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  • How McCarthy’s unprecedented leadership battle is a reflection of Fox News and right-wing media | CNN Business

    How McCarthy’s unprecedented leadership battle is a reflection of Fox News and right-wing media | CNN Business



    CNN
     — 

    It’s Tucker Carlson versus Sean Hannity in the Republican Party.

    The divisions inside the GOP, being laid bare on national television via the dramatic fight between Kevin McCarthy and a faction of rebels over the House speakership, mirror the rift that has been forming for some time in right-wing media and which is strikingly clear in Fox News primetime.

    Some corners of the right-wing media universe, represented by the Carlsons of the world, revel in the chaos. Carlson has made that clear on his broadcasts this week, effectively cheering on the Never Kevin camp in the House and arguing that what we are seeing on television — a paralyzed GOP unable after six votes to elect a House speaker — is healthy.

    A version of this article first appeared in the “Reliable Sources” newsletter. Sign up for the daily digest chronicling the evolving media landscape here.

    “If you prefer democracy to oligarchy, if you prefer real debates about issues that actually matter, it’s pretty refreshing to see it,” Carlson said of the public infighting taking place in the House, which is set to go back into session at noon on Thursday.

    Then there are the personalities and outlets that more closely align with Hannity, who has gone on record against the mutiny facing McCarthy and argued on the California congressman’s behalf.

    To be clear, Hannity hasn’t outright bashed the Republicans staging the rebellion against McCarthy. He’s mostly played polite. And he’s tried downplaying the friction, insisting it’s not a crisis. But Hannity has represented the wing of right-wing media — and the larger GOP — that would like to see Republicans unite and not be consumed by disorder.

    “Should Republicans have worked this all out in private, long before yesterday? Yeah, absolutely. And behind the scenes I spoke to many of them, and I urged them to work it out,” Hannity said Wednesday night. “They apparently did not listen to my advice.”

    After those comments, Hannity invited on Rep. Lauren Boebert for an interview which turned quite combative. The Fox News host repeatedly pressed the far-right congresswoman on what the rebel group plans to do, given that they are clearly a small minority of the GOP. Hannity at times noted that Boebert was evading and not answering his simple questions.

    “I asked you a simple question congresswoman. I feel like I’m getting an answer from a liberal,” an exasperated Hannity said toward the conclusion of the interview, in which Boebert repeatedly kept speaking over him.

    Of course, while Hannity, McCarthy, and others might be frustrated with the rebels now, they all played roles in bolstering their power in recent years. Which is the irony that cuts straight to the heart of the matter.

    Much like the Republican Party laid the groundwork over the years for the rise of Donald Trump, people like Hannity have laid the groundwork for the rise of people like Carlson. They’ve catered to their views, refused to call out their nonsense, and chosen to attack entities like the media instead of dealing with the own mess in their backyard.

    Now they’re reaping what they sowed: a party comprised of a growing number of erratic figures who don’t mind — and even perhaps prefer — watching the world burn.

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  • LinkedIn is having a moment thanks to a wave of layoffs | CNN Business

    LinkedIn is having a moment thanks to a wave of layoffs | CNN Business


    New York
    CNN
     — 

    In a normal year at this time, a typical LinkedIn feed might be full of posts about year-end reflections on leadership and professional goals and suggested lifehacks for the year ahead — possibly with a few posts from CMOs offering tips on brand strategy, for good measure.

    Those posts are still there. But mixed in are many others about job hunts, offers of support for laid off friends and colleagues, and advice for coping with career hurdles in an uncertain economic environment.

    Some LinkedIn users affected by recent layoffs have formed groups on the site aimed at providing assistance, coordinating around signing exit paperwork and aiding with connections for new jobs. One LinkedIn group of employees affected by the November layoffs at Facebook-parent Meta, for example, now has more than 200 members. Even bosses who are doing the laying off have turned to LinkedIn to explain themselves and seek support or advice, as one marketing CEO did in a post alongside a tearful selfie last year (to mixed results).

    If the first year of the pandemic was marked by widespread layoffs in lower paying retail and services jobs, the past few months have been defined by something different: the prospect of a white-collar recession. Even as the overall job market remains strong, there has been a wave of recent layoffs in the tech and media industries — which just so happen to make up a core part of LinkedIn’s user base. Suddenly, the normally staid professional network has become both a vital lifeline for recently laid off workers and a surprisingly lively social platform.

    The LinkedIn mobile app was downloaded an estimated 58.4 million times worldwide in 2022 across the Google Play and Apple app stores, up 10% from the prior year, according to research firm Sensor Tower.

    The number of posts on LinkedIn mentioning “open to work” were up 22% during November compared to the same period in the prior year, according to data provided by the company. LinkedIn says it also saw a steady increase in the rate of users adding connections last year compared to the year prior, a sign that users were more active on the platform.

    The uptick in use appears to have been good for LinkedIn’s business. The platform posted 17% year-over-year revenue growth in the three months ended in September, according to parent company Microsoft’s most recent earnings report. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella told analysts in the October earnings call that LinkedIn was seeing “record engagement” among its 875 million members, with growth accelerating especially in international markets.

    Some of LinkedIn’s momentum may predate the wave of layoffs. “There’s been an uptick in [LinkedIn use] since the pandemic,” said Jennifer Grygiel, an associate professor and social media expert at Syracuse University. “You had to do social distancing and we were quarantining and people were working remotely so there was a shift in real-life networking possibilities.”

    LinkedIn rose to the occasion — and now it may be rising to another one.

    Even apart from the layoffs, the social media landscape has been through a volatile year. Facebook and Instagram have been criticized by users for racing to turn their services into TikTok. TikTok has been criticized over concerns that user data could end up in the hands of the Chinese government. And after Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter late last year, the platform has been criticized for morphing into a possible haven for its most incendiary users.

    But LinkedIn remains, as ever, LinkedIn — and at this moment, with fears of a looming recession and career concerns top of mind, LinkedIn may be just what the digital world needs.

    Grygiel said many people working in media or academia are likely now looking for somewhere to build and engage in professional communities other than Twitter. And while upstart Twitter alternatives like Mastodon have experienced a surge in growth, they still don’t have the same sort of network effect that comes with a legacy platform’s broad user base.

    LinkedIn in recent years has leaned into courting influencers who regularly post content to the site, potentially giving users more reasons to visit. And the platform has been growing its “learning” section, which provides video courses taught by various industry experts and which the company says experienced a 17% increase in hours spent as of November compared to the year prior. But lately it appears users have more than enough reason to use LinkedIn amid a wave of thousands of layoffs.

    Perhaps the clearest and most public examples of LinkedIn’s new centrality came from rival social networks like Twitter.

    In the wake of Twitter’s November mass layoffs — in which half the company was terminated, followed by additional firings and exits — many former and remaining employees took to LinkedIn, rather than the platform they had built, to seek support, community and new opportunities.

    One group of Twitter employees created a spreadsheet of laid-off workers from the company alongside recruiters hiring for other firms, and used LinkedIn to help facilitate sign-ups. Another pair of former Twitter employees set up a system to connect job hunters with recruitment professionals open to volunteering to provide free resume review and interview prep services, which they promoted through LinkedIn.

    “We completely understand how the job-hunting process can be scary and overwhelming … While we can’t guarantee where your next opportunity will be or when it will come, we can offer guidance, so you will be ready for that opportunity when it arrives,” Darnell Gilet, a former Twitter senior technical recruiter who helped coordinate the effort, said in a LinkedIn post.

    Gilet, who was affected by the mass layoffs at Twitter in November following Elon Musk’s takeover, told CNN last month that around 28 different recruiters and talent acquisition professionals had agreed to participate in the system, and that he himself had spoken to nearly two dozen job seekers since shortly after he was laid off to offer advice and support. He said LinkedIn seemed like the obvious place to promote the service.

    “Chaos creates opportunity for somebody, right?” Gilet said. “People are getting laid off and you have this recession that’s looming, the ideal place … that would have the greatest growth opportunity from that would be a platform that’s focused on careers like LinkedIn. So it makes perfect sense.”

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  • As police in Idaho faced mounting criticism, investigators worked meticulously behind the scenes to nab a suspect | CNN

    As police in Idaho faced mounting criticism, investigators worked meticulously behind the scenes to nab a suspect | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    In the weeks after four University of Idaho students were found stabbed to death in a home near campus, police faced mounting criticism from the public as the investigation appeared to be at a standstill.

    In fact, court documents show, a team of local and state law enforcement officers, along with a slew of FBI agents, were working meticulously through the holiday season to catch the alleged killer.

    Weeks before making an arrest on December 30, investigators began setting their sights on Bryan Kohberger, a 28-year-old PhD student in criminology at a nearby university who has been charged with four counts of first-degree murder and one count of burglary.

    “I bristled in the days after the arrest when people questioned whether police had the right man because a PhD candidate in criminal justice would be too smart for this crime,” said John Miller, a CNN law enforcement analyst and former New York Police Department deputy commissioner. “You can teach a master’s class on how to do a complex criminal investigation based on this case.”

    The brutal nature of the November 13 killings set off a wave of fear and anxiety in Moscow, a small college town on the Idaho-Washington border that had not reported a murder in seven years.

    Police found the door to the off-campus residence open and the bodies of Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Madison Mogen, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, and 20-year-old Ethan Chapin in rooms on the second and third floors. Two other young women were in the three-floor, six-bedroom rental at the time but were not injured, according to police.

    Latah County Coroner Cathy Mabbutt told CNN she saw “lots of blood on the wall” when she arrived at the scene. She said there were multiple stab wounds on each body, likely from the same weapon. One victim had what appeared to be defensive stab wounds on the hands.

    Moscow police initially told the public the attack was targeted and there was no threat to the community. Days later, however, Police Chief Jason Fry backtracked: “We cannot say that there is no threat to the community,” he said. Many students began leave town.

    Authorities remained tight-lipped, withholding details of the crime and some of the leads they were tracking. For weeks, law enforcement officials said they had not identified a suspect or located the murder weapon.

    Jim Chapin, the father of Ethan Chapin, said in a November 16 statement that the lack of information from the university and local police “further compounds our family’s agony after our son’s murder.”

    “For Ethan and his three dear friends slain in Moscow, Idaho, and all of our families, I urge officials to speak the truth, share what they know, find the assailant, and protect the greater community,” the statement said.

    As frustrations continued to mount, pundits and relatives of the victims became even more critical of the apparent lack of progress in the case.

    “It takes a while to put together and piece together that whole timeline of events and the picture of really what occurred,” Idaho State Police spokesman Aaron Snell said on November 22, nine days after the killings. “A lot of this the public doesn’t get to see because it’s a criminal investigation. But I guarantee you behind the scenes, there’s so much work going on.”

    One day later, Steve Goncalves, Kaylee’s dad, told CNN he was focused on securing justice for his daughter, despite the dearth of information.

    “We all want to play a part in helping, and we can’t play a part if we don’t have any real substantial information to work from,” he said.

    Asked what he’d heard from local police, Goncalves said, “They’re not sharing much with me.” He suggested Moscow police might be limited in what they can share.

    One bit of information initially not shared publicly was that a review of surveillance footage from the area around the home brought to investigators’ attention a white sedan, later identified as a Hyundai Elantra, according to a probable cause affidavit released Thursday in the case against Kohberger.

    By November 25, law enforcement in the area had been notified to be on the lookout for such a vehicle, the affidavit said.

    And several days later, officers at nearby Washington State University, where the suspect was a graduate student in the criminal justice program, identified a white Elantra and subsequently found it was registered to Kohberger.

    This was just part of the behind-the-scenes work in a complex quadruple homicide investigation where any hint to the public about a suspect or the various leads police are following can cause it to fall apart, according to experts.

    “We don’t want to tip off suspects or spook them so that they end up going on the run. We don’t want them trying to get rid of evidence or destroy things,” said Joe Giacalone, adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and a retired NYPD sergeant who directed the department’s homicide school and the Bronx cold case squad.

    “There’s a lot of people in the public that need to apologize to the police department,” Giacalone said. “That Moscow, Idaho, police chief took a beating and he kept on moving ahead.”

