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Tag: government organizations – us

  • US lawmakers set to grill Sam Bankman-Fried on the collapse of FTX | CNN Business

    US lawmakers set to grill Sam Bankman-Fried on the collapse of FTX | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    With his vast crypto empire in ruins, Sam Bankman-Fried is preparing to be grilled by US lawmakers who are demanding answers about how his digital asset exchange, FTX, came unraveled, leaving at least a million customers unable to access their funds.

    Bankman-Fried tweetedf Friday that he was willing to appear Tuesday before the House Financial Services Committee, which is investigating the crypto-industry titan’s spectacular collapse last month.

    The 30-year-old entrepreneur, who resigned as CEO at the same time FTX and dozens of affiliated companies filed for bankruptcy, said there would be a “limit to what I will be able to say, and I won’t be as helpful as I’d like,” in response to Rep. Maxine Waters, the Democratic chairwoman of the committee. “But as the committee still thinks it would be useful, I am willing to testify on the 13th.”

    Also testifying Tuesday will be John Ray, a veteran restructuring expert who’s been tasked with shepherding FTX through bankruptcy as its new chief executive.

    “The scope of the investigation underway is enormous,” Ray said in prepared remarks released Monday.

    While the probe isn’t completed, Ray said, FTX’s collapse appears to stem from the concentration of power “in the hands of a very small group of grossly inexperienced and unsophisticated individuals” who failed to implement virtually any corporate controls.

    Ray also states as fact that “customer assets from FTX.com were commingled with assets from the Alameda trading platform.” That’s a key issue for investigators, as FTX and Alameda were, on paper, separate entities.

    Bankman-Fried has publicly stated that he never “knowingly” commingled funds.

    A representative for Bankman-Fried’s lawyer said the FTX founder would testify remotely from the Bahamas, where the company was based.

    The representative declined to comment on whether Bankman-Fried would also testify before a Senate Banking Committee hearing on Wednesday.

    Tuesday’s hearing is set to begin at 10 a.m. ET.

    Speaking to Congress is familiar terrain for the crypto celebrity-turned-pariah, who had cultivated a reputation as the industry Good Guy in Washington. He and other FTX executives made lavish political and charitable donations while advocating for legislation that would clarify the regulatory bounds of the digital asset space.

    In FTX’s heyday, Bankman-Fried regularly appeared on congressional panels, charming lawmakers and pushing for light-touch regulation of the nascent industry. Bankman-Fried himself gave roughly $40 million to campaigns and political action committees, largely backing Democrats, during the 2022 midterm election cycle, according to Federal Election Commission records.

    This time around, though, he’s unlikely to get the same warm welcome, as lawmakers and lobbying groups who’d aligned with FTX are scrambling to distance themselves from one of the most shocking corporate implosions in history.

    In the weeks since his companies collapsed, multiple investigations, including a criminal probe into FTX and its sister hedge fund, Alameda, have begun that could lead to charges against Bankman-Fried, legal experts say. At the same time, SBF has been regularly tweeting and granting interviews with the media, casting himself as a somewhat bumbling but ultimately well-meaning chief executive who got out over his skis.

    “I didn’t knowingly commit fraud,” he told the BBC over the weekend. “I didn’t want any of this to happen. I was certainly not nearly as competent as I thought I was.”

    That sentiment echoes statements he previously made at the New York Times’ DealBook Summit and in an interview with ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

    His testimony to Congress, however, carries additional legal weight.

    “SBF is putting himself at significant risk by testifying before Congress,” said Howard Fischer, a former Securities and Exchange Commission lawyer. “”Anything SBF says that is contradicted by either documentary evidence or the statements of other people will be grounds to cast doubt on his credibility.

    Further, Fischer says, if his testimony before Congress is “substantially impugned” by other evidence, Bankman-Fried “might also face charges relating to that.”

    Despite SBF’s media tour, he’s largely evaded specifics around how the wheels came off FTX, once privately valued at more than $30 billion. In early November, when a prominent investor publicly announced he would be liquidating his holdings of FTX, it sparked a panic that amounted to a run on the bank. FTX faced a liquidity crunch so severe it was forced to file for bankruptcy less than a week later.

    In a tweet last week, Bankman-Fried said he would “shed what light I can,” including on what he thinks led to the crash and his own failings as CEO.

    Key questions that lawmakers and prosecutors are expected to focus on relate to the potential misuse of customer funds.

    “The questions are all going to be about co-mingling of assets,” said David Maria, head of litigation and regulatory affairs at the crypto exchange Bittrex … “I think there’s gonna be a lot of, ‘I don’t remember, I don’t know, I don’t have access to those files.’ “

    Ray, the new CEO who is scheduled to testify ahead of Bankman-Fried, may be able to offer more substantive insights into lawmakers’ questions given his access to the company’s financial records and unique insight into how it the business was run, Maria said.

    One of the key questions about FTX stems from a Reuters report last month that says Bankman-Fried built a “backdoor” into FTX’s accounting system, allowing him to alter the company’s financial records without tripping accounting red flags, as That Reuters report said Bankman-Fried used this “backdoor” to transfer $10 billion in FTX customer funds to Alameda, the hedge fund, and at least $1 billion is now missing.

