo detailed the strategy for replacing public education with a universal voucher system. “To get to universal school choice, you really need to operate from a premise of universal public school distrust,” Rufo explained. Earlier in that same lecture, describing how to lay siege to institutions, he noted the necessity to create your own narrative and frame and advised his audience they “have to be ruthless and brutal.” Rufo and other dark money-funded extremists follow a consistent playbook for attacking public schools.
Former president’s son suggests that the US should not send more funds to Ukraine
Alisha Rahaman Sarkar

Donald Trump Jr, the son of the 45th United States president, claimed that Ukraine is one of the "most corrupt countries in the world" after president Joe Biden asked Congress to approve a $33bn aid package for the war-torn country. Mr Biden on Thursday proposed a further $33bn in security, economic and humanitarian assistance to aid Ukraine at what he called “a very pivotal moment" as Russian president Vladimir Putin's forces shifted their attack to the country’s eastern region. Asking the Congress to approve the package "as quickly as possible", Mr Biden said: "We can’t stand by as the Russians continue their atrocities and aggression in Ukraine." "Every day the Ukrainians are paying with their lives for this fight, and we need to contribute arms, funding, ammunition and the economic support to make their courage and sacrifice have a purpose so they can continue this fight and do w
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' action to dissolve Disney’s special district in Florida seems to be taking more twists than a Disney ride.  
by Elie Honig

(CNN) This needs to be said right up front about the pending Justice Department investigation of Rep. Matt Gaetz: there's still a lot that we don't know. He has steadfastly, even furiously, denied any wrongdoing. But the facts that have emerged -- including new CNN reporting that federal prosecutors are attempting to obtain cooperation from Gaetz's ex-girlfriend -- seem likely to paint a bleak picture for Gaetz moving forward.

Joel Greenberg. Gaetz's onetime pal and political ally Joel Greenberg -- who faces a 33-count federal indictment, charged with crimes ranging from sex trafficking of a minor to bribery to identity theft to stalking -- reportedly is cooperating with federal prosecutors and providing information about Gaetz's conduct, including alleged encounters with women who were given cash or gifts in exchange for sex. Greenberg has until the end of this week to finalize any plea agreement with prosecutors.
Ben Protess, Jonah E. Bromwich, William K. Rashbaum and Lananh Nguyen

When some two dozen New Yorkers filed into a Manhattan courthouse this week to finish out their grand jury service, the case against a man who would have been the world’s most prominent criminal defendant was no longer before them. That man, Donald J. Trump, was facing potential criminal charges from the grand jury this year over his business practices. But in the weeks since the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, stopped presenting evidence to the jurors about Mr. Trump, new signs have emerged that the former president will not be indicted in Manhattan in the foreseeable future — if at all. At least three of the witnesses once central to the case have either not heard from the district attorney’s office in months, or have not been asked to testify, according to people with knowledge of the matter. In recent weeks, a prosecutor at the Manhattan district attorney’s office who played a key role in the investigation has stopped focusing on a potential case against Mr. Trump, other people with knowledge of the inquiry said — a move that followed the resignation of two senior prosecutors earlier this year.
Republicans are trying to cancel Green Energy

Mario Alejandro Ariza, Mose Buchele

For years, fossil fuel producing states have watched investors shy away from companies causing the climate crisis. Last year, one state decided to push back. Texas passed a law treating financial companies shunning fossil fuels the same way it treated companies that did business with Iran, or Sudan: boycott them. "This bill sent a strong message to both Washington and Wall Street that if you boycott Texas energy, then Texas will boycott you," Texas Representative Phil King said from the floor of the Texas legislature during deliberations on the bill, SB 13, last year. But the Lone Star state is straining to implement the law. Loopholes and exceptions written into the law could sap its impact on financial firms that have aggressive climate policies.
The latest target of Musk’s critical tweets is Twitter’s head of policy, legal and trust, Vijaya Gadde, who is facing harassment from Musk’s followers as a result. ‘Suspending the Twitter account of a major news organization for publishing a truthful story was obviously incredibly inappropriate,’ Musk tweeted in response to conservative journalist Saagar Enjeti who called Gadde Twitter’s ‘top censorship advocate’. Enjeti claimed she was responsible for temporarily banning links to a New York Post story about President Joe Biden’s son. The tweet was in response to a screenshot of a Politico article that reported Gadde breaking down in an internal meeting on Monday where she acknowledged ‘significant uncertainties’ about the future of Twitter under Musk.
The U.S. economy unexpectedly shrank last quarter for the first time since 2020 as the trade deficit ballooned. GDP fell at a 1.4% annualized rate as surging imports and softer inventory growth offset solid consumer demand, the Commerce Department's preliminary estimate showed. Mike McKee reports on "Bloomberg The Open."
Holly Ellyatt

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has warned the West of a “lightning fast” response to any country that intervenes in its war against Ukraine war and creates what he called “strategic threats for Russia.” “We have all the instruments [to respond] that no one can boast of ... we’re going to use them if we have to,” he said, in what has widely been seen as an allusion to Russia’s arsenal of intercontinental ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons. Russia shocked the European community by halting gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria on Wednesday because they had refused to pay for the gas in Russian rubles, as Moscow demanded.
Kirk Swearingen

Vladimir Putin recently launched an intercontinental missile meant to threaten the members of NATO with nuclear annihilation. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has gone after the Walt Disney Company as a warning to all "woke" corporations. Call it the masculinity-obsessed right's inter-corporate missile, resetting the traditional terms of mutual grift between corporate America and the Republican Party. The conservative right has been squirming uncomfortably in recent years as it watches corporate America introduce diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs, and apparently Disney's belated mild rebuke of DeSantis's "Don't say gay" law led to this showdown between the formerly more-than-chummy CEOs of corporate America and Republican politicians. But the Trump cult is not your grandfather's GOP, or even your father's. (I think it's fair to call it your conspiracy-obsessed uncle's or white nationalist cousin's GOP.)
Peter Weber