    Miller agreed: “They were willing to take it on the chin, from the public, from the press, from local critics, in order to keep the case clean and keep the investigation going.”

    One crucial clue not shared by police was that one of the two roommates who survived told investigators she saw a masked man dressed in black in the house the morning of the attack, according to the probable cause affidavit.

    The roommate, identified in the document as D.M., said she “heard crying” in the house that morning and a male voice say, “It’s ok, I’m going to help you.” D.M. said she then saw a “figure clad in black clothing and a mask that covered the person’s mouth and nose walking towards her,” the document said.

    “D.M. described the figure as 5’ 10” or taller, male, not very muscular, but athletically built with bushy eyebrows,” according to the affidavit. “The male walked past D.M. as she stood in a ‘frozen shock phase.’”

    Kohberger’s driver’s license information, which was reviewed by investigators in late November, turned out to be consistent with the description provided by the surviving roommate, the affidavit said, noting specifically his height and his “bushy eyebrows.”

    Armed with driver’s license and plate information, investigators were able to obtain phone records that indicated Kohberger’s phone was near the victims’ residence at least 12 times between June 2022 to the present day, the affidavit said.

    Those records also showed that Kohberger’s phone was near the crime scene again after the killings, between 9:12 a.m. and 9:21 a.m., the document said.

    “For weeks before the arrest, so called experts, pundits and some in the press criticized the Moscow police for not being up to the task and for not having an arrest,” Miller said. “It’s not like ‘Law & Order,’ ‘Blue Bloods’ or ‘CSI.’”

    From the morning the murders were discovered, Miller said, the Moscow police knew they needed help and brought in the state police homicide squad and the FBI.

    “What the Moscow police had, that the FBI and the state police could never have, was they knew the area,” Miller said. “They knew the community and they knew the people and they had a very engaged community. But the FBI brought technical prowess and expertise. And what the state police brought was experience in homicide investigations and a state-of-the-art lab.”

    By mid December the public criticism of the police department continued to grow as few details of the investigation were made public.

    But the court documents show that investigators worked through the holidays to build their case, which included DNA found at the scene of the killings and at the Pennsylvania home of Kohberger’s family.

    “The general public tends to think all of this happens overnight,” said retired FBI profiler Mary Ellen O’Toole. “You have a group of investigators from different agencies coming together and working together. It’s very challenging.”

    Investigators learned that Kohberger received a new license plate for his Elantra five days after the killings, the affidavit said, citing records from the Washington State Department of Licensing.

    At the scene of the killings, investigators found a tan leather knife sheath on the bed next to one of the victims, the affidavit said. On its button snap, the Idaho State Lab would later find a single source of male DNA.

    Late last month, Pennsylvania law enforcement recovered trash from Kohberger’s family home in Albrightsville, according to the affidavit. That evidence, too, was sent to the Idaho State Lab.

    The DNA in the trash is believed to belong to the biological father of the person whose DNA was found on the sheath, the document said.

    On December 29, authorities requested an arrest warrant for Kohberger on four counts of first-degree murder and burglary, according to the affidavit.

    The next day, a Pennsylvania State Police SWAT team moved in on the Kohberger family home. They broke down the door and broke through windows in what is known as a “dynamic entry” – a rare tactic used to arrest “high risk” suspects, a law enforcement source told CNN.

    Kohberger was booked into the Latah County jail last week after being extradited from Pennsylvania. The affidavit, with many previously unknown details of the case, was released Thursday as the suspect made his first court appearance in Idaho.

    Kohberger did not enter a plea and he is due back in court on Thursday. A court order prohibits the prosecution and defense from commenting beyond the public records of the case.

    Moscow police “took a lot of criticism and a lot of heat in those seven weeks after the incident,” University of Idaho Provost and Executive Vice President Torrey Lawrence told CNN. “And I’m just so thankful that they stayed committed to that case and to sharing only what they could share so that they didn’t disrupt the investigation… If they had shared more, we could wonder would Mr. Kohberger have been able to elude them.”

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  • Lightning in the ‘cataclysmic’ Tonga volcano eruption shattered ‘all records’ | CNN

    Lightning in the ‘cataclysmic’ Tonga volcano eruption shattered ‘all records’ | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    When the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano erupted in January 2022, it sent shockwaves around the world. Not only did it trigger widespread tsunami waves, but it also belched an enormous amount of climate-warming water vapor into the Earth’s stratosphere.

    Now researchers in a new report have unveiled something else: the eruption set off more than 25,500 lightning events in just five minutes. Over the course of just six hours, the volcano triggered nearly 400,000 lightning events. Half of all the lightning in the world was concentrated around this volcano at the eruption’s peak.

    The “cataclysmic eruption” shattered “all records,” according to the report from Vaisala, an environmental monitoring company that tracks lightning around the world.

    “It’s the most extreme concentration of lightning that we’ve ever detected,” Chris Vagasky, meteorologist and lightning expert at Vaisala, told CNN. “We’ve been detecting lightning for 40 years now, and this is really an extreme event.”

    The annual report by Vaisala found that 2022 was a year of extremes for lightning. Lightning increased in the US in 2022, with more than 198 million lightning strokes — 4 million more than what was observed in 2021, and 28 million more than 2020.

    “We are continuing an upward trend in lightning,” Vagasky said.

    The World-Wide Lightning Location Network, another lightning monitoring network led by the University of Washington, which is not involved with the report, said Vaisala’s findings about global lightning as well as the Hunga volcano are consistent with their own observations.

    “We can do this because the stronger eruptions generate lightning, and lightning sends detectable radio signals around the world,” Robert Holzworth, the director of the network, told CNN. “The Hunga eruption was absolutely impressive in its lightning activity.”

    Researchers have used lightning as a key indicator of the climate crisis, since the phenomenon typically signals warming temperatures. Lightning occurs in energetic storms associated with an unstable atmosphere, requiring relatively warm and moist air, which is why they primarily occur in tropical latitudes and elsewhere during the summer months.

    But in 2022, Vaisala’s National Lightning Detection Network found more than 1,100 lightning strokes in Buffalo, New York, during a devastating lake-effect snowstorm that dumped more than 30 inches of snow in the city, but piled historic totals in excess of 6 feet in the surrounding suburbs along Lake Erie. Lake-effect snow occurs when cold air blows over warm lake water, in this case from the Great Lakes. The large difference in temperature can cause extreme instability in the atmosphere and lead to thunderstorm-like lightning even in a snow storm.

    More than 1,100 lightning strokes were detected in Buffalo, New York, during a devastating lake-effect snowstorm that dumped more than 30 inches of snow in the city, but piled historic totals in excess of 6 feet in the surrounding suburbs along Lake Erie.

    The report noted that many of these lightning events happened near wind turbines south of Buffalo, which Vagasky said was significant. He explained that the ice crystal-filled clouds were lower to the ground than usual, scraping just above the blades of the turbines.

    “That can cause what is known as self-initiated upward lightning,” Vagasky said. “So the lightning occurs because you have charged at the tip of this wind turbine blade that is really close to the base of the cloud, and it’s really easy to get a connection of the electric charge.”

    This is an area of ongoing research, he said, as the country turns to more clean energy alternatives.

    “We’re seeing bigger and bigger wind turbines, and certainly as we’re putting in more and more wind energy and renewable energy, lightning is going to play a role in that,” he said.

    The report comes after an unusual year in 2021, when they found lightning strokes increased significantly in the typically frozen Arctic region, which scientists say is a clear sign of how the climate crisis is altering global weather.

    “Lightning in polar regions wasn’t mentioned [in this year’s Vaisala report], but our global lightning network shows a trend for much more lightning in the northern polar regions,” Michael McCarthy, research associate professor and associate director of the World Wide Lightning Location Network, told CNN. “That trend closely tracks the observed average temperature changes over the northern hemisphere.

    “This close tracking suggests, but does not prove, a climate change effect,” McCarthy added.

    Vagasky said lightning in colder areas will only amplify as the planet warms, noting that meteorologists and climatologists have been collecting more data to not only make the climate connections clear but also keep people safe.

    “That’s why they’ve named lightning as an essential climate variable,” he said, “because it’s important to know where it’s occurring, how much is occurring, and so you can see how thunderstorms are trending as a result of changing climates.”

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  • Amid negotiation gridlock between Mount Sinai Hospital and the nursing union, newborns in intensive care are caught in the middle, one nurse says | CNN Business

    Amid negotiation gridlock between Mount Sinai Hospital and the nursing union, newborns in intensive care are caught in the middle, one nurse says | CNN Business



    CNN
     — 

    Crucial union negotiations between Mount Sinai Hospital and the New York State Nurses Association appear to be at a standstill and both parties say the other is refusing to return to the bargaining table.

    As the impasse continues between the hospital and union, the most vulnerable patients – newborns in Mount Sinai’s neonatal intensive care unit – are caught between the opposing sides, causing worry among families, one Mount Sinai nurse, who declined to provide her name out of fear of repercussions, told CNN.

    With thousands of New York nurses poised to strike early Monday morning, one of Manhattan’s famed hospitals announced Friday it would transport newborns in its intensive care unit to other area hospitals in preparation for the strike.

    A Mount Sinai Health System spokesperson confirmed to CNN Friday that neonatal intensive care unit infants would be transferred to other area hospitals because of the strike notice.

    “We are seeking a resolution [to the strike.] The impact is great,” the spokesperson told CNN.

    A NICU nurse at Mount Sinai Hospital told CNN that families of patients in the unit have been deeply concerned about moving their sick infants from one hospital to another. Moving the babies to a different facility can be “very stressful” for a NICU patient, the nurse said, as well as the parents.

    “They’ve asked us all week what’s going to happen to their babies, and what’s going to happen next week,” the nurse said.

    “It’s a big journey for a baby who’s never been outside the hospital,” she told CNN. “It’s not anything that we want to happen. We want our babies to stay. We want to be taking care of them. And it’s kind of shocking, and actually a little infuriating, that the hospital is letting it get to this point.”

    The more critical the baby’s condition is, the more complicated and riskier a transfer to another hospital becomes, the nurse explained.

    “You would need at least a doctor or nurse practitioner, a respiratory therapist if the patient is on respiratory support and a transport nurse to work the pumps and administer medicine if needed,” she said.

    The nurses who care for the sick infants often grow close to the families and develop a trusting relationship with them, especially because some babies spend weeks or even months in the NICU, the nurse told CNN.

    “They’re comfortable leaving their babies with us when they aren’t able to be there,” she said. “We keep in contact with the families after their babies have gone home – so we really do develop a close bond to these families.”

    “We treat our babies in the hospital like they’re our own kids. We’re very protective of them,” she added.

    New York State Nurses Association President Nancy Hagans has said the goal of the negotiations is to improve patient care and staffing, get fair wages and to recruit and retain nurses.

    Negotiations between the health system and the nurse’s union have been ongoing since September, a Mount Sinai Health System spokesperson told CNN Saturday, but low staffing levels have afflicted the NICU unit for years, the nurse told CNN.

    “For over three years now, we’ve been understaffed,” she said.

    The number of patients in the unit surges and falls regularly, according to the nurse, but as patient levels rise, staffing levels stay the same. The unit can surge to 64 patients, she said.

    “You feel like you’re not actually giving your all to your patients,” she said. “You’re really pulled very thin.”

    Paying close attention to infant patients is especially important, according to the nurse, because unlike other patients – even small children – they can’t verbalize pain or discomfort.

    “You really have to be on top of their vital signs and general assessment. And when you’re not able to spend as much time as you need to with them, some things do get missed,” she said. “And it’s very unfortunate.”

    CNN has reached out to the hospital regarding the nurse’s comments on low staffing.

    More than 8,700 nurses are prepared to strike Monday morning if tentative contract agreements are not reached at several hospitals, Hagans, the union president, said at a virtual news conference Saturday morning.

    As of Saturday, negotiations across New York’s hospitals were continuing at Montefiore Bronx and the Mount Sinai Morningside and West campuses, according to the nurse’s union.

