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House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, appears alongside Republican House leadership, at a June press conference in the U.S. Capitol.

Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images


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House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, appears alongside Republican House leadership, at a June press conference in the U.S. Capitol.

Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy released the legislative roadmap Republicans will follow should they win the majority in this year’s midterms.

The “Commitment to America” includes four broad pillars focusing on the economy, safety, individual freedom and government accountability. Big on ideas (“expand U.S. manufacturing”) but short on policy specifics, the agenda is in keeping with tradition established in 1994 with Rep. Newt Gingrich’s “Contract with America,” where the minority party releases their agenda priorities ahead of Election Day.

Gingrich met privately with House Republicans today on Capitol Hill as lawmakers were briefed on the agenda before its unveiling.

House Republicans will next travel to suburban Pittsburgh on Friday to hold an event to tout the agenda as the 2022 campaign comes to a close in about seven weeks. While early 2022 GOP electoral strength has tightened in polls in recent months, the party is still favored to win at least a narrow majority in November, and McCarthy is poised to become speaker if the party succeeds.

The agenda is the product of months of deliberations from rank-and-file Republicans

Much of the agenda relies on traditional conservative orthodoxy — support for tax cuts and reductions in government spending — but also weighs in on some divisive cultural issues. For example, Republicans pledge to support legislation to ensure “that only women can compete in women’s sports” — which would seek to ban trans women from playing on women’s sports teams. Republicans also broadly pledge to advance federal legislation to restrict abortion access promising to “protect the lives of unborn children and their mothers.” The agenda also signals opposition to any legislation to restrict gun rights, pledging to “safeguard” the Second Amendment.

House Republicans’ legislative ambitions would be weakened by divided government; regardless of what happens with control of the Senate, President Biden is unlikely to support much if any of a partisan GOP agenda. But the majority would provide Republicans with oversight and investigative authority over the administration and they plan to use it.

Republicans will “conduct rigorous oversight” and “require the White House to answer for its incompetence at home and abroad,” with plans to hold hearings on: the origins of the coronavirus pandemic, the U.S. withdrawal of Afghanistan, the Justice Department’s investigation into former President Donald Trump and the alleged illegal possession of classified documents at his Florida estate.

Pelosi insists Democrats will maintain the majority

Henry Connelly, a spokesman for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, derided the Commitment to America as “doubling down on an extreme MAGA agenda.” Pelosi has been bullish that Democrats will defy historical trends and hold on to their majority. In particular, Democrats believe the Supreme Court decision to overturn a federal right to abortion access will tip competitive races in their favor. A pair of Democratic victories in House special elections in New York and Alaska have given the party cause for optimism that a “red wave” is not on the horizon.

“We fully intend to hold the House,” she told reporters last week, “And even though there are some among you who belittle my political instincts and the rest, I got us here twice to the majority, and I don’t intend to [give it up].”

Republican leaders have also made clear they plan to run the House differently than Democrats have, notably by promising to end the practice of remote proxy voting that was approved as an emergency measure in response to the pandemic.

“We’ve got many votes, big votes, where over 100 members of Congress weren’t even here in person voting, that will change under a House Republican majority,” GOP Minority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., told reporters this week. Scalise intends to run for majority leader, a position that oversees the floor schedule and operations, if Republicans win control.

Source Article from https://www.npr.org/2022/09/22/1124486339/house-gop-unveils-its-legislative-roadmap-if-they-win-back-the-house-in-november

A strengthening Tropical Storm Ian was expected to intensify into a hurricane on Monday — and possibly into a high-end Category 4 storm as early as midweek this week.

State of play: Ian was some 355 miles southeast of the western tip of Cuba at 2am ET, and its maximum sustained winds had strengthened to 70 mph, up from 45 mph Sunday afternoon, according to the National Hurricane Center. A storm is classified as a hurricane when its maximum sustained winds reach 74 mph.

Photo: NWS Miami/Twitter

Details: A Hurricane Warning was in effect for Grand Cayman and several Cuban provinces, as the storm moved to the northwest at 13 mph.