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) on Friday signed a bill that aims to strip Disney of its self-governing authority in and around Walt Disney World, but in their rush to punish Disney for opposing the new "Don't Say Gay" law, Florida Republicans "failed to notice an obscure provision in state law that says the state could not do what legislators were doing — unless the district's bond debt was paid off," the Miami Herald reported Tuesday. But Disney noticed and quietly assured investors the new law won't stand up in court. The Reedy Creek Improvement District allows Disney to act like a municipal government, setting its own rules, taxing itself to pay for services, and raising funds by issuing bonds. When Florida approved the district in 1967, it pledged not to "limit or alter the rights of the district" until "all such bonds together with interest thereon" are "fully met and discharged."
Lee Moran

Aretired conservative federal judge appointed by former President George H.W. Bush warned in an opinion piece published by CNN on Wednesday that Republicans are “already a long way toward recapturing the White House in 2024, whether Trump or another Republican candidate wins the election or not.” In his essay, J. Michael Luttig broke down what he called the “Republican blueprint” to steal the 2024 election ― the cornerstone of which, he said, was the Supreme Court’s embrace of the “independent state legislature” doctrine.
Trump's “very special” people sacked the capitol of the United States of America, wanted to harm and/or kill people in congress and hang Mike Pence. Trump called them “very special” people, Republicans called them tourist but tourists do not sacked the capitol or plan to harm or kill people.

Joe DePaolo

Former President Donald Trump promoted the long-deleted video message he tweeted on Jan. 6 under the apparent belief it bolsters his case that his conduct was above board. In a statement on Saturday night, Trump shared a Twitter link to the video which the social media platform deleted shortly after it was posted late in the the afternoon of January 6th. The former president questioned why the House January 6th committee isn’t talking about the video. “Why did Twitter quickly take down this video that I made on January 6th, and why isn’t the Unselect Committee of political hacks talking about it?” Trump wrote. In the minute-long video — a clip which he evidently considers a boon to his argument — Trump referred to the attackers who breached the Capitol as “very special” people, and railed about the 2020 election having been rigged against him.
By Kara Scannell, CNN

Lawyers for the New York State Attorney General's Office said they are nearly finished with their civil investigation into the Trump Organization, after taking steps to unravel the real estate company's assets that they described as being as complex as a "Russian nesting doll." They still want to search two cell phones belonging to former President Donald Trump and the laptop and desktop of his longtime executive assistant Rhona Graff, but investigators told a judge this week they're moving quickly. "The process is near the end," Kevin Wallace, senior enforcement counsel at the New York State Attorney General's Office, said Monday. A third-party firm hired to search the Trump Organization's files had identified 151 custodians, or people or entities, that might have documents sought by the attorney general's office, but Wallace said they are focusing on the "most important outstanding pieces of information" because the clock is ticking for it to file a lawsuit. The statute of limitations for various laws under consideration goes back several years, but the tolling agreement with the Trump Organization that paused the clock expires on Saturday. Even as the agreement expires, it could still be several weeks before the attorney general's office decides its next step in the investigation.
Ewan Palmer

Awhistleblower who worked with federal authorities investigating ties between Deutsche Bank and Donald Trump has been found dead in California. The body of Valentin Broeksmit, 45, was found on the Woodrow Wilson High School campus off on the 4500 block of Multnomah Street on Monday, according to the Los Angeles County coroner's office. He was pronounced dead at 7 a.m., reported CBS. Broeksmit was reported missing last year, with the Los Angeles Police Department saying he was last seen on April 6, 2021 around 4 p.m., at Griffith Park on Riverside Drive driving a 2020 red Mini Cooper. Despite being reported missing, Broeksmit's Twitter's account remained active, with his last tweet uploading a photo of himself being sent on April 5. Journalist Scott Stedman, who works for the Forensic News website, also confirmed Broeksmit's death in a tweet. "He supplied me and other journalists with Deutsche Bank documents that highlighted the bank's deep Russia connections," Stedman wrote. "It is very sad. I don't suspect foul play. Val struggled with drugs on and off.
Paul Blumenthal

Three American Samoan residents of Utah and a Samoan nonprofit asked the Supreme Court on Wednesday to take up their case challenging the validity of the 100-year-old racist court precedents that continue to deny them equal rights as U.S. citizens. The case of Fitisemanu v. United States arises from the peculiar relationship between the United States and its five overseas territories: American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Marianas Islands, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The 3.6 million residents of these territories owe allegiance to the U.S. government but do not have equal rights under the law.
By Sonia Moghe and Kara Scannell, CNN

(CNN) A New York judge is holding Donald Trump in civil contempt after the state's attorney general's office said he did not comply with a subpoena for documents as part of its investigation into the former President's company. Judge Arthur Engoron said Trump failed to abide by his order to comply with the subpoena, and that his attorneys failed to show how a search of materials held by Trump was conducted. Engoron said Trump would be fined $10,000 a day until he complies. "Mr. Trump, I know you take your business seriously and I take mine seriously. I hereby hold you in civil contempt and fine you $10,000 per day until you purge that contempt," Engoron said at a hearing Monday. New York Attorney General Letitia James' office has been investigating the Trump Organization for more than two years and previously said her office found multiple misleading or fraudulent misstatements and omissions in the Trump Organization's financial statements, which were provided to lenders and insurers, among others, as part of its investigation.
Analysis by Chris Cillizza, CNN Editor-at-large

Donald Trump has long had a simple philosophy when it comes to legal matters: Sue, sue, sue. A USA Today review in 2016 showed that Trump had been involved in more than 4,000 lawsuits over the prior 30 years, a stunning testament to his litigiousness. In the White House, Trump just kept suing (or threatening to sue). As I noted in October: "Trump sued John Bolton to stop the the publication of a book about the former national security adviser's time in the White House. (He lost.) He threatened to sue CNN because a poll showed him trailing Joe Biden by 14 points. He threatened to sue The New York Times after the newspaper published an article detailing allegations by two women that Trump had inappropriately touched them. He threatened to sue if members of his campaign were not allowed into satellite election offices in Philadelphia. He threatened to sue special counsel Robert Mueller."
A small circle of Republican lawmakers, working closely with President Donald J. Trump’s chief of staff, took on an outsize role in pressuring the Justice Department, amplifying conspiracy theories and flooding the courts in an attempt to overturn the 2020 election.
By Katie Benner, Catie Edmondson, Luke Broadwater and Alan Feuer

