Georgia voters head to the polls in Senate runoffs

Voters in Georgia headed to the polls to cast their ballots in runoff elections that will determine which party controls the Senate.

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  • Biden's foreign policy challenges, from Iran's nuclear program to Russian hacking

    These are the issues the Biden administration will be dealing with on the foreign policy front.

  • Florida man arrested while attempting to go to Biden’s inauguration after ‘storming Capitol’

    Judge denies release for 26-year-old accused of taking part in the deadly Capitol attacks then returning to Washington on Inauguration Day

  • Michigan Mega Millions ticket wins $1.05 billion jackpot

    Someone in Michigan bought the winning ticket for the $1.05 billion Mega Millions jackpot, which is the third-largest lottery prize in U.S. history. The winning numbers for Friday night’s drawing were 4, 26, 42, 50 and 60, with a Mega Ball of 24. The winning ticket was purchased at a Kroger store in the Detroit suburb of Novi, the Michigan Lottery said.

  • Lucas Interior Embraces Color to Modernize Palm Springs Spanish Revival Home

    “The materials and colors took center stage,” said David Lucas when it came to the design of the home.Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest

  • Psaki announces new White House effort to combat domestic extremism in wake of Capitol riot

    On Friday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki described a multipronged approach to combating domestic extremism.

  • Rioters who entered Capitol building may not be charged if they didn’t engage in violence, report says

    Federal officials do not want to crush court system with hundreds of cases

  • Overseas travellers returning to the UK face paying for 10 extra days at a hotel

    British families returning from foreign holidays will have to pay for an extra 10 days in an airport hotel under heavy guard, in plans backed by the Home Office. Senior Cabinet ministers are likely to approve a plan to force people returning from overseas to quarantine in a hotel to ensure that they cannot bring variants of Covid-19 back into the UK. The chief dispute at Cabinet level is whether the hotel quarantine rules apply to all visitors or just to those returning from coronavirus hotspots. Downing Street sources confirmed that hotel quarantining was likely to form part of the “next steps”, after Boris Johnson made clear at his press conference on Friday that more would have to be done on securing the borders. The plans will be thrashed out at a meeting of the Government’s Covid-Operational committee, chaired by Mr Johnson, the Prime Minister, on Tuesday. Home Secretary Priti Patel and Health Secretary Matt Hancock are understood to back tougher measures while Transport Secretary Grant Shapps and Chancellor Rishi Sunak support a more targeted approach. Ms Patel is understood to be pushing for all returning travellers, including Britons, to spend 10 days in a designated hotel near an airport or port on returning. Talks are already underway with hotel chains including Holiday Inn-owner IHG. Taxpayers would cover the cost of security guards to ensure they did not attempt to leave the hotel or go home. One Home Office source said: “You have to do it for everything or it makes it pointless.” One source said: “Officials are sounding out which chains would be interested. They are empty. It makes sense for a lot of them. “It is working out what it looks like in practice, that is what is happening over the weekend.” The hope is that the current numbers of arrivals (around 10,000 a day) will slow to a trickle of several thousand visitors a day once the measures are adopted. The quarantine plan is favoured to Australian-style border closures which could leave Britons stranded and force the Government to fund an airlift operation to bring them home.

  • Iran, pressured by blackouts and pollution, targets Bitcoin

    Iran's capital and major cities plunged into darkness in recent weeks as rolling outages left millions without electricity for hours. With toxic smog blanketing Tehran skies and the country buckling under the pandemic and other mounting crises, social media has been rife with speculation. Within days, as frustration spread among residents, the government launched a wide-ranging crackdown on Bitcoin processing centers, which require immense amounts of electricity to power their specialized computers and to keep them cool — a burden on Iran's power grid.

  • Imperiling quick $1,400 checks, moderate Republicans push back on Biden's economic plan

    Biden's team appears ready to invest political capital trying to get Congress to approve another round of stimulus payments.

  • Tse Chi Lop: Alleged Asian drug lord arrested in Amsterdam

    Australia believes Tse Chi Lop's syndicate controls up to 70% of narcotics entering the country.