    But the president of the nurse’s union told reporters Saturday the main Mount Sinai Hospital complex left the bargaining table late Thursday and no further bargaining sessions have been scheduled since.

    A Mount Sinai Health System spokesperson told CNN that hospital management is “waiting for the union to come back to us” to resume negotiations.

    The hospital said it put forth a deal at Thursday evening’s bargaining session was the same one the union agreed to for nurses at the NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital. Tentative agreements have also been reached with union nurses at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn and Richmond University Medical Center in Staten Island.

    Mount Sinai also said it has offered a 19.1% compounded pay raise over three years, which is the same offer other hospital systems in the city have made.

    The NICU nurse at Mount Sinai said that nurses in her unit don’t want to strike and are hoping that they can come to an agreement with the hospital before Sunday night.

    “It truly breaks our heart having to strike and leave our patients, but unfortunately you have to do some drastic things sometimes,” she told CNN.

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  • CBP seizes $9.1 million worth of cocaine at the Pan American Dock in Puerto Rico | CNN

    CBP seizes $9.1 million worth of cocaine at the Pan American Dock in Puerto Rico | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    US Customs and Border Protection officers seized 877 pounds of cocaine on board the San Juan-Santo Domingo Ferry at the Pan American Dock in Puerto Rico last month.

    The drugs, which have an estimated value of $9.1 million, were spotted on December 26 during a routine cargo inspection. Officers removed a board covering the floor of a cargo platform to reveal 355 packages that tested positive for cocaine, the CBP said in a statement.

    “Our experienced CBP officers remain vigilant, utilizing their training and available tools to stop dangerous drugs from entering the country,” Roberto Vaquero, director of field operation for Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands, said in the statement.

    Homeland Security Investigations took custody of the contraband for further investigation, according to the CBP.

    CBP has seized 77,000 pounds of drugs in the first two months of fiscal year 2023, according to the CBP Data Portal.

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  • How McCarthy survived the House chaos to win the speaker’s gavel | CNN Politics

    How McCarthy survived the House chaos to win the speaker’s gavel | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz strode into House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy’s office on Monday night with a list of demands. Among them: The chairmanship of a key House Armed Services subcommittee.

    McCarthy rejected the offer. That decision set in motion a chain of events that left Gaetz and McCarthy locked in open confrontation on the House floor late Friday night. Gaetz, McCarthy’s staunchest opponent, dramatically denied McCarthy the final vote he needed to become speaker – then Gaetz and the last holdouts abruptly changed course allowing McCarthy to win the speaker’s gavel on his 15th attempt.

    See the moment Rep. Kevin McCarthy was elected House speaker

    Before the final vote, pandemonium erupted on the House floor after Gaetz waited until the very end of the 14th ballot to vote “present” when McCarthy needed one more “yes” vote. Stunned after believing he had the votes, McCarthy faced his most embarrassing defeat yet. McCarthy’s allies encircled Gaetz to try to find a way forward. McCarthy soon made a bee-line for discussion and started engaging Gaetz, too.

    After McCarthy walked away from Gaetz, looking dejected, Armed Services Chairman Mike Rogers moved toward the conversation and lunged at Gaetz, having to be physically restrained by Republican Rep. Richard Hudson of North Carolina. Rogers, a Republican from Alabama who earlier in the week warned the GOP dissidents they would lose their committee assignments, told Gaetz he would be “finished” for continuing to wreck the speaker’s vote.

    Nearby, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia was trying to convince Rep. Matt Rosendale of Montana, another McCarthy holdout, to take her cell phone and speak to former President Donald Trump, who was on the line.

    Finally, the House clerk announced for the 14th time that no one had the votes to be speaker. Republicans moved to adjourn the chamber until Monday. As the vote timer counted down, 218 Republicans had voted yes, a majority that would have sent McCarthy home for the weekend and left the House in paralysis at the hands of Gaetz and his allies.

    The sign at McCarthy's office is installed on Capitol Hill in Washington, early Saturday on January 7, 2023.

    But with less than a minute left to go in the vote, Gaetz moved toward the front of the chamber, grabbing a red index card to change his vote on adjournment. Gaetz walked toward McCarthy, and the two briefly exchanged words. McCarthy then raised his hand and yelled out, “One more!” as he triumphantly walked toward the front of the chamber to change his vote, too. It was the GOP leader’s final negotiation capping an emotional roller coaster over the course of four days as he was held hostage by a narrow faction of his conference. Dozens of Republicans followed McCarthy and Gaetz to defeat the adjournment measure, and McCarthy’s victory, at last, was at hand.

    The six Republican holdouts all voted present on the 15th ballot, giving McCarthy a 216-212 victory to end the longest speaker’s race since 1859. Rep. Tom Emmer, one of McCarthy’s top deputies, went up and down the aisles telling Republicans on the House floor not to clap for Gaetz or Rep. Lauren Boebert when they announced their votes, like they had for other holdouts who had flipped to McCarthy earlier in the day.

    Asked why he reversed course on McCarthy, Gaetz said, “I ran out of things I could even imagine to ask for.”

    McCarthy expressed relief as he left the floor: “I’m glad it’s over.”

    McCarthy denied Gaetz was offered the subcommittee gavel he had sought earlier in the week in exchange for his vote. “No one gets promised anything,” McCarthy said.

    Rep. Richard Hudson, R-N.C., left, pulls Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala., back as they talk with Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., and other during the 14th round of voting for speaker as the House meets for the fourth day to try and elect a speaker and convene the 118th Congress in Washington, Friday, Jan. 6, 2023. At right is Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

    GOP lawmaker had to be restrained while confronting Gaetz. Hear what he told him

    The chaotic scramble to the speakership came after days of marathon negotiations that exposed deep divides within the GOP and threw into question their ability to govern effectively in the 118th Congress. But McCarthy’s victory after facing 20 defectors on Tuesday also highlighted the successful strategy concocted by McCarthy and his top lieutenants to defeat the self-proclaimed “Never Kevin” movement led by Gaetz.

    McCarthy’s strategy led to a breakthrough over two votes Friday afternoon, when McCarthy flipped 14 Republicans who had voted against him following marathon talks over House rules – setting the stage for the 11th-hour chaos with the final six holdouts.

    It’s too soon to say whether the four-day speaker drama will become little more than an historical footnote for the 118th Congress, or if it’s an early indicator of even more bruising fights to come. But the fight over the speaker’s gavel exposed the bitter fault lines bubbling up in the Republican Party for the better course of a decade that will hover over the House for the next two years.

    McCarthy’s concessions to the GOP dissidents are significant and could ultimately cut his tenure as speaker short. Among the rules changes: McCarthy agreed to restore a rule allowing a single Republican member to call for a vote to depose him as speaker, the same rule that led to John Boehner’s decision to resign as speaker in 2015.

    Still, McCarthy’s victory Friday now gives him the long-sought speaker’s gavel and the chance to lead a House that will quickly turn its focus to investigating President Joe Biden, his administration and his family. More challenging for McCarthy and his conference are the looming fights later this year over government spending and the debt ceiling, where McCarthy cut deals on spending during this week’s negotiations likely to be unacceptable both to Democrats and the White House as well as Senate Republicans.

    This account of how McCarthy finally won the fifth longest speaker’s fight in history is based on dozens of interviews throughout the week as the drama played out on and off the House floor with the fate of McCarthy’s political career and the legislative body itself hanging in the balance.

    WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 06: U.S. Rep.-elect Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) offers a phone to Rep.-elect Matt Rosendale (R-MT) in the House Chamber during the fourth day of voting for Speaker of the House at the U.S. Capitol Building on January 06, 2023 in Washington, DC. The House of Representatives is meeting to vote for the next Speaker after House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) failed to earn more than 218 votes on several ballots; the first time in 100 years that the Speaker was not elected on the first ballot. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

    Analysis: Dana Bash reacts to McCarthy thanking Trump for speaker role

    The morning following McCarthy’s Monday meeting with Gaetz, things got even worse for the GOP leader.

    In a tense meeting in the basement of the Capitol with the full House GOP Conference, McCarthy and Gaetz got into a screaming match. McCarthy called out his detractors for asking for personal favors, including Gaetz, whom he said informed him he didn’t care if Democrat Hakeem Jeffries was elected speaker so long as he didn’t get the job.

    Afterward, the Florida Republican accused McCarthy of acting in bad faith by asking him for a list of demands – and then by later berating him over it.

    “It was very unseemly,” Rep. Dan Bishop of North Carolina, one of the 20 who initially opposed McCarthy.

    That meeting – where Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado called out “bulls**t” on McCarthy and where the GOP leader engaged in heated exchanges with Reps. Chip Roy of Texas and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania – set the stage for the furious four-day battle.

    Afterward, McCarthy and his allies knew they had a problem. They saw his opposition growing amid anger over McCarthy’s threats and tough talk. So they began to work on a strategy: Take the temperature down and divide the opponents away from Gaetz and provide concessions to far-right members of the conference who want more say in the legislative process.

    mccarthy statuary hall

    McCarthy explains tense House floor discussion with Gaetz

    At noon, the House gaveled in the 118th Congress, and lawmakers swarmed the House floor, children in tow, for what was supposed to begin a day of pageantry. In a sign of the new Republican rules, the magnetometers installed by outgoing Speaker Nancy Pelosi in the wake of the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol were removed from the doors to the House floor.

    The first order of business quickly revealed the depth of the GOP opposition to McCarthy’s speakership bid.

    McCarthy needed 218 votes, a majority of the House, meaning he could only lose four of the 222 Republicans as long as all Democrats voted for Jeffries. The clerk called out the names of all 434 members to vote in alphabetical order. McCarthy was denied a majority before the House clerk was through the “C’s,” and 19 Republicans voted for someone other than McCarthy – leaving him 15 votes short.

    Jeffries, the new Democratic leader, got the most votes with 212.

    McCarthy’s camp hunkered down, preparing to go through multiple votes for speaker for the first time in a century. “We’re going to war,” a senior GOP source told CNN.

    McCarthy’s opponents were just as dug in. “We will never cave,” said Rep. Bob Good of Virginia.

    On the second ballot, Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio – the Republican rabble-rouser turned McCarthy ally – rose to nominate McCarthy, after he had received six votes from the holdouts. Gaetz followed Jordan by nominating the Ohio Republican himself as a candidate. All 19 Republicans holdouts consolidated around Jordan, and the count ended in the same place as the first ballot.

    Before the third vote, Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida, who had voted for McCarthy on the first two ballots, told CNN that McCarthy failed to “close the deal.” When his name was called minutes later, Donalds announced he was voting for Jordan, McCarthy’s first defection.

    The list of McCarthy’s opponents grew to 20 when the third vote was announced, and the House adjourned for the day.

    Rep. Lauren Boebert stands next to Rep. Byron Donalds as she casts her vote in the House chamber during the second day of elections for speaker at the US Capitol on January 4, 2023.

    After the Tuesday’s three failed votes, McCarthy had debated having another GOP conference meeting. But the California Republican was advised not to, worried it would not be productive and would lead to another heated venting session that was leaked to the press in real time.

    WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 07: U.S. Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (D-CA) celebrates with the gavel after being elected in the House Chamber at the U.S. Capitol Building on January 07, 2023 in Washington, DC. After four days of voting and 15 ballots McCarthy secured enough votes to become Speaker of the House for the 118th Congress. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

    Hear Kevin McCarthy’s first speech as House speaker

    Instead, McCarthy’s camp ultimately decided small meetings would be more fruitful after the two factions retreated to their corners. McCarthy made his own round of calls Tuesday evening, including to former President Donald Trump. Before leaving the Capitol, McCarthy claimed to reporters he believed he was “not that far away” from the votes he needed.

    McCarthy said that the former president “reiterated support” for his speaker bid.

    The day before the vote for speaker, the former president had declined to issue a statement reiterating his endorsement of McCarthy despite a behind-the-scenes effort from several McCarthy allies to get Trump to do so.

    Finally, on Wednesday morning, Trump did release a statement on his social media site urging the House GOP to “VOTE FOR KEVIN.”