WASHINGTON — Two days after Christmas last year, Richard P. Donoghue, a top Justice Department official in the waning days of the Trump administration, saw an unknown number appear on his phone. Mr. Donoghue had spent weeks fielding calls, emails and in-person requests from President Donald J. Trump and his allies, all of whom asked the Justice Department to declare, falsely, that the election was corrupt. The lame-duck president had surrounded himself with a crew of unscrupulous lawyers, conspiracy theorists, even the chief executive of MyPillow — and they were stoking his election lies. Mr. Trump had been handing out Mr. Donoghue’s cellphone number so that people could pass on rumors of election fraud. Who could be calling him now?
by J. Michael Luttig

Nearly a year and a half later, surprisingly few understand what January 6 was all about. Fewer still understand why former President Donald Trump and Republicans persist in their long-disproven claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen. Much less why they are obsessed about making the 2024 race a referendum on the "stolen" election of 2020, which even they know was not stolen. January 6 was never about a stolen election or even about actual voting fraud. It was always and only about an election that Trump lost fair and square, under legislatively promulgated election rules in a handful of swing states that he and other Republicans contend were unlawfully changed by state election officials and state courts to expand the right and opportunity to vote, largely in response to the Covid pandemic. The Republicans' mystifying claim to this day that Trump did, or would have, received more votes than Joe Biden in 2020 were it not for actual voting fraud, is but the shiny object that Republicans have tauntingly and disingenuously dangled before the American public for almost a year and a half now to distract attention from their far more ambitious objective.
By Jamiel Lynch, Chris Boyette and Eric Levenson, CNN

(CNN) Disney's self-governing special district, the Reedy Creek Improvement District, says that Florida's move to dissolve the district next year is not legal unless the state pays off Reedy Creek's extensive debts. Reedy Creek is a special purpose district created by state law in May 1967 that gives The Walt Disney Company extensive governmental control over the land in and around its central Florida theme parks. With that power, Reedy Creek currently has about $1 billion in outstanding bond debt, according to the credit rating agency Fitch Ratings. In a statement issued to its bondholders last Thursday, Reedy Creek pointed out that the 1967 law also includes a pledge from Florida to its bondholders. The law states that Florida "will not in any way impair the rights or remedies of the holders ... until all such bonds together with interest thereon, and all costs and expenses in connection with any act or proceeding by or on behalf of such holders, are fully met and discharged." Due to that pledge, Reedy Creek said it expects to continue business as usual.
wbostock@businessinsider.com (Bill Bostock)

The US left $7 billion worth of military equipment in Afghanistan following its withdrawal last year, CNN reported, citing a report released by the Pentagon that had been ordered by Congress. Tens of thousands of US troops entered Afghanistan in 2005 and maintained a presence there until August 2021. As the US wound up its military operations, the Taliban surged to power, ultimately capturing Kabul. But as the US departed Afghanistan, it left behind scores of weapons, planes, vehicles, and other equipment, with some of it demilitarized, the report said. The Pentagon said in the report obtained by CNN that was published in March that, during the 16-year occupation, the US military passed a total of $18.6 billion in arms and equipment to the Afghan government, specifically the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces, to help fight the Taliban.
In a Jan. 2021 text message, Greene told Trump's chief of staff that some lawmakers wanted the president to declare martial law. During court testimony, she said she didn't recall that.
By Zoë Richards, Charlie Gile and Blayne Alexander

New text messages from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene surrounding the 2020 election are drawing attention to recent court testimony in which the Georgia Republican said she did not recall any involvement in efforts to keep former President Donald Trump in office. When asked during a hearing Friday if she had advocated for martial law to keep President Joe Biden from taking office, Greene said she could not recall. But a new tranche of text messages obtained by CNN shows Greene broached the idea with then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. Ron Fein, who is leading a legal challenge to Greene’s candidacy in Georgia over allegations she helped facilitate the Jan. 6 riot, told NBC News on Monday that the text messages undermine her credibility and testimony in the case. “Marjorie Taylor Greene testified under oath that she could not remember telling Trump or his chief of staff to declare martial law to try to keep Trump in power, but her own texts reveal that she did exactly that,” Fein said in a statement.
The New York Times

Representative Kevin McCarthy, the House Republican leader, feared in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 attack that several far-right members of Congress would incite violence against other lawmakers, identifying several by name as security risks in private conversations with party leaders. Mr. McCarthy talked to other congressional Republicans about wanting to rein in multiple hard-liners who were deeply involved in Donald J. Trump’s efforts to contest the 2020 election and undermine the peaceful transfer of power, according to an audio recording obtained by The New York Times. But Mr. McCarthy did not follow through on the sterner steps that some Republicans encouraged him to take, opting instead to seek a political accommodation with the most extreme members of the G.O.P. in the interests of advancing his own career.
Stephen Proctor

On Tuesday, another round of audio was released of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s supposedly private conversations. McCarthy earned the ire of fellow Republicans when audio was released last week of him talking about telling former President Donald Trump to resign following the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol. McCarthy had originally denied saying it, but Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns, writers of the new book This Will Not Pass, released the audio. On Tuesday, another round of audio was released of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s supposedly private conversations. McCarthy earned the ire of fellow Republicans when audio was released last week of him talking about telling former President Donald Trump to resign following the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol. McCarthy had originally denied saying it, but Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns, writers of the new book This Will Not Pass, released the audio.
Nina Golgowski