  • Navalny has a plan to get out of jail... protests

    This woman is Lyubov Sobol, a close ally of the prominent Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny. She's in a car with one of his lawyers. Outside police are waiting to arrest her. Sobol is one of several people close to Navalny that have now been detained, for promoting illegal mass protests planned for this weekend - demanding Navalny be freed from prison. In the video she says she "has nothing to hide," and she'll go to the protests anyway. Sobol was later released but not all of them were. Reuters has also learned that Navalny knew he would probably be jailed when he returned to Russia from Germany last Sunday, where he'd been recovering from the incident the West says was an attempted poisoning with a chemical weapon. At the time Navalny said he didn't believe he'd be arrested but the protests, according to one Navalny associate, were planned in anticipation of that scenario - as a way to force the Kremlin's hand for his eventual release. He is accused of breaking the terms of a separate jail sentence, accusations of embezzlement - charges he says were trumped up. It's not clear how successful the protest strategy may be. Seven years ago Navalny was released from prison on parole after mass protests. But two sources close to the Kremlin say this time will probably be different. Navalny has become more of a threat, they say. They don't believe he's a serious threat to President Putin yet - whose approval ratings dwarf Navalny - but the sources also say that the heavy handed way Navalny's return was dealt with was likely boosting his support, and could risk turning him into a martyr. One said he might be kept behind bars until after September's parliament elections.

  • Tulsi Gabbard: Domestic-Terrorism Bill Is ‘a Targeting of Almost Half of the Country’

    Tulsi Gabbard, the former Democratic representative from Hawaii, on Friday expressed concern that a proposed measure to combat domestic terrorism could be used to undermine civil liberties. Gabbard’s comments came during an appearance on Fox News Primetime when host Brian Kilmeade asked her if she was “surprised they’re pushing forward with this extra surveillance on would-be domestic terror.” “It’s so dangerous as you guys have been talking about, this is an issue that all Democrats, Republicans, independents, Libertarians should be extremely concerned about, especially because we don’t have to guess about where this goes or how this ends,” Gabbard said. She continued: “When you have people like former CIA Director John Brennan openly talking about how he’s spoken with or heard from appointees and nominees in the Biden administration who are already starting to look across our country for these types of movements similar to the insurgencies they’ve seen overseas, that in his words, he says make up this unholy alliance of religious extremists, racists, bigots, he lists a few others and at the end, even libertarians.” She said her concern lies in how officials will define the characteristics they are searching for in potential threats. “What characteristics are we looking for as we are building this profile of a potential extremist, what are we talking about? Religious extremists, are we talking about Christians, evangelical Christians, what is a religious extremist? Is it somebody who is pro-life? Where do you take this?” Gabbard said. She said the proposed legislation could create “a very dangerous undermining of our civil liberties, our freedoms in our Constitution, and a targeting of almost half of the country.” “You start looking at obviously, have to be a white person, obviously likely male, libertarians, anyone who loves freedom, liberty, maybe has an American flag outside their house, or people who, you know, attended a Trump rally,” Gabbard said. The Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act of 2021 was introduced in the House earlier this week in the aftermath of rioting at the U.S. Capitol earlier this month that left five dead. “Unlike after 9/11, the threat that reared its ugly head on January 6th is from domestic terror groups and extremists, often racially-motivated violent individuals,” Representative Brad Schneider (D., Ill.) said in a statement announcing the bipartisan legislation. “America must be vigilant to combat those radicalized to violence, and the Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act gives our government the tools to identify, monitor and thwart their illegal activities. Combatting the threat of domestic terrorism and white supremacy is not a Democratic or Republican issue, not left versus right or urban versus rural. Domestic Terrorism is an American issue, a serious threat the we can and must address together,” he said.

  • Priest who attended pro-Trump rally ahead of Capitol insurrection is suspended from post and may be defrocked

    Reverend Mark Hodges described event as ‘joyful, positive and orderly’

  • Mexican leader says Biden offers $4B for Central America

    President Joe Biden's first calls to foreign leaders went to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador at a strained moment for the U.S. relationship with its North American neighbors. Mexico's president said Saturday that Biden told him the U.S. would send $4 billion to help development in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala — nations whose hardships have spawned tides of migration through Mexico toward the United States.

