Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell Hospitalized After Fall

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Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell has been hospitalized after tripping at a local hotel on Wednesday evening, a spokesman for the senator said.  The Kentucky senator, 81, was attending a private dinner in Washington when he tripped. He was admitted to a hospital for treatment, spokesman Doug Andres said.  McConnell’s office did not provide additional detail on his condition or how long he may be absent from the Senate.   In 2019, the GOP leader tripped and fell at his home in Kentucky, suffering a shoulder fracture. At the time, he underwent surgery to repair the fracture in his shoulder. Themore

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Biden to Unveil Budget Proposal

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U.S. President Joe Biden is set to unveil his budget proposal for fiscal 2024 during a visit Thursday to the state of Pennsylvania. “The president will deliver remarks on his plans to invest in America, continue to lower costs for families, protect and strengthen Social Security and Medicare, reduce the deficit, and more,” the White House said ahead of the event in Philadelphia. Part of Biden’s proposal is to raise taxes on the wealthy to help pay for his plans. The White House has already announced that part of the budget proposal includes an increase in Medicare taxes for incomesmore

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US House Speaker Declines Invitation from Ukraine’s Zelenskyy

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Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy invited the top House lawmaker in the United States to visit Kyiv to see “what’s happening here” in an interview broadcast Wednesday on TV news channel CNN. “Mr. (Kevin) McCarthy, he has to come here to see how we work, what’s happening here, what war caused us, which people are fighting now, who are fighting now. And then after that, make your assumptions,” Zelenskyy told the news outlet through an interpreter. Responding to CNN, House Speaker McCarthy said, “I don’t have to go to Ukraine or Kyiv” to understand it. He said he received information inmore

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Trump Dominates Key Conservative Event   

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Two competing, prominent events have put on display a cleaving of American conservatives ahead of next year’s presidential election. Former President Donald Trump closed out the annual Conservative Political Action Conference near Washington, which for years has been a must-attend event for the right wing of the Republican Party. But many party loyalists, including big campaign contributors, instead attended a rival gathering in Florida. “In 2016, I declared: I am your voice. Today, I add: I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed: I am your retribution,” Trump told the CPACmore

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Marianne Williamson Launches Longshot 2024 Challenge to Biden

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Self-help author Marianne Williamson, whose 2020 White House campaign featured calls for spiritual healing, launched another bid for the presidency on Saturday, becoming the first Democrat to formally challenge President Joe Biden for the 2024 nomination. “We are upset about this country, we’re worried about this country,” Williamson told a crowd of more than 600 at a kickoff in the nation’s capital. “It is our job to create a vision of justice and love that is so powerful that it will override the forces of hatred and injustice and fear.” The 70-year-old onetime spiritual adviser to Oprah Winfrey should providemore

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American Cindy McCain to Head UN World Food Program

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American Cindy McCain will take over as executive director of the United Nations World Food Program when current director David Beasley steps down next month. “Ms. McCain, a champion for human rights, has a long history of giving a voice to the voiceless through her humanitarian and philanthropic work,” said U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Director-General Qu Dongyu in a statement announcing the appointment. McCain is a prominent Republican Party member who is currently U.S. ambassador to United Nations agencies in Rome, which include the FAO, the WFP, and the International Fund for Agricultural Development.more

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Top Lawmakers Briefed on Trump, Biden, Pence Documents

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Top lawmakers in Congress were briefed Tuesday on the investigations into classified documents found in the private possession of President Joe Biden, former President Donald Trump and former Vice President Mike Pence.  U.S. Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines was among the officials who met privately with congressional leaders for roughly an hour. Attending the briefing were the House and Senate leaders of both parties and the leaders of both intelligence committees, who comprise what’s known as the “Gang of Eight.” Lawmakers leaving the briefing declined to specify what was discussed.  Both Republicans and Democrats have long demanded more informationmore

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Chicago Mayor Lightfoot Taking On 8 Rivals in Reelection Bid 