Texas residents allege in a federal lawsuit that Llano County officials are violating their constitutional rights by stripping books from public libraries “because they disagree with the ideas within them.” The lawsuit filed Monday by seven residents of the central Texas county of about 20,000 residents accuses the county judge, commissioners, library board members and the library systems director of systematically censoring patrons’ right to access material both digitally and on shelves. The censorship campaign, the suit says, was disguised as a means “to protect the community’s children from graphic sexual and ‘pornographic’ materials. In reality, none of the books targeted by Defendants is pornographic or obscene.”
ERIC TUCKER and MATTHEW LEE

WASHINGTON (AP) — Russia and the United States have carried out a dramatic prisoner exchange, trading a Marine veteran jailed in Moscow for a convicted Russian drug trafficker serving a long prison sentence in America, both countries announced Wednesday. The surprise deal involving Trevor Reed, an American jailed for nearly three years, would have been a notable diplomatic maneuver even in times of peace, but it was all the more extraordinary because it was done as Russia's war with Ukraine has driven relations with the U.S. to their lowest point in decades. “Today, our prayers have been answered and Trevor is on his way back safely to the United States,” Reed’s family said in a statement.
by Dr. Karen Williams Weaver

As we hit the eight-year anniversary of the Flint Water Crisis, one of the worst man-made public health disasters in U.S. history, it must be noted that the sin done on to the people of Flint didn’t just start or end with the switch in our drinking water source. Revenue-sharing was cut drastically, impacting the level that city services were able to be maintained. Public safety, water quality and legacy costs all took a hit. Black cities in this situation were set up to fail. We could start counting the offenses done to us with the toxic dumping that occurred for years in Flint. We could count the discriminatory policies and systems of racism that caused Flint’s Black residents to live in neighborhoods more favorable to social and environmental injustices. But as I hear the cries of the small mostly Black town in Mason, Tennessee, which was recently taken over by a GOP-led state government just as millions of dollars were to roll into the city’s coffers, I am reminded of the discriminatory state government takeover of the city of Flint that preceded the callous and deadly decisions that would soon follow.
Ian Millhiser

Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Trump judge in Texas who essentially seized control of much of the United States’ southern border policy, appears likely to join the small cohort of Republican judges who went so far out on a limb that even this Supreme Court will not tolerate their behavior. Last August, Kacsmaryk ordered President Joe Biden’s administration to reinstate a Trump era program, colloquially known as “Remain in Mexico,” which requires many migrants who arrive at the US-Mexico border to stay in Mexico while their asylum case is pending in the United States. But Kacsmaryk read federal immigration law so narrowly that even President Donald Trump’s version of this program wasn’t harsh enough to comply. Indeed, as Texas Solicitor General Judd Stone conceded during an exchange with Justice Clarence Thomas on Tuesday morning, while the Supreme Court was hearing the case, under Kacsmaryk’s reading of federal law, no administration has ever complied with that law since it was enacted in 1996.
Jake Thomas

After denying she promoted the January 6 insurrection, Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene said she'll vote against a bill intended to combat domestic terrorist groups. The firebrand Georgia representative said on Twitter Tuesday that she would be voting against the Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act of 2022 due to concerns of government overreach. Greene announced her opposition to the bill days after she testified under oath over her alleged role in seeking to overturn the 2020 presidential election. The legislation is intended to better equip federal law enforcement agencies to address the growing domestic extremism and authorizes domestic terrorism offices in the Department of Justice (DOJ), Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
Lora Kolodny

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, the world’s wealthiest person on paper, is buying Twitter, the social media platform he has relied on for years to promote his interests and shape his public image. “Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated,” said Mr. Musk in a statement when the deal was announced Monday. Musk has characterized himself as a First Amendment and free speech advocate for years, for example, in defending himself in a defamation lawsuit after calling a critic a “pedo guy” (Musk won), and to argue that the SEC infringed on his rights in a settlement agreement they struck and revised after the agency charged him with securities fraud in 2018.
Zachary Evans

Florida governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill on Monday creating a state police unit that will specialize in election-related crimes. The law establishes the Office of Election Crimes and Security, which will have 15 members whose work will include preliminary investigations of election fraud. DeSantis must also appoint up to ten law enforcement officers to investigate election crimes with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. The law also makes ballot harvesting a felony instead of a misdemeanor, and raises fines on organizations that violate election laws from $1,000 to $50,000. DeSantis said the new election crime unit would be able to assist existing law enforcement at a bill signing ceremony.
By Natasha Bertrand, Kylie Atwood, Kevin Liptak and Alex Marquardt, CNN

Washington (CNN) As Russia's invasion of Ukraine has transformed into a grinding war of attrition with no meaningful peace deal in sight, the US and its allies have begun to convey a new, longer-term goal for the war: to defeat Russia so decisively on the battlefield that it will be deterred from launching such an attack ever again. That message was delivered most clearly on Monday, when Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin told reporters after a trip to Ukraine's capital city of Kyiv that "we want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can't do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine." A National Security Council spokesperson said that Austin's comments were consistent with what the US' goals have been for months -- namely, "to make this invasion a strategic failure for Russia."
By Greg Roumeliotis

NEW YORK, April 25 (Reuters) - Elon Musk clinched a deal to buy Twitter Inc (TWTR.N) for $44 billion cash on Monday in a transaction that will shift control of the social media platform populated by millions of users and global leaders to the world's richest person. It is a seminal moment for the 16-year-old company that emerged as one of the world's most influential public squares and now faces a string of challenges. Discussions over the deal, which last week appeared uncertain, accelerated over the weekend after Musk wooed Twitter shareholders with financing details of his offer. Under pressure, Twitter started negotiating with Musk to buy the company at the proposed $54.20 per share price.
TMZ