    The former president’s message had little effect.

    “I disagree with Trump. This is our fight. This isn’t Trump’s,” said South Carolina GOP Rep. Ralph Norman, one of the McCarthy dissenters.

    Trump continued to keep the House drama at arms’ length until Friday, when he made calls to Gaetz and Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona while they were on the House floor. After McCarthy won the speakership, Trump congratulated him on his social media site.

    Rep. Patrick McHenry, left, and Rep. Tom Emmer speak with McCarthy in the House chamber on January 4, 2023, as lawmakers meet for a second day to elect a speaker and convene the 118th Congress.

    When the House gaveled back into session Wednesday, McCarthy lacked the votes to adjourn the session, as some of his allies had wanted in order to keep negotiating. So McCarthy headed toward a fourth ballot.

    Jordan urged McCarthy’s opponents not to nominate him again. Instead, Rep. Chip Roy of Texas stood instead to nominate Donalds – the very Republican who had defected the day prior.

    While the McCarthy opponents did not grow their ranks – a sigh of relief for McCarthy – the California Republican still lost one vote: Rep. Victoria Spartz, an Indiana Republican, who voted present. Spartz told reporters her vote was intended to encourage the two sides to get back to the negotiating table.

    There were other signs that some of McCarthy’s backers weren’t willing to stick by him forever. Rep. Ken Buck, a Colorado Republican and House Freedom Caucus member, told CNN that “at some point” McCarthy needed to step aside and let now-Majority Leader Steve Scalise run. “What I’ve asked is that if Kevin can’t get there, that he step aside and give Steve a chance to do it,” Buck said.

    The atmosphere on the House floor on Wednesday was buzzing by the second vote. While Tuesday’s session was relatively calm, the opposing factions gathered on the floor to hold talks in real time in between the speaker votes.

    At the same time the House was taking vote after vote for speaker, Biden was speaking in Kentucky at an event with Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell promoting the 2021 infrastructure bill McConnell helped pass. Biden’s speech gave the White House – and Senate Republicans – a split screen that laid bare the vast contrast with the House Republican infighting.

    “It’s embarrassing for the country,” Biden said of the House chaos.

    President Joe Biden greets Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on arrival at Cincinnati Northern Kentucky International Airport in Hebron, Kentucky, on January 4, 2023.

    After the sixth vote ended with an identical outcome as the fifth, the House adjourned for several hours. The break gave the two sides more time to negotiate, and some of the hardliners said they saw some progress.

    A group of Republicans decamped to the office of Minnesota Rep. Tom Emmer, the new House majority whip. Bishop said things had changed over the past couple of hours and he was “encouraged” by the talks.

    But it wasn’t clear that the meeting would lead to a breakthrough. Gaetz pledged that the McCarthy dissenters could continue to hold votes “until the cherry blossoms fall off the trees.” Boebert said the “boats are burned” when it comes to any future negotiations with McCarthy.

    When the House gaveled back into session, Republicans moved to adjourn for the night rather than take another failed speaker vote. GOP leaders were hopeful that the ongoing talks would convince McCarthy’s opponents to vote for adjournment, but with just four votes to spare, the roll-call vote was tight.

    All Democrats and four McCarthy opponents voted against adjourning, and the motion was in danger of failing – which would have forced the House to keep voting for speaker. But two Democrats weren’t in attendance, and the House clerk gaveled an end to the vote, 216 to 214.

    McCarthy had at least one more day to try to get his detractors to yes.

    Rep. Jim Jordan talks with McCarthy in the House chamber as the House meets on January 4, 2023, to elect a speaker.

    On Wednesday evening, McCarthy agreed to several key concessions to try to flip at least some of his opponents.

    McCarthy had been in talks with Roy, who told GOP leaders he thought he could get 10 holdouts to come along with him. McCarthy also met separately Wednesday evening with freshman members who voted against him.

    In perhaps the biggest concession, McCarthy agreed to allow just one member to call for a vote to oust a sitting speaker. McCarthy had initially proposed a five-member threshold, down from current conference rules that require half of the GOP to call for such a vote.

    McCarthy also pledged to allow more members of the Freedom Caucus to serve on the Rules Committee and to hold votes for bills that were priorities for the holdouts, including on border security and term limits.

    In another sign of a breakthrough, a McCarthy-aligned super PAC, the Congressional Leadership Fund, agreed to not get involved in open primaries in safe seats – one of the demands conservatives had asked for but McCarthy had resisted.

    “I think we’re making progress,” McCarthy said Thursday morning as he arrived at the Capitol for a third day of votes.

    The GOP dissidents also sounded a positive note. “We’re making some progress,” Bishop told CNN as he was walking into a meeting Thursday morning with other GOP hardliners.

    McCarthy leaves a private meeting room off the floor at the US Capitol on January 5, 2023, as he negotiates with lawmakers in his own party to become the speaker of the House.

    Despite the optimistic chatter Thursday morning, the House gaveled into session at noon without a deal. And while McCarthy’s allies had considered trying to postpone additional votes so a deal could be finalized, McCarthy lacked the votes to adjourn.

    Instead, lawmakers followed two tracks into the evening: taking vote after vote on the House floor for speaker, while negotiations continued behind closed doors.

    The outcome did not change with each floor vote. While the GOP holdouts shifted who received their anti-McCarthy votes – Boebert nominated Rep. Kevin Hern of Oklahoma on vote No. 9, and Gaetz nominated Trump on the 11th ballot – none shifted to McCarthy’s side.

    Twenty-one Republicans didn’t support McCarthy on ballot number seven. Same with eight, nine, 10 and 11.

    Behind the scenes, however, the holdouts who weren’t in the “never Kevin” camp continued talking with McCarthy and his allies, inching closer to a deal.

    By the early evening Thursday, there was an offer “on paper.” Three of the key negotiators – Emmer, Roy and Donalds – huddled with McCarthy in his ceremonial office, following a session in Emmer’s office for one group to review the written agreement to break the stalemate. Another group huddled in the member’s dining room on the first floor of the Capitol to discuss a separate part of the written deal.

    “We’re still working through it,” Roy said leaving Emmer’s office.

    “Each meeting is more positive than the last. And that’s a very nice sign,” Rep. Patrick McHenry, a key negotiator on McCarthy’s side, told reporters.

    The discussions in Emmer’s office continued late into the evening Thursday in an attempt to get to yes. Chipotle was wheeled in for dinner.

    One factor complicating the talks was a handful Republicans were expected to leave Washington due to various family issues. Buck left Thursday afternoon for a planned medical procedure. Rep. Wesley Hunt flew back to Texas to be with his wife and newborn, who had to spend some time in the neonatal intensive care unit.

    McCarthy reacts after losing the 14th vote in the House chamber as the House meets on January 6, 2023, for the fourth day to elect a speaker and convene the 118th Congress.

    On Friday morning, House Democrats marked the second anniversary of the January 6, 2021, attack on the steps of the Capitol. Just one Republican attended: Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania.

    Republicans huddled once again as a conference for the first time since the heated Tuesday meeting. This time, McCarthy organized a conference call, which could be more easily managed, rather than an in-person session. On the call, McCarthy told his conference that a deal had not yet been finalized but that progress had been made. He specifically thanked Roy, a key holdout, for his role.

    Before the House gaveled back into session, McCarthy predicted he would win over some holdovers, though there were still reasons for him to be pessimistic the finish line was in sight.

    “I’ll be voting for Byron Donalds,” Norman told CNN on his way to the floor, saying he was still reviewing the emerging agreement.

    The 12th vote for speaker began the same as the 11 before it. Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona was the first Republican to vote against McCarthy. Then Bishop, the next McCarthy opponent in the roll call, rose to cast his vote.

    “McCarthy,” Bishop said, prompting his fellow Republicans to leap from their seats with a standing ovation.

    Freshman Rep. John Brecheen of Oklahoma was the next to flip, prompting another round of Republican cheers. By the end of the roll call, 14 holdouts, including Norman, had called McCarthy’s name. He was still short of the votes he needed for speaker, but the tide had turned. Only seven McCarthy opponents remained.

    On the 13th vote, the GOP leader peeled off one more detractor, Rep. Andy Harris of Maryland. The House voted to adjourn until 10 p.m. ET – providing time both for the two missing McCarthy supporters time to return to Washington and for McCarthy’s allies to turn up the heat on the remaining holdouts.

    McCarthy needed two more votes. McCarthy and his allies focused on Rep. Matt Rosendale of Montana and freshman Rep. Eli Crane of Arizona either to support McCarthy or vote present, lowering the vote threshold to win a majority.

    There were multiple avenues to a majority and the speakership for McCarthy. The simplest path was to peel off two more votes and hit 218. But if McCarthy’s remaining GOP opponents would not vote for him, the California could still obtain a majority if three of the six detractors voted “present.” In addition to Rosendale and Crane, McCarthy’s allies looked to Boebert as a potential present vote.

    Gaetz and Boebert appeared to acknowledge the end of the speaker fight was near before the House returned to session, sitting for a joint interview with Fox’s Sean Hannity and expressing vague optimisms for the rules changes the holdouts had won.

    But as the House gaveled back into session, Gaetz went to McCarthy’s senior aide and asked whether the House could adjourn until Monday. Gaetz offer was rejected, leading to the final chaos over the course of the 14th and 15th votes for speaker.

    Early Saturday morning, following 14 losses and more than 84 hours after the beginning of the 118th Congress, the House clerk finally announced McCarthy was elected House speaker.

    Before the chaos over the final vote, McCarthy earlier Friday had sounded an optimistic note that the lengthy fight over the gavel would actually help Republicans. “So this is the great part. Because it took this long, now we’ve learned how to govern,” McCarthy said. “So now we’ll be able to get the job done.”

    Gaetz, however, suggested the historic fight would have a different impact on McCarthy’s speakership. Due to the concessions, Gaetz argued, McCarthy will be governing in a “straitjacket.”

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  • Jack Ma to relinquish control of Ant group | CNN Business

    Jack Ma to relinquish control of Ant group | CNN Business



    CNN
     — 

    Chinese billionaire Jack Ma will no longer control Ant Group after the fintech giant’s shareholders agreed to reshape its shareholding structure, according to a statement released by the company on Saturday.

    After the adjustment, Ma’s voting rights will fall to 6.2%, according to the statement and CNN calculations.

    Before the restructure, Ma possessed more than 50% of voting rights at Ant via Hangzhou Yunbo and two other entities, according to its IPO prospectus filed with the exchanges in 2020.

    Ant added in the statement that the voting rights adjustment, a move to make the company’s shareholder structure “more transparent and diversified,” will not result in any change to the economic interests of any shareholders.

    Ant said its 10 major shareholders, including Ma, had agreed to no longer act in concert when exercising their voting rights, and would only vote independently, and thus no shareholder would have “sole or joint control over Ant Group.”

    The voting rights overhaul came after Chinese regulators pulled the plug on Ant’s $37 billion IPO in November 2020, and ordered the company to restructure its business.

    As part of the company’s restructuring, Ant’s consumer finance unit applied for an expansion of its registered capital from $1.2 billion to $2.7 billion. The China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission recently approved the application, according to a government notice issued late last week.

    After the fund-raising drive, Ant will control half of its key consumer finance unit, while an entity controlled by the Hangzhou city government will own a 10% stake. Hangzhou is where Alibaba and Ant have been headquartered since their inceptions.

    Ant Group is a fintech affiliate of Alibaba, both of which were founded by Ma.

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  • Opinion: The deal McCarthy struck was an inexplicable act of self destruction | CNN

    Opinion: The deal McCarthy struck was an inexplicable act of self destruction | CNN

    Editor’s Note: Charlie Dent is a former Republican congressman from Pennsylvania who was chair of the House Ethics Committee from 2015 until 2017 and chair of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Military Construction, Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies from 2015 until 2018. He is a CNN political commentator. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion on CNN.



    CNN
     — 

    The drawn-out spectacle that was the House speaker election laid bare the fracture and dysfunction within the House Republican conference. Mercifully, it ended after four days and 15 ballots.