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Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot is fighting for reelection Tuesday after a history-making but tumultuous four years in office and a bruising campaign threaten to make her the city’s first one-term mayor in decades. Lightfoot in 2019 became the first Black woman and first openly gay mayor of the third-largest U.S. city, and only the second woman to hold the office. But Lightfoot, a former prosecutor and head of a city police review board, now faces serious challenges from multiple candidates, who have hammered her over crime that spiked during the COVID-19 pandemic and a leadership style they say is unnecessarilymore

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New US House Committee to Focus on Strategic Competition With China

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U.S. lawmakers this week are launching a two-year effort to address strategic competition between the United States and China, with a prime-time hearing set for Tuesday that will include testimony from human rights activists and members of former President Donald Trump’s national security team. Representative Mike Gallagher, who will chair the House Select Committee on Strategic Competition with China, told CBS’s “Face the Nation” earlier this week, “We may call this a strategic competition, but it’s not a tennis match. This is about what type of world we want to live in. Do we want to live in Xinjiang-lite, ormore

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Former President Jimmy Carter Enters Home Hospice Care

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The Carter Center said Saturday that former United States President Jimmy Carter has entered home hospice care. The charity created by the 98-year-old former president said on Twitter that, after a series of short hospital stays, Carter “decided to spend his remaining time at home with his family and receive hospice care instead of additional medical intervention.” It said he has the full support of his medical team and family, which “asks for privacy at this time and is grateful for the concern shown by his many admirers.” Carter — who has lived longer after leaving the White House thanmore

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Biden a ‘Healthy, Vigorous’ 80-Year-Old, Doctor Says After Annual Physical

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President Joe Biden “remains a healthy, vigorous, 80-year-old male, who is fit to successfully execute the duties of the Presidency, to include those as Chief Executive, Head of State and Commander in Chief,” his physician said Thursday, after the White House released the results of his annual health examination. Dr. Kevin O’Connor said Biden had recovered from his “mild” case of COVID-19 last July, and that he “has not experienced any residual symptoms which may be considered to be ‘Long COVID.’” The report went on to say that the president’s main health indicators were normal, that he works out fivemore

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Trump Election Probe Grand Jury Believes Some Witnesses Lied

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A special grand jury investigating efforts by then-President Donald Trump and his allies to overturn his 2020 election loss in Georgia says it believes “one or more witnesses” committed perjury, and it’s urging local prosecutors to bring charges.  Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis should “seek appropriate indictments for such crimes where the evidence is compelling,” according to portions of the special grand jury’s final report that were released on Thursday.  The sections that were made public are silent on key details, including who the panel believes committed perjury and what other specific charges should be pursued. But it marksmore

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US Senator Fetterman Checks Into Hospital for Depression

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Pennsylvania Democratic Senator John Fetterman, still recovering from a stroke, has checked himself into Walter Reed National Military Medical Center to seek treatment for clinical depression, his office said Thursday. Fetterman, who has struggled with the aftereffects of a stroke he suffered last May, checked himself in Wednesday night, it said. “While John has experienced depression off and on throughout his life, it only became severe in recent weeks,” his chief of staff, Adam Jentleson, said in a statement. Fetterman was evaluated on Monday by the attending physician of Congress, Dr. Brian P. Monahan, who recommended inpatient care at Waltermore

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Florida Education Fights Mirror National Controversies

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For the past year, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has waged a struggle against what he sees as a left-wing bias in educational institutions in the United States. This week, he escalated the conflict, suggesting he might block popular Advanced Placement (AP) courses from being offered in Florida high schools. The remarks came just a few days after the nonprofit College Board, which sets the curricula for the dozens of AP courses offered across the country, criticized DeSantis and his administration for blocking the rollout of a pilot AP course on African American history. DeSantis is widely expected to seek themore

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US Could Face Debt-Ceiling Crisis This Summer Without Deal, Warns Budget Office

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The Congressional Budget Office on Wednesday said the United States Treasury Department will exhaust its ability to pay its bills sometime between July and September unless the current $31.4 trillion cap on borrowing is raised or suspended. In a report issued alongside its annual budget outlook, the nonpartisan budget office, also known as the CBO, cautioned that a historic federal debt default could occur before July if revenues flowing into the Treasury in April — when most Americans typically submit annual income tax filings — lag expectations. The pace of incoming revenues, coupled with the performance of the U.S. economymore