One of DaBaby's first major legal cases is being discussed anew after a video capturing him fatally shooting someone surfaced online -- sparking a fierce debate about self-defense. Rolling Stone published surveillance footage Sunday depicting a 2018 confrontation DaBaby was involved in at a Walmart out in his native North Carolina -- before he was super famous -- in which he shot and killed a man. DB was eventually charged with carrying a concealed weapon for the shooting, but no murder charge. DaBaby hasn't shied away from this case ... insisting from the jump he was acting in self-defense -- claiming the victim, 19-year-old Jaylin Craig, had pulled a gun ... and he feared for his and his family's life. He was with his GF and baby girl in the store.
Redacted files were from a mid-90s investigation into child sex abuse allegation

BOSTON — A former Boston Police Department officer who later went on to become head of the police union is pleading guilty to several charges of child rape. Patrick Rose Sr. faces 33 charges in connection with the rape and abuse of at least six children in the 1990s. Some of the charges include statutory rape and indecent assault and battery on a child. Rose pleaded not guilty in 2020 to several charges. Rose was sentenced to 10 to 13 years in prison followed by 10 years of probation. Upon release, Rose cannot be unsupervised with children, must stay away from victims and must register as a sex offender. “This case of child sex abuse is likely the most egregious the Commonwealth has ever seen,” the prosecutor said after the court listened to victim impact statements.
The Tesla mogul’s $43 billion cash buyout looked Monday like it was going ahead
Tom Sykes

Twitter is set to accept, as early as Monday, an offer to sell itself to Elon Musk for $43 billion in cash, it was reported today. Reuters, citing sources, said the company “may announce the $54.20-per-share deal as soon as later today once its board has met to recommend the transaction to Twitter shareholders”—but added a note of caution saying it was “always possible that the deal collapses at the last minute.” The once far-fetched prospect of Musk taking control of Twitter as a private company follows several weeks in which the world’s richest man has publicly stoked speculation about his intentions, with a combination of overt statements and ambiguous tweets.
Alice Gibbs

A man has been left empty-handed after an unusual theft on his front porch. After ordering from Amazon, he was shocked to find his package missing—before checking the security camera and finding a groundhog had stolen his item. On Friday, Kevin Benavides from Columbus, Ohio shared the video on the Reddit forum r/funny. Benavides told Newsweek: "I received an email with a picture from Amazon saying that my package had arrived. At the time, I was not home. When I got home that afternoon I did not see the package. "My first thought was, 'someone took my package,' I was confused since the delivery driver placed the package right under my doorbell camera. I didn't think someone would be brave enough to take a package with the camera right in front of their face. So I looked at the footage and was surprised by what I saw."
“This is outrageous! And that is really the illness that pervades the Republican leadership right now,” Warren added over the leaked recordings of McCarthy bashing Trump.
Justin Baragona

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) tore into House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy on Sunday morning, calling the California congressman a “liar” and “traitor” over revelations that he privately told House Republicans that then-President Donald Trump was to blame for the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection and would recommend that he resign. In a series of audio recordings obtained by The New York Times, McCarthy not only contradicted his public comments by suggesting Trump should step down but he also claimed the former president personally took responsibility for the attack. Additionally, McCarthy told GOP leadership that he’d “had it with this guy.” Trump, however, has indicated that he is not upset with McCarthy over the leaked comments, telling his inner circle that he’s glad the lawmaker didn’t follow through while publicly saying he still has a good relationship with McCarthy and will support his efforts to become House speaker. McCarthy, meanwhile, has claimed that despite what the tapes reveal, he “never thought that [Trump] should resign” and was merely walking “through different scenarios.”
DeSantis owns the libs but taxpayers will pay the price.

If it is dissolved, the Reedy Creek district’s debt obligations, revenues and responsibilities would be transferred to Osceola and Orange counties and the small cities of Lake Buena Vista and Bay Lake.
By News Service of Florida

TALLAHASSEE — Gov. Ron DeSantis on Friday signed a bill aimed at dissolving a special taxing district that has granted Walt Disney World unique self-governing powers for more than five decades as a leading bond-rating agency cautioned investors about the proposed changes. The bill (SB 4-C) targets the Reedy Creek Improvement District, which encompasses about 25,000 acres in Orange and Osceola counties on property in and around the “most magical place on earth.” The district has authority over issues such as land use and provides traditional functions of government, including fire protection and wastewater services. DeSantis, who is seeking re-election and is widely mentioned as a potential 2024 Republican presidential candidate, came out swinging against Disney — one of the state’s largest employers and a major tourism draw — after the company vowed to fight a controversial law restricting education on sexual orientation and gender identity in schools.
Chelsey Cox | USA TODAY

WASHINGTON – Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle spoke Sunday about the leaked audio in which Kevin McCarthy, the House Minority Leader and supporter of former President Donald Trump, is heard saying he would advise the former president to resign following the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol. During an interview Sunday on CNN, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a staunch progressive, had harsh words about McCarthy. "Kevin McCarthy is a liar and a traitor," the Massachusetts senator told CNN's Dana Bash. "Shame on Kevin McCarthy." The audio is part of a phone call between McCarthy, R-Calif., and Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., that took place days after the insurrection. In the recording, which was first reported on by journalists for The New York Times and aired on MSNBC on Thursday, McCarthy is heard saying, "The only discussion I would have with (Trump) is I think this (impeachment) will pass, and it would be my recommendation that he should resign."
WASHINGTON — Consultant Kevin McCarthy’s denial of disparaging feedback he made about President Donald J. Trump after the Capitol assault on Jan. 6, 2021, uncovered a broadly identified however seldom seen phenomenon in Washington: the hypocrisy of Republicans who’ve privately scorned Mr. Trump whereas publicly defending him. Mr. McCarthy, the California Republican who’s campaigning to be speaker of the Home if his celebration wins the bulk in November, had dismissed as “completely false and incorrect” a report that he had informed fellow G.O.P. leaders he would urge Mr. Trump to resign from workplace after the riot. However an audio recording of the dialog revealed Mr. McCarthy’s denial to be a lie.
Katie Dowd