    But it’s worth noting that the House Speaker vote is the first – and typically the easiest – order of business. Judging by how difficult it was for Kevin McCarthy to secure the necessary votes to become speaker, there are plenty of bitter and protracted fights to come.

    After McCarthy flipped a number of his original holdouts, his fate finally came down to Rep. Matt Gaetz, who found himself on the receiving end of ire from his GOP colleagues, including an understandably frustrated Rep. Mike Rogers, who angrily confronted the Florida congressman during the closing moments of the 14th ballot.

    While congratulations are in order to Speaker McCarthy, the role has been considerably weakened due to the reported concessions he made during this unseemly political shakedown. Clearly, the hardliners exacted more than a pound of flesh from McCarthy and most of the House GOP conference that will make governing exceedingly difficult.

    It begs the question: Is surrendering your way to victory really winning? And when will this appeasement ever end, considering it only makes this extremist faction more powerful?

    First, a bit of recent history is in order to explain the dynamics of the House Republican conference.

    Anyone surprised by the dysfunction this week should not have been; the House GOP conference has been growing increasingly dysfunctional over the past 13 years. The chaotic machinations witnessed by the world this week are simply a continuation of the dysfunction that began after the Tea Party swept the House in 2010.

    Former Speaker John Boehner and Republican Majority Leader Eric Cantor, and later Speaker Paul Ryan, were all tormented by a rejectionist wing of their own party on simple matters of governance. Funding the government, preventing default on the full faith and credit of the United States, providing emergency relief to states and communities ravaged by natural disasters, and reauthorizing essential programs all became dramatic, high stakes fights.

    McCarthy was in leadership throughout this period and knew the dangers in dealing with this fringe group bent on sowing chaos in Congress. In fact, some of the same characters behind the chaos this week were among the group that fragged McCarthy in 2015 when he last tried to become speaker (and failed). Torturing the House Republican leadership and holding the GOP agenda hostage has become an ignoble strategy for these rabble rousers.

    So here we are in 2023. The malcontents are still digging in – the only difference now is that there is a smaller governing majority. Actually, there really is no GOP governing majority at all, and the world will learn that soon enough.

    A paradigm shift is long overdue. Pragmatic and rational Republican members, who bristled at the concessions McCarthy handed to Gaetz and his ilk, must force a course correction and change the dynamics.

    In this case, retribution is a dish best served piping hot. It’s time for rational House Republicans to push back and use their leverage – starting with the rules package. They should give the chaos caucus a taste of their own medicine and say no until their reasonable demands are met.

    They’ll be doing themselves – and McCarthy – a favor by clawing back some of the rules the speaker agreed to in his misguided deal. Giving in to the hardliners by allowing a single member to call for a vote to oust the speaker is a nonstarter; same for placing more members of the Freedom Caucus on the House Rules Committee.

    The hardliners also secured a promise that a McCarthy-aligned super PAC would not intervene in open, safe seat GOP primaries. Why empower fringe elements even further in a way that will only produce more members of Congress who are disinterested in governing? These are inexplicable acts of self-destruction.

    It’s time to stop feeding the crocodiles. Rational Republicans must stand, fight and resist. Two can play this game. If the diabolical demands and tactics of the chaos caucus didn’t upset them enough, consider this quote from Gaetz: “I ran out of things I could even imagine to ask for.”

    Rational House Republicans need to protect themselves from the deal McCarthy agreed to in his own quest for the coveted gavel. Big legislative battles are looming, and Republicans will need all the procedural tools at their disposal to keep the country on track and out of the proverbial ditch, or worse. Tanking the worst of the proposed rules changes is in order.

    And if there aren’t enough GOP votes for a more reasonable rules package, then it’s time to try something novel – bipartisanship. In this case, rational Republicans should reach across the aisle and work with Democrats to secure enough votes for a rules package that rolls back some of the hardliners’ demands.

    The House’s ability to function is at stake. America’s authoritarian adversaries around the world point to democracy as outdated and unable to meet the needs of its people. It’s time to prove them wrong by stamping out the extremist elements within our midst who deny the results of free and fair elections and wish to wreak havoc on America’s hallowed temple of democracy.

    This is the moment for rational House Republicans to make their stand.

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  • NYC nursing union says 8,700 nurses prepared to strike Monday if tentative contract agreements not reached at remaining hospital | CNN Business

    NYC nursing union says 8,700 nurses prepared to strike Monday if tentative contract agreements not reached at remaining hospital | CNN Business


    New York
    CNN
     — 

    More than 8,700 nurses are prepared to go on strike Monday at 6 am ET if tentative contract agreements are not reached at several New York City hospitals, New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA) President Nancy Hagans said at a virtual press conference Saturday morning.

    That’s a drop from the original estimate of 9,500, after tentative agreements were reached late Friday and Saturday morning with other facilities.

    In a statement Saturday, the NYSNA said nurses at BronxCare and The Brooklyn Hospital Center reached tentative agreements that will improve safe staffing levels and enforcement, increase wages by 7%, 6%, and 5% annually during their three-year contract, and retain their healthcare benefits.

    Negotiations are continuing at Montefiore Bronx and the Mount Sinai Morningside and West campuses ahead of Monday’s planned strike, Hagans said. The union president told reporters Saturday that the main Mount Sinai Hospital complex left the bargaining table late Thursday and has not reached out to the union to schedule any further bargaining sessions since.

    A Mount Sinai spokesperson told CNN the hospital system is actively bargaining with the Mount Sinai Morningside and West campuses under separate union agreements. The spokesperson added that management is “waiting for the union to come back to us” and resume negotiations for nurses at the main Mount Sinai hospital facility.

    On Saturday, nurses at NewYork-Presbyterian announced that they agreed to ratify their agreement, but it was a close vote – 57% nurses voted yes and 43% were against.

    “Voting on whether to ratify a contract is a key component of union democracy. Just like in any democracy, there is rarely 100 percent consensus,” Hagans said in a statement.

    To date, nurses at five New York City hospitals who were slated to strike on Monday have now reached tentative agreements or contracts.

    The NYSNA also hit back Saturday at comments from Mount Sinai, which said Friday it was transferring infants in its Neonatal Intensive Care units to other area hospitals because of over the strike notice, saying that the hospital was “dismayed by NYSNA’s reckless actions.”

    Matt Allen, the union’s regional director, said, “As a labor and delivery nurse who helps mothers to bring babies into this world, I find it outrageous that Mount Sinai would compromise care for our NICU babies in any way. We already have NICU nurses caring for twice as many sick babies as they should.”

    He added, “It’s unconscionable that Mount Sinai refuses to address unsafe staffing in our NICU and other units of the hospital but is now stirring fears about our NICU babies in contract negotiations.”

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  • First lady Jill Biden to join president on trip to Mexico City | CNN Politics

    First lady Jill Biden to join president on trip to Mexico City | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    First lady Jill Biden will join President Joe Biden on his trip next week to Mexico City, according to the White House.

    Biden has a “substantive, independent schedule which will focus on our shared cultural connections and her work to empower women and girls around the world,” the first lady’s press secretary, Vanessa Valdivia, told CNN on Saturday.

    The announcement comes ahead of the president’s first visit as commander in chief to Mexico, where he will discuss migration issues with the country’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, as well as with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, for the North American Leaders’ Summit in Mexico City. On the way, Biden plans to visit the US southern border on Sunday, stopping in El Paso, Texas, to meet local officials and address border security issues. It will be his first stop at the border as president.

    El Paso began seeing record levels of migrant arrivals beginning a few weeks ago, when anxiety about the scheduled end of the Trump-era pandemic public health rule known as Title 42 prompted thousands of migrants to turn themselves in to border authorities or to cross into the United States illegally in a very short period of time.

    Title 42 allows immigration authorities to swiftly return some migrants to Mexico. The policy was scheduled to lift last month, but a Supreme Court ruling kept the rule in place while legal challenges play out in court.

    On Thursday, Biden announced he is expanding a program to accept up to 30,000 migrants per month from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela – along with a plan to expel as many migrants from those countries who circumvent US laws – as his administration confronts the migrant surge at the southern border.

    Jill Biden departs Sunday for Mexico City and will meet the president when he arrives after his visit to the border.

    Highlights of the first lady’s solo agenda include joining local students at a Tochito NFL flag football game. On Monday, Biden will join Mexican first lady Beatriz Gutiérrez Müller for a “Fandango por la Lectura” at the Palacio Nacional, an event to raise awareness about the importance of reading.

    On Tuesday, the two women will meet again for a spousal luncheon, joined by Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, the wife of the Canadian prime minister. The three will later tour the Templo Mayor, the main temple of the indigenous Mexica people in their capital city of Tenochtitlan in modern-day Mexico City.

    Jill Biden will also participate in several events with her husband, the White House said.

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  • With its advertising business in crisis, Twitter eases ban on political ads | CNN Business

    With its advertising business in crisis, Twitter eases ban on political ads | CNN Business



    CNN
     — 

    More than three years ago, Twitter prohibited political and issue-based ads amid broader concerns that politicians could pay to target social media users with false or misleading information.

    Now, under its new owner Elon Musk, the company is easing that ban, in a move that could provide Twitter a much-needed sales boost at a time when Musk is urgently searching for new revenue streams. But it comes with some risks: the policy change could expose users to threats the company has previously said it may not be able to address, including spreading AI-created deep fakes and other sophisticated attempts to manipulate the platform.

    On Tuesday, Twitter announced it would relax its ban on issue ads, saying “cause-based advertising can facilitate public conversation around important topics.” Twitter added that it would “expand the political advertising we permit in the coming weeks,” with a pledge to share “more details as this work progresses.” The company said its advertising policies going forward would resemble those of other media, including television.

    Political advertising has never been a significant source of revenue for the company — it made less than $3 million from political ads in 2018, the year before the ban took effect. But Musk needs every little bit of revenue he can find.

    Since his takeover of the company in October, numerous brands have paused their advertising on Twitter amid fears that Musk’s approach to content moderation could lead to ads appearing beside hate speech and other incendiary content. In November, as the company underwent mass layoffs to cut costs, Musk claimed that Twitter was losing $4 million a day.

    Musk, who has previously expressed his dislike of advertising generally, has tried to improve Twitter’s financial position by rushing out a controversial subscription option to pay for a verified account, among other paid perks. But advertising has historically made up nearly all of Twitter’s revenue, and replacing it could take a long time.

    Welcoming paid issue advocacy and political advertising to the platform once more could ease some of the effects of the advertiser revolt. It could also give new political candidates a leg up against established incumbents by allowing them to increase their exposure through paid promotion.

    But it may also lead to some of the unintended consequences former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey warned about when he first announced the advertising restrictions in 2019.

    At the time, Dorsey said internet advertising is not at all like traditional forms of advertising because it enables new ways to target individuals with specific messages. It also opens up new opportunities for malicious actors to use technology to game the system.

    “Internet political ads present entirely new challenges to civic discourse: machine learning-based optimization of messaging and micro-targeting, unchecked misleading information, and deep fakes. All at increasing velocity, sophistication, and overwhelming scale,” Dorsey said.

    Until now, Twitter’s approach to political advertising diverged from that of Facebook, which has attracted widespread criticism for its policy exempting political ads from fact-checking — effectively allowing politicians to lie in ads. Now Twitter’s change could create an environment that’s more similar to Facebook’s.

    Misinformation and platform manipulation are not unique to social media or to political messaging, Dorsey previously argued, but allowing money into the equation will complicate efforts to limit the impact of those harms.

    Now, after Twitter has laid off big chunks of its staff, including those who handle trust, safety and content moderation, the company may be even less equipped to deal with the potential fallout.

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  • It’s a bird. It’s a plane. It’s a Superman comic under the Constitution for this congressman | CNN Politics

    It’s a bird. It’s a plane. It’s a Superman comic under the Constitution for this congressman | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    California’s Robert Garcia will be sworn into office with the Constitution – and a priceless vintage Superman comic.