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Trump Gets Republican Challenger for 2024 Presidential Election

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At her first presidential campaign event on Wednesday, former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley told an enthusiastic crowd in Charleston that it is time for the country “to move past the stale ideas and faded names of the past.” Haley did not mention former President Donald Trump, instead focusing her criticism on the nation’s current leader, Democrat Joe Biden. “Our leaders are failing. No one embodies that failure more than Joe Biden,” she said. To face Biden, however, Haley will need to get past Trump, who has already declared his candidacy, and numerous other expected Republican hopefuls. Haley, ambassador tomore

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A Cold War on Two Fronts? No Thanks, Says Biden

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Despite intense pressure from his Republican opposition, President Joe Biden appears intent on maintaining a measured response to the Chinese spy balloon that crossed the continental United States early this month. The approach appears calibrated to avoid escalation with a second major adversary as his administration deals with Russia’s almost 1-year-old war on Ukraine. John Kirby, the National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications, told reporters Tuesday the balloon drama does not change the fact that the administration intends to avoid a conflict and continues to seek open lines of communication with China. Nothing has changed about the president’s desiremore

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California Senator Feinstein Says She Won’t Run for Reelection

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Democratic U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein announced Tuesday that she will not seek reelection in 2024, signaling the end of a groundbreaking political career spanning six decades in which she shattered gender barriers and left a mark on political battles over reproductive rights, gun control, and environmental protection. “I am announcing today I will not run for reelection in 2024 but intend to accomplish as much for California as I can through the end of next year when my term ends,” Feinstein said in a statement. “Even with a divided Congress, we can still pass bills that will improve lives. Eachmore

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New Classified Document Found in FBI Search of Pence Home

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The FBI discovered an additional document with classified markings at former Vice President Mike Pence’s Indiana home during a search Friday, following the discovery by his lawyers last month of sensitive government documents there. Pence adviser Devin O’Malley said the U.S. Department of Justice completed “a thorough and unrestricted search of five hours” and removed “one document with classified markings and six additional pages without such markings that were not discovered in the initial review by the vice president’s counsel.” The search, described as consensual after negotiations between Pence’s representatives and the Justice Department, comes as he has been subpoenaedmore

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Historians Tackle Biggest Lies About America’s Past

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Some American myths go all the way back to the nation’s founding. Like the one where, as a young boy, America’s first president, George Washington, felt compelled to tell the truth about taking a hatchet to his father’s cherry tree because he could not tell a lie. “There are plenty of lies that are kind of white lies that have a positive spin,” says Kevin M. Kruse, a professor of history at Princeton University. “And what’s the harm there? It teaches children the value of honesty.” The real harm comes, Kruse says, when lies or myths impact U.S. government policy.more

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Pence Subpoenaed by Special Counsel Investigating Trump

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Former Vice President Mike Pence has been subpoenaed by the special counsel overseeing investigations into efforts by former President Donald Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the 2020 election, according to a person with direct knowledge of the event. The subpoena to Pence as part of the investigation by special counsel Jack Smith was served in recent days, according to the person, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity Thursday to discuss a sensitive issue. The extraordinary scenario of a former vice president potentially testifying against his former boss in a criminal investigation comesmore

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As Political Decorum Declines, Biden’s Verbal Jujitsu Strategy Emerges

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Taking his message of unity Wednesday to Wisconsin, a state key to his likely 2024 reelection bid, U.S. President Joe Biden doubled down on his criticisms of Republicans, calling out by name those who had called him a “liar” during his State of the Union address Tuesday evening. “Many of you have seen, we’ve had a spirited debate last night with my Republican friends,” he said, referring to the boos and jeers befalling upon him as he asserted that Republicans aim to sunset Social Security and Medicare, social programs cherished by supporters of both major parties. “Marjorie Taylor-Greene and othersmore

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