The dreams of the "People's Convoy" quickly died in the Bay Area after a critical tactical error: turning onto a street with a Safeway and a group of bored kids. The trucker convoy, which aimed to emulate the disruptive Canadian protests against COVID restrictions, has failed spectacularly at every turn. During a few weeks of driving around D.C., the convoy was held up by a single bicyclist, and some convoy members said they were having difficulty finding places for bathroom breaks, and as a result, were forced to urinate in their pants. After an anemic showing in D.C., the convoy made the long drive back across the country, landing in the Bay Area this week. Since the convoy began, practically all major COVID restrictions have been lifted in the United States, so it appears they’ve switched their messaging to support other conservative causes.
By Zoe Sottile, CNN

(CNN) One Illinois man has even more reason to be scared of going to the dentist.
Tom Jozsi, 60, was at the dentist for a routine procedure when he accidentally inhaled a one-inch dental drill bit -- which soon became lodged in his lung. "Well, I don't know. I was at the dentist getting a tooth filled, and then next thing I know I was told I swallowed this tool," Jozsi told CNN affiliate WISN 12. "I didn't really even feel it going down. All I felt was a cough. When they did the CT scan they realized, you didn't swallow it, you inhaled it." The sharp metal drill bit landed in the right lower lobe of Jozsi's lung, and the sharp edges caused him to cough up blood, according to pulmonologist Abdul Hamid Alraiyes, who treated Jozsi. Foreign objects like this in the lung usually require surgery to remove part of the lung along with the stuck object, Alraiyes told CNN.
Katie Balevic

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' decision to strip Disney of its self-governing status was slammed as a "boneheaded move" by a former Florida governor. Democratic Rep. Charlie Crist, who served as Florida's governor from 2007 to 2011 as a Republican, criticized DeSantis in a tweet. "Attacking Disney, threatening to harm our state's economic powerhouse that creates so many jobs and brings in so many tourism dollars is a boneheaded move however you look at it. Ron's a threat to our state's economy and he's gotta go in November," Crist said in the tweet on Friday. In an interview with the South Florida Sun-Sentinel on Thursday, Crist said DeSantis seems to want to be the "king of Florida," calling the sitting governor "an angry dude." "What he's trying to do is have a one-man rule of this great state," Crist told the Sentinel. "This governor seems to really want to centralize all power in himself."
Graham Kates

New York Attorney General Letitia James urged a judge Friday to "coerce" former President Donald Trump into complying with a subpoena demanding searches of three of his mobile devices and multiple document storage sites. Trump failed to meet a court-ordered March 31 deadline to turn over subpoenaed material, claiming he had none of the documents demanded by James' office as part of its investigation into his company's financial practices. A week later, James asked the judge overseeing her office's investigation to issue a contempt citation and fine Trump $10,000 per day until he complied with the subpoena. "The Court should put an end to Mr. Trump's intransigence and subterfuge," attorneys working for James wrote in the Friday evening filing. Trump attorney Alina Habba said in a filing Tuesday that Trump's eponymous company may have the documents being sought, but Trump himself does not. The attorney general said Friday that Trump cannot "pass off" responsibility for complying with the subpoena to his company.
Republicans have attacked everyone who is not like them, our elections and our capitol.

Seema Mehta

House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy, under scrutiny for saying after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot that he would urge then-President Trump to resign, alluded to the turmoil during a speech Saturday night at the California GOP convention. "As we go out to earn this majority, they’re going to attack you, they’re going to attack me, they’re going to attack President Trump,” he said, speaking of GOP aims to win control of the House in the November election. "They’re not just going to use the Democrats, they’re going to use the media as well. We have to be united, and we have to be prepared for it.” The Bakersfield Republican's speech before a friendly audience in Anaheim came after a tumultuous two days, starting with a New York Times report that he had told fellow GOP leaders in early 2021 that he planned to urge Trump to resign. McCarthy vehemently denied the report, calling it "totally false and wrong" and denigrating the reporters, but hours later, audio was released of him making such comments on a recorded call.
Dustin Jones

For decades, auto accidents have been the leading cause of death among children, but in 2020 guns were the No. 1 cause, researchers say. Overall firearm-related deaths increased 13.5% between 2019 and 2020, but such fatalities for those 1 to 19 years old jumped nearly 30%, according to a research letter in New England Journal of Medicine. Researchers analyzed data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showing that there were a record 45,222 firearm-related deaths in the U.S. in 2020. Patrick Carter, one of the authors of the research letter and co-director of the University of Michigan's Institute for Firearm Injury Prevention, said about 10% of those deaths — 4,357 in total — were children.
by Harper Neidig

The Justice Department is pledging to crack down on white collar crime following a historic decline in law enforcement efforts during the Trump administration. In a series of speeches since November, top DOJ officials have warned white-collar defense attorneys that prosecutors will be less willing to offer leniency to repeat corporate offenders and more aggressive in investigating wrongdoing. “Corporate crime weakens our economic institutions by undermining public trust in the fairness of those institutions,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a speech last month to the American Bar Association’s Institute on White Collar Crime. “Failing to aggressively prosecute such crimes weakens our democratic institutions by undermining public trust in the rule of law,” added Garland, who said the essence of the law was to treat cases equally so there was not one rule for the rich and powerful and another for the poor and powerless. “To fail to aggressively prosecute corporate crime leads citizens to doubt that their government adheres to this principle. The Justice Department does not intend to fail,” he said.
by Lexi Lonas

Two pictures of Republican Rep. Madison Cawthorn (N.C.) shared with Politico show the embattled congressman at what appears to be a party in women’s lingerie. The political news outlet reported that it obtained the photos from a person who was previously close to Cawthorn, and his campaign. Another person who was formerly close with Cawthorn confirmed the pictures. Cawthorn is controversial figure in the Republican Party. He previously accused congressional colleagues of inviting him to orgies. Cawthorn told “Warrior Poet Society” podcast host John Lovell that lawmakers have invited him to orgies and done cocaine in front of him. He also recently called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenksy a “thug” amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Zelensky has been hailed internationally for his leadership amid the crisis in Ukraine, and he has vowed to remain in the country fighting with his people.
LINDSAY WHITEHURST