    The comic is one of several sentimental items that will be underneath the Constitution when Garcia takes his ceremonial oath. The copy of “Superman” #1 will be joined by a photo of Garcia’s parents, who died of Covid-19, and his citizenship certificate, according to a Thursday tweet from Garcia.

    “I’m looking forward to being sworn-in on the U.S. Constitution,” the Democrat wrote. “Underneath the Constitution will be 3 items that mean a lot to me personally. A photo of my parents who passed due to covid, my citizenship certificate & a Superman #1 from the @librarycongress.”

    Garcia was officially sworn into office early Saturday morning alongside other House members. It is presently unclear when the ceremonial swearing in, at which Garcia will use the comic, will take place.

    In a statement emailed to CNN, Garcia explained that comics are especially significant to him because they helped him learn English after coming to the US from Peru.

    “I came to America at the age of 5 as a Spanish-speaker,” said the politician via email. “As a kid, I would pick up comics at old thrift shops and pharmacies and that’s how I learned to read and write in English.”

    Additionally, Superman is a poignant symbol for Garcia’s values. The superhero represents “truth and justice, an immigrant that was different, was raised by good people that welcomed them,” he added in his statement. “If you look at Superman values, and caucus values, it’s about justice, it’s about honesty, it’s doing the right thing, standing up for people that need support.”

    The exceptionally rare comic, released in 1939, belongs to the Library of Congress.

    “Members of Congress are able to borrow many of our materials, but due to the value and rarity of the Superman 1 comic, it is among the materials that we do not lend to anyone,” said the library in a statement emailed to CNN. “We are pleased, however, to have been able to offer to bring it to Congressman-elect Robert Garcia in a protective Mylar covering, and give it to him to hold underneath a copy of the U.S. Constitution during his ceremonial swearing in.”

    After Garcia is ceremonially sworn in, he’ll hand the Mylar-protected comic back to a library employee, who will return it to the facility with a Capitol Police escort, according to the library.

    The Library of Congress added that they usually provide a variety of Bibles and other religious texts for lawmakers to use when being sworn into office. In the past, special requests have included President Barack Obama’s request to use President Abraham Lincoln’s Bible and Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s request to use the Biblia Hebraica, the first complete Hebrew Bible published in America. Politicians have also used the US Constitution and state constitutions to take their oaths.

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  • Macy’s says its holiday sales will be lower, citing inflation pressures | CNN Business

    Macy’s says its holiday sales will be lower, citing inflation pressures | CNN Business


    New York
    CNN
     — 

    Turns out inflation may have put a damper on the holidays.

    Macy’s chair and CEO Jeff Gennette said lulls during the non-peak holiday weeks “were deeper than anticipated” and that consumers will continue to feel pressured into 2023, in a Q4 update Friday.

    Macy’s said Friday its net sales from the holiday quarter will likely be at the low-end to mid-point of its previously issued range of $8.16 billion to $8.4 billion. The retailer said its adjusted diluted earnings per share are expected to be between $1.47 to $1.67.

    In last year’s fourth quarter results, Macy’s earned $8.67 billion, above analysts’ forecasts, and had an adjusted earnings per share of $2.45.

    Total end-of-quarter inventories are on track to fall slightly below last year and down mid-teens relative to 2019.

    Gennette said its Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales met expectations and the week leading up to and following Christmas beat them.

    “Overall, our occasion apparel and gift-giving business were strengths, and inventory composition and price points aligned with customers’ needs,” Gennette said, noting that its high-end Bloomingdale’s stores and cosmetics line Bluemercury continued to outperform forecasts.

    Macy’s warning may provide an early clue to investors wondering if high inflation has hampered shopping demand during the holidays.

    Americans spent more this season to keep up with high prices. US retail sales increased 7.6% during the period between November 1 to December 24 compared to the same time last year, according to the Mastercard Spending Pulse. US retail sales were lower than expected in November, falling 0.6% during the month, which was the weakest performance in nearly a year.

    Gennette warned that consumer sentiment is unlikely to change with the new year.

    “Based on current macro-economic indicators and our proprietary credit card data, we believe the consumer will continue to be pressured in 2023, particularly in the first half, and have planned inventory mix and depth of initial buys accordingly,” the Macy’s CEO said.

    The company expects to report full results for the fourth quarter and fiscal year 2022 in early March 2023.

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  • More extreme weather on tap for California as series of atmospheric river events arrive | CNN

    More extreme weather on tap for California as series of atmospheric river events arrive | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    California has been battered by heavy snow, damaging winds and flooding this week – and now another round of storms is set to hit the West Coast this weekend.

    “Relentless parade of cyclones from the Pacific will bring more flooding rains and mountain snows to the West Coast with main focus across northern California,” the Weather Prediction Center said Saturday.

    Multiple storms will reach the West Coast over the next few days. The concern is not just the rain, snow and wind, but there will be not much of a break in between events for the water to recede or cleanup to be completed.

    “We do expect an even stronger storm to impact the state Sunday night through Tuesday than the one we will see early on this weekend,” said Matt Solum, Meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Western Region Headquarters. “We encourage everyone to take the time over the weekend to make any needed preparations for the next storm coming in.”

    The next storms come on the heels of a powerful cyclone which flooded roads, toppled trees and knocked out power to most across California. Earlier, a New Year’s weekend storm system also produced flooding.

    This weekend the main concerns for the coastal communities will be widespread flooding, gusty winds, and dangerous beach and marine conditions. In the higher elevations it will be heavy snow and strong winds leading to near whiteout conditions for anyone traveling on the roads.

    TRACK THE STORMS HERE >>>>

    Winds are forecast to be around 40-50 mph in the valleys and up to 70 mph in the mountains, which is lower than the storm earlier this week, but still nothing to brush off.

    “While these winds won’t be on the order of the previous/stronger system it really won’t take much to bring trees down given saturated conditions and weakened trees from the last event,” the weather service in San Francisco posted Friday.

    Even a 40 mph wind can do damage when the ground is so saturated from record rainfall earlier this week and the cumulative effect of the new rainfall expected this weekend.

    “Impacts to infrastructure include but are not limited to; river flooding, mudslides, power outages & snow load,” the prediction center said in a tweet.

    The most widespread concern over the next week will certainly be flooding thanks to several atmospheric river events. Atmospheric rivers are a narrow band of concentrated moisture in the atmosphere.

    The Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes, which monitors atmospheric river events, is now forecasting a level 5 atmospheric river event – the highest level possible – in the next several days. While the focal point of this event will be near Monterey and Big Sur, California, intense moisture will also spread into the surrounding areas of San Francisco and San Jose where a level 4 atmospheric river event is forecast.

    Earlier this week, San Francisco experienced its wettest 10-day period on record for downtown since 1871. So far they have had more than a foot of rain just since December 1, and the forecast calls for an additional 4-6 inches of rain in the next five days.

    Sacramento is also expected to see significant rainfall totals of 4-7 inches in the valleys and 6-12 inches in the foothills.

    “Additional rain on already saturated soils will contribute to additional flooding concerns across much of the state,” Solum told CNN. “There will continue to be an increased risk of rock slides and mud slides across much of the state as well.”

    More than 15 million people are under flood watches across the state of California this weekend. There is also a slight-to-moderate risk of excessive rainfall across much of northern and central California Saturday and Sunday. It increases to a more widespread moderate risk by Monday.

    The rainfall over the weekend will bring renewed concerns for local streams, creeks, and rivers. The Colgan Creek, Berryessa Creek, Mark West Creek, Green Valley Creek, and the Cosumnes River all have gauges either currently above flood stage or expected to be in the next few days.

    “Tuesday is probably the day where you’ll likely need to keep a really close eye on the weather as the potential for widespread flooding of rivers, creeks, streams and roadway and urban flooding will be at its highest during the next week as all the runoff and heavy precipitation comes together resulting in a mess,” the weather service office in Sacramento said.

    In addition to heavy rain, there will be significant amounts of snow across the higher elevations.

    “Snow totals are looking to be 1-2 feet with some of the higher elevations seeing 3 feet or more leading to significant travel impacts,” the weather service office in Sacramento said.

    We are currently under a La Niña advisory for the winter months before transitioning back to a more neutral pattern by the spring.

    El Niño and La Niña forecast patterns put out by the Climate Prediction Center give guidelines on what the overall forecast can be during a seasonal time period.

    “During a La Niña, typically the Pacific Northwest sees wetter than normal conditions and Southern California sees drier than normal conditions,” Marybeth Arcodia, a postdoctoral researcher at Colorado State University said. “This is due to the jet stream being pushed farther north and having a wavier pattern. “

    The problem is, Mother Nature hasn’t exactly been following the anticipated norms for a La Niña winter so far this year.

    “However, in the past three months, Oregon has been slightly drier than normal and California has been slightly wetter than normal (the opposite of what is expected),” Arcodia told CNN. While El Niño and La Niña patterns typically have a large influence on seasonal conditions in the West Coast, “there are always additional factors at play,” she added.

    One such factor has been multiple atmospheric river events pummeling California with intense amounts of moisture.

    “Atmospheric rivers typically form during the winter months and can occur during El Niños or La Niñas,” Arcodia said, noting their strength, frequency, and landfall location can be influenced by the larger patterns in the Pacific.

    Michael Tippett, a professor of physics and mathematics at Columbia University, points out that the forecast patterns are not meant to be used on a day-to-day forecast scale but rather the entire season as a whole. This is why researching the patterns is so important.

    “There is an element of randomness that is not explained by the patterns,” Tippett told CNN. “This might help us understand why one year is different than the other.”

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  • Marcy Kaptur breaks new record in Congress with a familiar warning for the Democratic Party | CNN Politics

    Marcy Kaptur breaks new record in Congress with a familiar warning for the Democratic Party | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    Rep. Marcy Kaptur becomes the longest-serving woman in Congress this week after winning her first competitive race in decades. But she sees her work in Washington as far from over.

    “I operate in a different way than many of my colleagues simply because of what I have lived,” said the Ohio Democrat, who was the first in her family to graduate from college and represents the kind of Rust Belt community slipping away from her party.

    “So why do I stay? It isn’t just to get a title that she stayed the longest. But to use every ounce of strength I have to try to hammer this message: You’re leaving us out. You’re not seeing us.”

    First elected in 1982, Kaptur became the longest-serving woman in the US House of Representatives in 2018. But now she’s breaking the record of former Maryland Sen. Barbara Mikulski, a fellow Democrat who retired at the end of 2016 after 40 years in Congress. Throughout that time, Kaptur has urged her party – especially leadership, which has often been dominated by lawmakers from the coasts – to wake up to the plight of “industrial and agricultural America,” not only for the survival of the party, but also for democracy.

    In an interview with CNN late last year, Kaptur recalled approaching a “very high-ranking member of the House” and warning that the federal government needed to invest in the middle of the country. “We are going to have political unrest. I even used a stronger word. I said even perhaps fascism,” she said.

    That was before the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol.

    Kaptur won a 21st term in November in a district that was redrawn from heavily Democrat to more Republican, defeating an election denier who was at the Capitol on January 6.

    J.R. Majewski has said he went to protest peacefully and left when “it got ugly,” but the House GOP’s campaign arm eventually cut off spending for him in the district after revelations about him misrepresenting his military record. Kaptur, although she faced criticism from some constituents that she’d been in Washington too long, won by 13 points.

    “I view myself like the Statue of Freedom on top of the Capitol. It is a woman and she looks east to the rising sun,” said Kaptur, who counts among her proudest achievements the 17-year struggle for the construction of the World War II memorial. It was one of her constituents, a letter carrier from the village of Berkey, who pushed her to introduce legislation for it.

    Kaptur left a doctorate program at MIT to run for Congress, having already worked for President Jimmy Carter as a domestic policy adviser. She was one of just 24 women in Congress when she arrived. Today there are 149.

    “So that is really consequential progress – in one generation,” Kaptur said of the record number of women serving this year. She wrote a book in 1996 about women in Congress in the 20th century, joking that she’s been too busy to update it.

    But having more women in Congress is less important to Kaptur than where the women are from and the kinds of communities they represent.

    “As a woman, let me just say, if you come from the part of America where I do – and I don’t just mean geographically, but I mean economically – we still don’t have a majority.”