  • Kenosha killing suspect Rittenhouse's bond terms changed after bar visit

    Attorneys for Rittenhouse did not object to the changes. Rittenhouse is accused of killing two amid protests last year.

  • Biden reeled in a record-breaking $145 million in 'dark money'

    President Biden reeled in a record-breaking $145 million in so-called dark money from anonymous donors during his presidential campaign, topping the $113 million that went to Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) before his failed presidential bid in 2012, Bloomberg reports.It's not surprising that Biden set the mark given that the $1.5 billion he hauled in overall was the most ever for a challenger to an incumbent president, but it's notable in large part because Democrats have been at the forefront of a movement to ban dark money in politics since it means that supporters can back a candidate without scrutiny. Plus, Bloomberg notes, anonymous donors "will have the same access to decision makers as those whose names were disclosed, but without public awareness of who they are or what influence they might wield." As Meredith McGehee, the executive director of campaign finance reform advocacy group Issue One, told Bloomberg, "the whole point of dark money is to avoid public disclosure while getting private credit."Still, it seems the Democratic Party was willing to embrace the strategy in the hopes of defeating former President Donald Trump, who only brought in $28.4 million from anonymous donors. Read more at Bloomberg.More stories from theweek.com 7 brutally funny cartoons about Trump's White House exit McConnell is already moving to strangle the Biden presidency 'No way' McConnell has had a post-Trump 'epiphany,' political scientist says

  • Syrian state media: Israeli warplanes strike Syria, kill 4

    Syrian state media said Israeli warplanes fired several missiles toward central Syria early on Friday, killing a family of four — including two children — and wounding four other people. There was no immediate comment from Israel on the claim. Separately, the Israeli military said it downed a drone that had crossed into Israel from Lebanon.

  • Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones loses bid to throw out defamation cases from Sandy Hook parents

    Infowars founder claimed shooting was 'a giant hoax’ and that grieving parents were actors

  • Biden has stopped construction on Trump's border wall, but the fate of outstanding contracts is unclear

    Among the first 17 executive orders President Biden signed Wednesday evening was one hitting "pause" on construction of former President Donald Trump's border wall. "It shall be the policy of my administration that no more American taxpayer dollars be diverted to construct a border wall," Biden's order said. "I am also directing a careful review of all resources appropriated or redirected to construct a southern border wall."Biden gave the Pentagon and Homeland Security departments up to a week to stop all border construction, and for the most part, the frantic wall-building Trump had unleashed in his last months in office had stopped by Thursday, The Associated Press reports. The Army Corps of Engineers said Thursday it told its contractors to stop installing any additional barriers and do only what's "necessary to safely prepare each site for a suspension of work."Biden gave his administration 60 days to find and review all current contracts and determine which can be canceled, which must be renegotiated, and whether any of the remaining money can be used on other projects. Trump, as of Jan. 15, had spent $6.1 billion of the $10.8 billion in wall construction it had contracted out, a Senate Democratic aide told AP. Overall, the Trump administration had secured $16.45 billion for the wall, including $5.8 billion appropriated by Congress and the rest seized from the Treasury and Defense departments. Biden is targeting that latter pot of money.Trump says he built 450 miles of his wall, though almost all of that was replacement for other barriers. His administration signed contracts for constructing 664 miles, the Senate aide told AP. "Trump said the border wall would be 'virtually impenetrable' and paid for by Mexico, which never happened," AP notes. "While the wall is much more formidable than the barriers it replaced, it isn't uncommon for smugglers to guide people over or through it. Portions can be sawed with power tools sold at home improvement stores."More stories from theweek.com 7 brutally funny cartoons about Trump's White House exit McConnell is already moving to strangle the Biden presidency 'No way' McConnell has had a post-Trump 'epiphany,' political scientist says

  • Ohio restaurant owner on how Biden’s $15 minimum wage impacts his business amid pandemic

    President of Adornetto’s Family of Restaurants, Adrian Adornetto, joins ‘Fox and Friends Weekend.’