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Orrin G. Hatch, the longest-serving Republican senator in history who was a fixture in Utah politics for more than four decades, died Saturday at age 88. His death was announced in a statement from his foundation, which did not specify a cause. A staunch conservative on most economic and social issues, he also teamed with Democrats several times during his long career on issues ranging from stem cell research to rights for people with disabilities to expanding children’s health insurance. He also formed friendships across the aisle, particularly with the late Democratic Sen. Edward M. Kennedy. Hatch also championed GOP issues like abortion limits and helped shape the U.S. Supreme Court, including defending Justice Clarence Thomas against sexual harassment allegations during confirmation hearings.
‘That’s not something that you came up with on your own, is it?’
Bevan Hurley

A smirking Marjorie Taylor Greene laughed off suggestions she plagiarised a line from the movie Independence Day to rouse supporters prior to the Capitol riots. Ms Greene was quizzed on the witness stand for three hours Friday at a hearing that could see the Georgia Republican banned from public office because of her support for the 6 January insurrection at the US Capitol.
Jason Lemon

Right-wing strategist Roger Stone, a prominent Donald Trump ally, demanded that House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy resign, calling him a "disgrace" after leaked audio from January 10, 2021 showed that he believed the then-president should resign following the U.S. Capitol attack on January 6. The New York Times on Thursday reported that McCarthy told other GOP lawmakers after the pro-Trump Capitol riot targeting the federal legislative branch of government that he planned to urge the then-president to step down days before the end of his term. McCarthy later released a statement saying the reporting was "totally false and wrong."
By Jamie Crawford, Jessica Schneider and Veronica Stracqualursi, CNN

(CNN) A man who set himself on fire Friday on the plaza in front of the US Supreme Court in Washington, DC, has died, according to the Metropolitan Police Department. The man was identified as Wynn Bruce of Boulder, Colorado, an MPD spokesperson said Saturday. Bruce had been airlifted to a hospital in Washington, where he passed away, according to the department. Supreme Court Police, US Capitol Police and the MPD had responded to the incident, which occurred Friday at about 6:30 p.m. Eastern time.
by Gabriel Hays

An NBC News opinion column asserted Wednesday that Gov. Ron DeSantis’ efforts to ban CRT and protect young children from being taught about gender and sexuality in inappropriate ways in public schools, represents "thought control that has happened" in "Nazi Germany" or "today’s China." Written by former federal prosecutor Dennis Aftergut, the opinion piece, titled "Ron DeSantis has taken Trump’s playbook — and made it much more dangerous," discussed how the Florida Republican has turned Trump’s "divisive talk into real (and really harmful) action" that mirrors action done in "totalitarian societies." Aftergut’s reasoning included a variety of DeSantis’ recent policy decisions including the enactment of the Parental Rights in Education Bill, but he was really focused on the governor’s latest initiative, which Aftergut described as, "censoring math books."
From his Disney crusade to his CRT fearmongering, DeSantis has turned Trump's divisive talk into real (and really harmful) action.
By Dennis Aftergut, former federal prosecutor

So it’s come to this in Florida: censoring math books. Last Saturday, the state’s education board banned 54 of 132 books submitted for inclusion in public schools’ math curricula. In June, the board similarly banned the teaching of critical race theory, or CRT, from public schools, notwithstanding the absence of any evidence proving that it was being taught in Florida’s K-12 schools. CRT is currently one of the right-wing’s favorite racial boogeyman, and one of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ favorite causes célèbre. The board said it had decided to reject more than half of the math textbooks submitted because they included “prohibited topics or unsolicited strategies, including CRT.” This explanation begs for some follow-ups: Were the textbooks’ algebraic equations somehow encoded with secret woke messages, like CRT Trojan horses? I won't hold my breath for answers.
Jonathan Martin and Alex Burns, authors of "This Will Not Pass", share audio from House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) about then-President Donald Trump following the attack on the Capitol on January 6.
Ella Lee | USA TODAY

Republican lawmakers actively worked with former President Donald Trump and other top aides strategize ways to overturn the 2020 election, new evidence filed in federal court late Friday suggests. Meetings that included discussion of efforts to prevent now-President Joe Biden from taking office, detailed in deposition excerpts filed by the Jan. 6 committee, were attended by several of the former president's allies in Congress, both in-person and by phone. Reps. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, and Scott Perry, R -Pa., were among the members who attended meetings, Meadows aide Cassidy Hutchinson said in her deposition.
Cassidy Hutchinson, a special assistant in the Trump administration, told the House panel investigating the Capitol riot it was unclear what Meadows did with that information.
By Nicole Acevedo

A former White House official warned Mark Meadows, who served as former President Donald Trump’s chief of staff, that the events of Jan. 6, 2021, could turn violent, according to a court filing from the House panel investigating the Capitol riot. Cassidy Hutchinson, a special assistant in the Trump White House, said Meadows received information before the day of the attack that “indicated that there could be violence,” according to transcripts contained in the 248-page filing late Friday. Hutchinson said she remembers “Mr. Ornato coming in and saying that we had intel reports saying that there could potentially be violence on the 6th. And Mr. Meadows said: All right. Let’s talk about it,” in apparent reference to Anthony M. Ornato, a Secret Service official. “I know that there were concerns brought forward to Mr. Meadows,” Hutchinson said, adding she was unsure if he “perceived them as genuine concerns.”
By Darragh Roche

Representative Matt Gaetz appeared to mull Representative Jim Jordan as a possible replacement for House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy following the release of audio where McCarthy said he was considering advising then-President Donald Trump to resign. Gaetz, a Republican who represents Florida's 1st district, was replying to a Twitter user who had urged him and Jordan to take over the House GOP leadership from McCarthy. The original tweet referred to McCarthy as a "RINO" (Republican in Name Only) but Gaetz' response focused on praise for Jordan, who represents Ohio's 4th congressional district.
By Tommy Christopher