  • A tropical storm warning has been issued for the lower Florida Keys, from Seven Mile Bridge westward to Key West to Dry Tortugas, as well as several provinces in Cuba.
  • A tropical storm watch was in effect for Englewood southward to Chokoloskee in Florida, and the Caribbean islands of Little Cayman and Cayman Brac.

The big picture: President Biden declared a federal state of emergency for multiple Florida counties on Saturday night, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has declared a state of emergency for the entire state.

What to watch: In its 2am update, the National Hurricane Center said Ian was expected to become a hurricane Monday morning and a “major hurricane” by Tuesday.

  • “Storm surge could raise water levels by as much as 9 to 14 feet above normal tide levels along the coast of western Cuba in areas of onshore winds in the hurricane warning area Monday night and early Tuesday,” the agency said.
  • The National Hurricane Center forecast two to four inches of rainfall from the Florida Keys into the southern and central Florida Peninsula from Monday through Wednesday morning.

Threat level: Studies show an increase in the occurrence of rapid intensification due to human-caused climate change.

  • The western Caribbean Sea is a powder keg for hurricanes right now, with high ocean heat content and weak upper-level winds.
Tropical Storm Ian’s latest projected track, issued at 2am ET Monday by the National Hurricane Center. Image: NOAA

What they’re saying: Even if the west coast of Florida doesn’t sustain a direct hit from Ian, “it doesn’t take an onshore or direct hit from a hurricane to pile up the water,” acting NHC director Jamie Rhome said in a Sunday briefing.

  • He urged Florida residents to find out if they’re in a likely evacuation zone at FloridaDisaster.org in case evacuations are ordered.

What’s next: The key questions facing forecasters, public officials and tens of millions of residents along the Gulf Coast are where the storm will head once it becomes a hurricane, and how strong it will be once it gets there.

  • The computer models have been diverging, with some showing a landfall in northwestern Florida or perhaps southeastern Alabama. Others show a hit much farther east, closer to Tampa.
  • Forecast trends since Friday have nudged the most likely track of the center of Ian to the west, closer to the Panhandle region of Florida.
  • While the likelihood of significant impacts in South Florida has decreased, it has not entirely disappeared, and the Hurricane Center is urging all Floridians to prepare for storm impacts.

Context: Human-caused climate change is altering the characteristics of nature’s most powerful storms.

  • For example, sea level rise from melting ice sheets makes a hurricane’s storm surge more harmful.

This story has been updated with the storm’s strengthening and the latest estimates of when the storm is expected to become a hurricane.

Source Article from https://www.axios.com/2022/09/25/hurricane-ian-intensifies-florida-threat

Vice President Kamala Harris and second gentleman Doug Emhoff arrive before President Joe Biden speaks at an event to celebrate Black History Month in the East Room of the White House, Monday, Feb. 28, 2022, in Washington.

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Vice President Kamala Harris and second gentleman Doug Emhoff arrive before President Joe Biden speaks at an event to celebrate Black History Month in the East Room of the White House, Monday, Feb. 28, 2022, in Washington.

Patrick Semansky/AP

Second gentleman Douglas Emhoff, the husband of Vice President Harris, has tested positive for COVID-19, a spokeswoman for Harris said on Tuesday.

The vice president has so far tested negative, said spokeswoman Sabina Singh.

Both Emhoff and Harris withdrew from a scheduled appearances at an Equal Pay Day event this evening at the White House.

Emhoff appeared Tuesday afternoon at the Marvin Gaye Greening Center in Washington helping AmeriCorps members with a community service project in an urban garden and park.

In his remarks at the Equal Pay Day event, President Biden said that the vice president “chose not to take a chance since her husband had contracted COVID, although he’s feeling very well, I’m told.”

Earlier in the day, Harris attended a bill-signing event with President Biden, 79, and a large group of Democratic lawmakers, including Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy.