    “What’s the difference between a very rich woman and man in Congress?” asked Kaptur, who lives in the same Toledo house she grew up in. “People like us, we’re there. We’re there. We are radishes in a salad. … But we’re important voices because what we have experienced enlightens the dialogue.”

    She fought for years to get a spot on the House Appropriations Committee – eventually going up against Nancy Pelosi. “I was so offended,” Kaptur said, casting it as the “fight of a hardscrabble working-class person” against a former head of the Democratic Party of California.

    Kaptur has occasionally been at odds with Pelosi in leadership races – even briefly challenging her for party leader in 2002 – although the two women have recently praised and supported each other. Kaptur’s voting record on abortion has also evolved to be more in line with the national party.

    When the Ohio Democrat got to the Appropriations Committee in the early 1990s, she was one of only three women. Democratic then-Rep. Lindy Boggs of Louisiana had to tell her to stand up when addressing the panel.

    She’s unsuccessfully sought to lead the committee – losing out to women from more coastal states. But in 2019, she became the first woman to chair the subcommittee on energy and water development and her bill to create the Great Lakes Authority – a federal regional commission to address environmental and economic issues – recently passed as part of the omnibus spending package.

    Still, she said, it can be hard to be heard.

    This Capitol Hill duo has worked on family issues for nearly 30 years

    “When you’re not in leadership, you don’t have a seat at the table – maybe you have your subcommittee or your committee, something like that – but it almost is impenetrable,” she said of the institution. “And the American people know it. They feel it and that’s why they’re becoming radical in their political expressions.”

    But she credits President Joe Biden for visiting Lorain, a city in Northeast Ohio, last year. “That is unheard of. Joe Biden is trying. He’s in a party that can’t see places like Lorain and Cleveland and Toledo.”

    She laments the defeat of Democrat Tim Ryan, whom she backed in last year’s Ohio Senate race, and blames the national party for long ignoring disaffected voters who ultimately backed the Republican nominee.

    “So my struggle is unending. And I hope God gives me the years, maybe I can pound some of this sense into the institution, but I don’t know,” Kaptur said.

    And then, with a laugh, later added, “I gotta stay as long as Mitch McConnell.”

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  • Arrest of Idaho students murder suspect brings ‘a great sense of relief’ to university campus before a return to classes this week, provost says | CNN

    Arrest of Idaho students murder suspect brings ‘a great sense of relief’ to university campus before a return to classes this week, provost says | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    Following the stabbing deaths of four students in November, the tight-knit University of Idaho community was shaken for weeks, but the recent arrest of a suspect may allow the campus to regain a sense of security as students return to classes this week.

    “I think I speak for many in our community that there’s a great sense of relief, but it’s bittersweet because this is still a horrible tragedy,” the university’s provost and executive vice president Torrey Lawrence told CNN Friday.

    Bryan Kohberger, 28, is charged with the murders of students Kaylee Goncalves, 21; Madison Mogen, 21; Xana Kernodle, 20; and Ethan Chapin, 20, who were found brutally stabbed to death in an off-campus home in Moscow, Idaho, on November 13.

    The gruesome killings rattled the campus community and city of Moscow, which had not seen a murder since 2015. Anxieties only worsened as weeks passed without a named suspect, leading some students to leave campus and complete the semester remotely.

    Classes resume on Wednesday following the winter break, and though students who are still uncomfortable being on campus have the option to attend remotely, most students are planning to return, Lawrence said.

    “The timing of this for our students was probably good,” the provost said, adding, “Hopefully we can really just be focused on classes starting and on that student experience that we provide.”

    Security will remain heightened on campus, he said, though some measures such as a state patrol presence are no longer in place.

    Still, the “very peaceful, safe community” students enjoyed before the killings has experienced a “loss of innocence,” he said.

    Kohberger, who is the sole suspect, was pursuing a PhD in criminal justice at nearby Washington State University at the time of the killings and lived just minutes from the scene of the killings, according to authorities.

    Investigators say phone records indicate Kohberger was near the victims’ home at least 12 times between June 2022 and the present day, according to an affidavit detailing the evidence against him. The records also show the suspect was near the residence on the morning of the killings, court documents say.

    DNA recovered from the the Kohberger family’s trash was linked to DNA found on a tan leather knife sheath found on the bed of one of the victims, according to the affidavit. The DNA in the trash is believed to belong to the biological father of the person whose DNA was found on the sheath, the document says.

    The suspect’s white Hyundai Elantra was also seen close the victims’ home around the time of the killings, according to investigators. Kohberger received a new license plate for the car five days after the killings, Washington state licensing records and court documents reveal.

    Kohberger had his initial court appearance in Idaho on Thursday and did not enter a plea at the hearing.

    Before Kohberger’s arrest, authorities noted that the suspect thoroughly cleaned his vehicle and was seen wearing surgical gloves repeatedly outside his family’s Pennsylvania home, a law enforcement source tells CNN.

    The source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, was briefed on observations made by investigators during four days of surveillance leading up to Kohberger’s arrest at his family home.

    Kohberger “cleaned his car, inside and outside, not missing an inch,” according to the law enforcement source.

    A surveillance team assigned to Kohberger was tasked with two missions, according to multiple law enforcement sources: keep eyes on Kohberger so they could arrest him as soon as a warrant was issued, and try to obtain an object that would yield a DNA sample from Kohberger, which could then be compared to DNA evidence found at the crime scene.

    Kohberger was seen multiple times outside the Pennsylvania home wearing surgical gloves, according to the law enforcement source.

    In one instance prior to Kohberger’s arrest, authorities observed him leaving his family home around 4 a.m. and putting trash bags in the neighbors’ garbage bins, according to the source. At that point, agents recovered garbage from the Kohberger family’s trash bins and what was observed being placed into the neighbors’ bins, the source said.

    The recovered items were sent to the Idaho State Lab, per the source.

    Last Friday, a Pennsylvania State Police SWAT team then moved in on the Kohberger family home, breaking down the door and windows in what is known as a “dynamic entry” – a tactic used in rare cases to arrest “high risk” suspects, the source added.

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  • Police search for suspect in shooting of detective in downtown Phoenix | CNN

    Police search for suspect in shooting of detective in downtown Phoenix | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    The Phoenix Police Department is seeking an “armed and dangerous” suspect who fled after shooting and wounding a Scottsdale detective Friday night.

    Detectives were attempting to execute a search warrant at an apartment complex in downtown Phoenix just after 7 p.m. local time. The suspect is wanted for a number of criminal offenses, Scottsdale Police Chief Jeff Walther said during a press conference late Friday.

    When officers arrived at the apartment, they encountered a woman and child who told officers there was no one else there. Detectives entered the apartment and spotted the suspect, who went into another room and began firing at detectives through the wall, Walther said.

    A Scottsdale detective, who has not been identified, was shot once in the abdomen. He was rushed to the hospital. He is expected to survive, the chief said.

    A manhunt is underway for the suspect, whose identity is known.

    Walther said local law enforcement agencies are seeing an increased number of aggravated assaults on police officers.

    “We have to ask ourselves, when did this become OK?” Walther said.

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  • How an American hero ‘lit his legacy on fire’ | CNN Politics

    How an American hero ‘lit his legacy on fire’ | CNN Politics

    Watch “Giuliani: What Happened to America’s Mayor?” on CNN at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Sunday, January 8.



    CNN
     — 

    The evolution of Rudy Giuliani is an epic tale. A celebrated crime fighter who brought down mafia bosses and put Wall Street crooks behind bars, he traded on trust and integrity to prove Republicans could still get elected as mayors of big cities.

    His empathy and leadership on 9/11 in New York City made him a global figure and a bona fide hero.

    How that man, who used to get standing ovations whenever he entered a room, morphed into former President Donald Trump’s conspiracy theory lackey peddling lies about the 2020 election is the subject of the new CNN Original Series, “Giuliani: What Happened to America’s Mayor?”

    The images of Giuliani’s early success paired with his later disgrace are striking and sad.

    I reached out to one key voice in the series, CNN political analyst John Avlon, who was Giuliani’s chief speech writer during his second term as mayor, including on 9/11, and later worked for Giuliani’s presidential campaign.

    Excerpts of our conversation about Avlon’s perceptions of the series and what happened to his old boss are below.

    WOLF: The Giuliani of today is at the fulcrum of so many of Trump’s problems. Giuliani’s dirt digging in Ukraine contributed to the first Trump impeachment. Giuliani helped enable the election denialism that led to the second Trump impeachment. How would you describe his place in Trump’s political history?

    AVLON: I think that among some hard-core Trump true believers, Rudy will be scapegoated as the source of Trump’s multiple problems. I think that’s an attempt to evade Trump’s responsibility for the chaos he himself caused.

    But you have got to hand it to him – Rudy is the first presidential lawyer whose actions contributed to not one, but two impeachments. That’s a special place in American history. And unfortunately, I think this tragic last chapter in his life will overwhelm the very positive, constructive role he played in different chapters of his life.

    I don’t think it’ll ultimately eclipse 9/11 and his leadership on that day. But he lit his legacy on fire in service of Donald Trump and got nothing in return except disgrace, ignominy, (possible) disbarment and a gutting of his personal fortune.

    WOLF: I think a lot of people will be surprised to learn about those earlier chapters. He’s this prosecutor who brought down mafia families and insider traders. He’s the mayor who cleaned up the city. How does that guy become the conspiracy theory pusher?

    AVLON: That’s, to a large extent, what the documentary is about. I think it is important for people to remember he was a leading lawyer of his generation, with an objective record of success in terms of dismantling the mob and taking on Wall Street.

    That alone would have made him a major figure in contemporary American politics. But then what he did as mayor was absolutely remarkable. George Will called it America’s most successful case of conservative governance.

    I worked for him in City Hall in his second term as chief speechwriter, and if you just look at the data of what he did, it’s remarkable:

    He cut murders by 68%, crime by 56%.

    He turned a $2 billion deficit into a multibillion-dollar surplus.

    He cut taxes for New Yorkers.

    He improved the quality of life.

    I think his policies ushered in an era of resurgence for urban America. In New York City, I think 20 years of Rudy and (Michael) Bloomberg together really helped turn around the city in fundamental ways.

    The tragedy – and I use the term advisedly because it’s self-inflicted, but it is tragic – is that the guy who believed that the law is a search for the truth ended up trying to defend his client in the court of public opinion using the law in pursuit of a lie.

    I think that he got caught in a right-wing echo chamber ecosystem, where he was totally invested in an alternate reality that was fundamentally hyperpartisan and therefore they couldn’t even conceive of losing fairly.

    And so at the end of the day, they tried to overturn an election, overturn our democracy on the basis of a pretty self-evident lie with no evidence.

    I’m not going to try to diagnose how he’s changed. But the filter in the judgment of the man I knew and was proud to work for is fundamentally off.

    WOLF: The perception is that he has changed as a person, but there are these interesting moments in the documentary that presage the Rudy of today. We see a riot of police officers at City Hall in 1992 that is compared with the riot at the Capitol. In ’89, he suggested but did not pursue the idea that there had been fraudulent voting. Has he actually changed, or has he just been uncovered?

    AVLON: Robert Caro has a great line about how power doesn’t corrupt, power reveals. I’m always more inclined to believe the adage that as people grow older, they get more so. There are moments, and the documentary makes a lot of them, to draw a narrative connection between the police riot and January 6th. The person I knew and worked for – those incidents did not define him on a day-to-day basis.

    Character counts. One of the things for good or for ill about Rudy, and something that I learned on 9/11, is you don’t have to be perfect to be a hero. Rudy was not one of these politicians who pretended to be perfect.

    He understood that he was a flawed human being and was actively interested in figuring out his flaws and what motivated him in certain low times. He was someone who thought philosophically about politics.

    If you talked to him about his position on abortion, for example, he would, in an unpretentious way, start talking about St. Thomas Aquinas, the debate about when life begins.

    He was also the kind of human who thought about becoming a priest and ended up becoming a prosecutor. But I think there has been a change in his judgment.