Mediaite’s Sarah Rumpf told SiriusXM host Dean Obeidallah that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ Disney-punishing law could kill “tens of thousands” of good jobs. On Friday’s edition of The Dean Obeidallah Show, the host talked with Ms. Rumpf about her recent column analyzing the ramifications of a law that DeSantis signed to punish Disney by dissolving its special district — and according to Rumpf, dissolving a mess of middle-class jobs:
By Sarah Rumpf

“I will not allow a woke corporation based in California to run our state,” Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) declared in a recent fundraising email, and this week his war on Disney moved from rhetoric to retaliatory regulation, as he pushed for a bill in the current special session that would dissolve Disney’s Reedy Creek Improvement District (RCID). He seems poised to declare victory as the House and Senate have both passed the bill, but this effort marks a reversal of not only long-held conservative principles of protecting free speech and private property rights but also threatens to unleash colossal economic devastation on Central Florida’s local governments and residents, with impacts rippling statewide. “I will not allow a woke corporation based in California to run our state,” Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) declared in a recent fundraising email, and this week his war on Disney moved from rhetoric to retaliatory regulation, as he pushed for a bill in the current special session that would dissolve Disney’s Reedy Creek Improvement District (RCID). He seems poised to declare victory as the House and Senate have both passed the bill, but this effort marks a reversal of not only long-held conservative principles of protecting free speech and private property rights but also threatens to unleash colossal economic devastation on Central Florida’s local governments and residents, with impacts rippling statewide.
The major general faces up to seven years in prison after assaulting his sister-in-law at a family barbecue in 2018
Ramon Antonio Vargas

In the first-ever military trial for a general in the 75-year history of the US air force, a two-star general was found guilty Saturday of abusive sexual contact for forcibly kissing his sister-in-law after a family barbecue. Maj Gen William Cooley faces up to seven years in prison, a dishonorable discharge and the loss of his air force pay and benefits at a sentencing hearing scheduled for Monday. The woman, his brother’s wife, said in a statement that she pursued a case because her two daughters “deserve a world, deserve a system, military or otherwise, where they never have to be complicit in a lie to protect a power structure, protect a predator”.
Oma Seddiq

Virginia "Ginni" Thomas, a longtime conservative activist and wife to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, called Republican lawmakers who didn't challenge the 2020 election results "pathetic," The Washington Post reported Thursday. In a November 10, 2020, text to then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, Thomas expressed frustration at the lack of Republicans uniting behind President Donald Trump and his claims that the 2020 election was stolen and rigged because of widespread voter fraud. There is no evidence to support the claims, and federal, state, and local officials have repeatedly said the 2020 race was fair and accurate. In the aftermath of the election, Trump and his close Republican allies had launched legal challenges to overturn the results in several states, which ultimately failed.
Karla Ward, Lexington Herald-Leader

Apr. 23—An Owensboro, Ky., judge accused of misusing her position to influence criminal cases that involved her adult son has been ordered removed from the bench. The Judicial Conduct Commission, which handles allegations of misconduct by Kentucky judges, voted 6-0 to remove Family Court Judge Julie Hawes Gordon, of Daviess County. After a three-day hearing earlier this month, the panel found that Gordon exhibited an "extensive and repeated pattern" of "exercising improper influence for her own benefit and the benefit of her son in his numerous criminal matters," according to a 25-page order signed Friday by commission Chairman Carroll M. "Trip" Redford, III. She used "extremely poor judgment" and engaged in "profoundly unwise action — on and off the Bench — that continued for years," the panel found. The order removing her takes effect in 10 days, unless Gordon appeals.
By Eric Bradner and Alex Rogers, CNN

(CNN) The Democratic rebellion against President Joe Biden's plans to lift pandemic-era border restrictions is growing, as candidates in marquee races from Nevada to New Hampshire break with the administration and Republicans turn immigration into a centerpiece of their midterm election messaging. The Biden administration is set to roll back next month the public health authority known as Title 42, which was first invoked by then-President Donald Trump. The measure allows border authorities to turn migrants back to Mexico or their home countries because of the public health crisis. Democratic senators in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and New Hampshire -- all top GOP targets this year -- have already sought to distance themselves from Biden's move, charging that the White House has not adequately planned for a surge in border crossings.
By Andrew Kaczynski and Em Steck, CNN

(CNN) Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia was confronted in court on Friday over past social media posts advocating violence against Democrats. At the hearing in Atlanta, to determine if Greene is constitutionally barred from running for reelection because of her alleged role in the January 6 insurrection, the congresswoman repeatedly said she couldn't remember past comments or interactions. CNN's KFile reported last year that, prior to being elected to Congress, Greene had repeatedly indicated support for executing prominent Democratic politicians in 2018 and 2019 in comments and posts on social media. At the hearing, Greene initially denied she had called House Speaker Nancy Pelosi "a traitor to our country," as CNN's KFile reported. "No, I haven't said that," the congresswoman said.
Clean energy is buried at the bottom of abandoned oil wells
The US is spending millions to explore a surprising source of untapped power.
By Neel Dhanesha

In case you missed it, our planet is in trouble. The UN climate report from early April makes clear we’re on a path that will careen past the climate goals set in the Paris Agreement, and we need to cut carbon emissions — fast. But while solar and wind power are important (they are, after all, key parts of the Biden administration’s climate plan) they’re the kind of thing we’ve seen plenty of before, which means they’ll only get us so far. What we need, the UN report says, is new solutions. Which is why a pilot program recently detailed by the US Department of Energy (DOE) is particularly intriguing. If it works, it could help solve multiple problems at once, using an often-overlooked solution: geothermal energy. Geothermal energy works on a simple premise: The Earth’s core is hot, and by drilling even just a few miles underground, we can tap into that practically unlimited heat source to generate energy for our homes and businesses without creating nearly as many of the greenhouse gas emissions that come from burning fossil fuels. However, drilling doesn’t come cheap — it accounts for half the cost of most geothermal energy projects — and requires specialized labor to map the subsurface, drill into the ground, and install the infrastructure needed to bring energy to the surface.
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