The 81-year-old Democrats are respectively second and third-in-line for the presidency, behind Harris.

Vice President Kamala Harris listens as President Joe Biden speaks before signing the Consolidated Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2022 in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on Tuesday, March 15, 2022. Harris’ office later announced that her husband, second gentleman Douglas Emhoff, had tested positive for COVID-19.

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Vice President Kamala Harris listens as President Joe Biden speaks before signing the Consolidated Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2022 in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on Tuesday, March 15, 2022. Harris’ office later announced that her husband, second gentleman Douglas Emhoff, had tested positive for COVID-19.

Patrick Semansky/AP

Later in the day, Harris hosted an event at the White House with Labor Secretary Marty Walsh and current and former members of the U.S. women’s soccer team.

The second gentleman has been active in promoting the administration’s pandemic response measures, including travelling the country last year to visit clinics and vaccination sites.

The White House has not released information about whether Emhoff, who has received three doses of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine, is experiencing symptoms.

NPR’s Scott Detrow contributed reporting.

Source Article from https://www.npr.org/2022/03/15/1086790648/second-gentleman-doug-emhoff-tests-positive-for-covid-19

Several strikes hit the Russian region of Belgorod near the Ukrainian border on Sunday, wounding at least three people, according to local officials, and renewing questions about the security of an area that has been a key supply route for Russian troops in the war.

It was not immediately clear what caused the blasts. Ukrainian officials did not comment, in keeping with an official policy of near-total silence surrounding explosions in Russian territory.

But they appeared to be part of an uptick in attacks in Belgorod, which shares a border with Kharkiv, the northeastern region of Ukraine that Kyiv’s forces retook last month in a rapid offensive that began weeks of setbacks for Russian forces.

Belgorod has served as an important staging ground for Russia’s invasion, and Moscow continues to train soldiers there. On Saturday, two men opened fire on Russian soldiers at a training camp in the region, killing 11 and wounding 15, before being killed themselves, according to state-run news outlets.

Several attacks in recent days have targeted Russian-held areas far from the front lines, including in the occupied city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, where explosions hit an administrative building on Sunday, and most prominently on Russia’s bridge to occupied Crimea, which was damaged by a blast last weekend. Russia blamed Ukraine for the attacks.

On Sunday, some 16 explosions were heard in the Belgorod region, RIA Novosti, a Russian state news agency, reported. At least three people were injured in an artillery strike, Vyacheslav Gladkov, the regional governor, said in a statement on Telegram, the social messaging app.

Mr. Gladkov posted photos that showed shattered glass and scattered debris in what appeared to be a residential area. The images could not immediately be verified. Two injured men were hospitalized with shrapnel wounds and one woman was treated on site, Mr. Gladkov said.

A photo posted on the Telegram account of the governor of Russia’s Belgorod region on Friday, showing a power station that he said was hit by Ukrainian shelling.Credit…Vvgladkov/Telegram, via Agence France-Presse-Getty Images

The city of Belgorod, the regional capital, which has a population of 400,000 and lies just 50 miles from the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, increasingly finds itself a target in the conflict across the border, undermining President Vladimir V. Putin’s efforts to distance the Russian people from the war. Colleges and businesses have conducted evacuation drills, local officials have evacuated towns and villages that have come under shelling, and thousands of people from Ukraine have crossed the border to flee fighting, especially amid the recent Ukrainian counteroffensive.

Sunday was the fourth successive day that strikes have been reported in the area. On Thursday, a rocket hit an apartment building in Razumnoe, a town southeast of the city of Belgorod, without causing injuries, according to state-run media. The following day, Mr. Gladkov said, a Ukrainian strike hit a power station.

On Saturday, the state-run news agency Tass reported that a fuel depot in Razumnoe was shelled and caught fire. Mr. Gladkov posted a photo to Telegram showing thick black smoke and flames rising over a building.

“We’re getting bombed again,” he wrote.

James C. McKinley Jr. contributed reporting.

Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/10/16/world/russia-ukraine-war-news