    The Trump orbit tends to attract people who are not at their best in terms of stability. Rudy found attention and relevance at the expense of his legacy and reputation.

    WOLF: It was instructive for me to revisit just how much of a national hero he was after 9/11. How do you think that specifically affected him? You saw it happen.

    AVLON: First of all, there is a misperception that’s partly partisan nature that Rudy was deeply unpopular before 9/11. That is statistically not true.

    That’s not to say he wasn’t controversial and divisive at times. What he would say is that when you’re turning around a ship at sea, you’ve got to throw your shoulder to the wheel.

    9/11 was a classic case of the man meeting the moment. The New York Observer, which was often critical of Rudy, said that he distinguished himself almost overnight as New York’s greatest mayor.

    He became seen as sort of a modern-day Churchill and that was because of his instinctive response to an unprecedented massive attack.

    And it was also because of his empathy and his honesty. He was able to channel grief in a constructive direction. He was resolute. He said the number of people who died was more than any of us can bear, and he was an inspiration to a fundamentally shaken and horrified world.

    And it was extraordinary. For months and years afterward, he would be greeted with standing ovations when he walked in the room.

    I think it’s a little too simple to say that creates a presumption of that kind of reception wherever you go. But I think what it does is highlight how tragic the fall has been.

    And if he had kept his credibility as sort of a centrist Republican senior statesman who was tough on the issues that a lot of people care about – law and order, fiscal discipline, etc., including on social issues – he could have played a major stabilizing force within the Republican Party.

    He could have been somebody who parks and statues and streets would have been named after across the nation, because of his example of leadership on that day, which was the apotheosis of his career. That was a reflection of the true mettle and character.

    WOLF: You talked about him being a Republican in a Democratic city. He wasn’t the only big city Republican mayor. Los Angeles had one at the time. Republicans put up John McCain for president in 2008. Mitt Romney tried to be severely conservative, but these days he’s just about as moderate as Republicans get. Do you think Republicans are interested in moving back into that middle ground and governing a big city as opposed to just using it as a foil for their national ambitions?

    AVLON: It’s a great and important question. If you take the biggest possible step back at America’s historical political divisions, you’ll see that much bigger than Democrat / Republican or liberal / conservative is urban vs. rural.

    We need urban Republicans and rural Democrats to help bridge divides. When there were progressive Republicans back in the day, particularly in the Northeast, and conservative Democrats, there were a ton of problems. But you could always find governing majorities within divided government. You could cobble together coalition.

    The decline of urban Republicans and rural Democrats is enormously disruptive for the country in terms of further inflaming hyperpartisanship and polarization and the kind of distrust that already exists culturally kind of in our America.

    Republicans should care about playing in urban areas, and Democrats should care a hell of a lot more about playing in rural areas in red states.

    WOLF: We tend to think that it was proximity to Trump that radicalized Rudy, but there’s a riff in the documentary about Giuliani’s visceral reaction to the Barack Obama presidency, similar to how Trump reacted to Obama’s presidency, actually. I wondered how you felt about seeing that portion.

    AVLON: After his presidential campaign, he becomes more and more sort of isolated in that bubble. That right-wing ecosystem. It’s a form of acculturation where the hyperpartisan environment becomes kind of assumed.

    It’s the places you’re giving speeches. It’s the television networks you watch. You spend all your time with partisans. It isolates you from the act of responsibility of governing and uniting a very diverse city – even certainly he had challenges with that.

    I think that his animus toward Hillary Clinton and the Clintons was one of the things that drove him to embrace Donald Trump late in the (2016) campaign.

    By the way, he never endorsed (former New Jersey Gov.) Chris Christie or (former Florida Gov.) Jeb Bush, but he really was inclined to support either of them first, because they’re the kind of Republicans that he was.

    After he made that comment about Obama, I believe it was a fundraiser for (then-Wisconsin Gov.) Scott Walker, he actually called me at home to explain himself. (Read CNN’s report from 2015, when Giuliani said he didn’t think Obama “loves America.”)

    It was strange, because I think we just had our first son, and Margaret and I met working on his presidential campaign. (Avlon is married to the CNN political commentator and host of PBS’ “Firing Line,” Margaret Hoover). And he called me to, like, explain what he meant.

    I thought it was revealing of the right-wing media he had been ingesting, and also that somewhere there was a degree of guilt that he felt the need to explain himself to me, who worked for him before, a long time ago.

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  • 411 is going out of service for millions of Americans | CNN Business

    411 is going out of service for millions of Americans | CNN Business


    New York
    CNN
     — 

    The operator is going off the hook for millions of customers.

    Starting in January, AT&T customers with digital landlines won’t be able to dial 411 or 0 to reach an operator or get directory assistance. AT&T in 2021 ended operator services for wireless callers, although customers with home phone landlines can still access operators and directory help. Verizon, T-Mobile and other major carriers still offer these services for a fee.

    On a notice on AT&T’s website, the company directs customers to find addresses and phone numbers on Google or online directories.

    “Nearly all of these customers have internet access to look up this information,” said an AT&T spokesperson.

    But a century ago, the operator functioned as Google. Everyone knew it as “Information.”

    “The operator was the internet before the internet. There’s a wonderful circularity there,” said Josh Lauer, an associate professor of media studies at the University of New Hampshire who is writing a book on the cultural history of the telephone.

    Operator services were a selling point to customers during the late 1800s and early 1900s. The operator was the essential link in the dominant Bell System, owned by American Telephone & Telegraph (AT&T), telecommunications network.

    The operator became the early face of the telephone, a human behind an emerging and complex technology. The job came to be occupied mostly by single, middle-class White women, often known as “Hello Girls.” The Bell System, known as Ma Bell, advertised its mostly female ranks of operators as servile and attentive – “The Voice with a Smile” – to attract and maintain customers.

    Well into the 20th century, AT&T offered weather, bus schedules, sports scores, time and date, election results and other information requests.

    “Telephone users interpreted her as an efficient way to locate any information,” wrote Emma Goodmann, an assistant professor of communication at Clarke University, in her 2019 paper on the history of telephone operators.

    On Halloween eve in 1938, during Orson Welles’ radio broadcast of “War of the Worlds,” New Jersey residents believed martians were invading and frantically phoned the operator for information on the invasion and to connect them with loved ones before the world ended.

    Three decades later, a Bell company said a customer called to ask the operator if he was a mammal, “like a whale,” while a woman wanted to know how to get a squirrel out of her house, according to Goodmann.

    The advance of technology like the internet and smartphones, the deregulation of the telecomms industry in the 1980s, and other factors have left human operators virtually extinct. In 2021, there were fewer than 4,000 telephone operators, down from a peak of around 420,000 in the 1970s, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

    But there are still people who call the operator and request directory help.

    “411 usage is not insignificant,” the FCC said in a 2019 report. The FCC estimated then that 71 million calls annually were placed to 411.

    The first telephone exchange took place in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1878, two years after Alexander Graham Bell patented the telephone.

    It was designed to handle business communication, not social calls between local residents. Physicians, police, banks and the post office were some of the first subscribers.

    To connect a call, an operator at a switching office would take a request from a caller and physically plug one line into another.

    Bell and other telephone exchanges spread throughout the Northeast. Initially, telephone companies hired mostly men and boys to take calls. But the operator quickly became a gendered job.

    Male managers decided that women were better suited to answering and connecting calls from rude customers because they were seen as more docile and polite. Companies could also pay them less than men.

    Telephone companies sought female operators who would project a “comfortable and genteel image to their customers,” Kenneth Lipartito, a professor of history at Florida International University, wrote in a 1994 paper “When Women Were Switches.”

    Companies rejected Black and ethnic workers with accents, and policies barred female operators from being married. By 1900, more than 80% of operators were White, single, US-born women.

    A 'Hello Girls' school at the Clerkenwell telephone exchange in 1932.

    Operator jobs were frenetic and repetitive.

    Workers had to scan thousands of tiny jacks, always keeping an eye open for lights indicating new calls and ones that ended. During peak times, operators handled several hundred calls an hour, Lipartito said.

    Training was also rigorous and procedures were strict. Women were instructed to modulate their voices to sound more polite answering calls and used approved language with callers.

    “Through training in the art of inflection she gains in those gentler qualities of unfailing courtesy,” a 1926 AT&T video, “Training for Service,” says.

    Although many of Bell’s independent telephone rivals began using “girlless” automated switchboards in the first decades of the twentieth century, the Bell System was committed to human operators. Automation could not provide the same level of personal service, Bell believed.

    “She’s one of 250,000 girls who help to give you good service, day and night, seven days a week. She’s your telephone operator,” read one typical Bell Systems magazine ad.

    Operators played a crucial function because telephone books were often inaccurate and customers could not be counted on to remember updated numbers and addresses.

    During the first decades of exchanges, operators also unintentionally became a catch-all for information. It was common for people to call and ask the operator for directions, the time and weather, baseball scores and other questions.

    By early part of the twentieth century, telephone companies began to separate requests for information and requests for telephone numbers.

    In 1968, the Bell System changed the name of its information service to “directory assistance” because too many people were taking the name too literally.

    “When she was called ‘Information,’ people kept calling her for the wrong reasons,” one Bell company ad said at the time. “Now we call her ‘Directory Assistance’ in the hope that you’ll call her only for numbers you can’t find in the phone book.”

    Strikes, competition for labor, and rising wages during and after World War I drove Bell to speed up its automation plans.

    In 1920, fewer than 5% of Bell exchanges had automated switchboards. A decade later, more than 30% were automated, according to a 2019 article by the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.

    The growth of automatic switchboards led to the direct-dial telephone in the 1920s. (The “0” for operator appeared with dial phones, said Lauer from the University of New Hampshire. On the new Bell dials, “Operator” was printed in the “0” position. The use of “411” also emerged with the dial era. “0” became universal for operator assistance and “411” was the number for directory assistance. In later years, if you dialed “0 and asked for directory assistance, the operator would transfer you over to “411.”)

    But electronic switchboards and direct dialing were phased in gradually and did not eliminate the need for human operators.

    An old dial telephone. The introduction of the dial in the 1920s eliminated the need for phone operators to connect local calls.

    Automatic switchboards were mainly used for local telephone calls. For decades after the introduction of direct dialing, operators still handled long-distance calls, toll calls, and calls to the police and fire department. This meant that operator jobs continued to rise until around the 1970s.

    Directory assistance was also mostly free for customers until the 1970s, when AT&T began charging customers to curb the “misuse” of the service and shift the high costs of employing operators and handling time-consuming queries for information.

    “Some people just simply don’t want to bother to look the number up themselves,” AT&T’s chairman complained in 1974.

    The breakup of AT&T in the 1980s and the deregulation of the telecommunications industry altered operator and directory services. Phone companies began to cut their ranks of operators, automate services and charge customers fees for calls.

    As companies increased prices, demand for directory assistance plunged. Meanwhile, the internet and smartphones emerged to replace these services for most callers.

    In 1984, there were 220,000 telephone operators. A decade later, there were 165,000, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. By 2004, at the dawn of the smartphone age, 56,000 people were employed as telephone operators.

    An operator in 1988. The ranks of operators fell sharply in the 1980s and 1990s.

    David McGarty, the president of US Directory Assistance, which provides services for major carriers, has watched the transformation of the operator firsthand.

    Calls to operators have decreased an average of 3% a year and around 90% overall since he started in 1996, he said.

    “We’re content with riding the Titanic down,” he said.

    While operator services may be nearly obsolete, it’s important to consider emergency circumstances where a caller may need to reach an operator and the customers who still rely on these services, such as low-income callers, the elderly and people with disabilities, said Edward Tenner, a technology historian in the Smithsonian’s Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation. (AT&T said it would still offer free directory assistance to elderly customers and people with disabilities.)

    “Often tragedies happen when something is exceptional,” he said.

    He also empathized with people who are being forced to keep up with technological change, whether they like it or not.

    “There are a lot of people who, for various reasons, haven’t adapted,” Tenner said. “Why should they be forced to migrate to the web if they don’t want to?”

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