    Bankman-Fried has denied knowledge of any such backdoor. “I don’t even know how to code,” he told cryptocurrency vlogger Tiffany Fong in an interview last month.

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  • It’s time to review government shutdown plans, federal agencies are formally warned | CNN Politics

    It’s time to review government shutdown plans, federal agencies are formally warned | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    While congressional leaders continue to negotiate a spending deal, the federal government has begun the process of preparing for a potential shutdown, participating in the mandatory but standard process of releasing shutdown guidance to agencies ahead of this Friday’s funding deadline.

    Lawmakers on both sides currently acknowledge they are going to need to pass a week-long stopgap measure to give themselves more time for talks, and officials have emphasized that there is no real likelihood of a government shutdown, but the standard procedure laying out the steps toward bringing non-essential government functions to a halt is underway.

    “One week prior to the expiration of appropriations bills, regardless of whether the enactment of appropriations appears imminent, OMB will communicate with agency senior officials to remind agencies of their responsibilities to review and update orderly shutdown plans, and will share a draft communication template to notify employees of the status of appropriations,” a budget circular document from the Office of Management and Budget states.

    That standard guidance was circulated last Friday, marking seven days before a shutdown could occur absent congressional action.

    Every department and agency has its own set of plans and procedures. Those plans include information on how many employees would get furloughed, which employees are essential and would work without pay (for example, air traffic controllers, Secret Service agents, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention laboratory staff), how long it would take to wind down operations in the hours before a shutdown, and which activities would come to a halt.

    It’s not the first time the government has been on the brink of a shutdown, and it has happened on multiple occasions. Recently, the government shut down for 35 days, a record length, from December 2018 to January 2019 amid a congressional stalemate over funding for then-President Donald Trump’s border wall. The government also shut down for three days over deadlock during the Trump administration in January 2018. And in 2013, then-President Barack Obama presided over a 16-day partial government shutdown caused by a dispute over the Affordable Care Act and other budget disagreements.

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  • Congress faces looming government shutdown deadline at end of the week | CNN Politics

    Congress faces looming government shutdown deadline at end of the week | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Lawmakers face a Friday at midnight deadline when government funding is set to expire – and the House and Senate will likely have to pass a short-term extension to avert a shutdown at the end of the week, which would give negotiators more time to try to secure a broader full-year funding deal.

    The other major legislative item lawmakers are working to wrap up before the end of the year is the National Defense Authorization Act, the massive annual must-pass defense policy bill. The NDAA is expected to get a vote in the Senate this week and be approved with bipartisan support.

    The House has already approved the measure so once the Senate votes to pass it, the bill can go to President Joe Biden to be signed into law.

    The approaching deadline had members of Congress and their staffers from both parties, as well as Biden administration officials, continuing to slog through negotiations over the weekend to try to get to an agreement on a spending package.

    “This is the time of the year when there’s no weekends for folks who work on appropriations,” one administration official closely involved in the talks told CNN.

    Over the weekend, both Democrats and Republicans were sharing with one another their “bottom lines” on various fronts, and the White House remained publicly optimistic that an agreement could be reached on an omnibus: “There is absolutely still a path and time for a deal.”

    But if Biden administration officials are still keeping their eyes on the ball on Congress ultimately reaching a deal on a government spending deal, there is also real recognition that lawmakers will need an extra few days – perhaps even a week – of cushion to buy themselves more time. That would be achieved through passing a short-term stop-gap measure called a continuing resolution, or a CR.

    Particularly with that in mind, administration officials also continue to maintain that they do not see any real likelihood of a government shutdown.

    Congressional aides acknowledged to CNN that the weekend talks went better than days prior, which is why Democrats have announced they will not introduce their own Democratic-only omnibus plan on Monday. Republicans on Capitol Hill had been reading a threat for Democrats to introduce their own bills as a messaging exercise that would only further divide negotiators, and by avoiding that messaging exercise, Republicans see a sign that Democrats are serious about trying to get to yes.

    For now, a bipartisan deal on government funding remains elusive. Lawmakers have not yet been able to reach a negotiated agreement for a comprehensive, full-year funding package – known on Capitol Hill as an omnibus – amid a dispute between the two parties over how much money should be spent on non-defense, domestic priorities. Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, the ranking Republican member on the Senate Appropriations Committee, has told reporters the two sides are roughly $26 billion apart.

    Republicans are critical of recent domestic spending by Democrats and argue that measures Democrats have passed while they have been in control both chambers of Congress, like the $1.9 trillion pandemic relief bill and the sweeping health care and climate bill, are wasteful and will worsen inflation. Democrats counter by saying those measures were necessary to help the country recover from the devastating impact of the pandemic as well as to tackle other critical priorities. And Democrats said that money to respond to Covid, health care and climate should not mean there should be less money next year for government operations and non-defense, domestic spending.

    The impasse over a broader funding deal is likely to force both sides to agree to pass a short-term funding extension – known as a continuing resolution, or CR – before the fast-approaching Friday deadline on Friday.

    The key question will be how long such an extension would last. It could be as short as one week, a timeframe that would keep the pressure dialed up for lawmakers to reach a broader deal, while still allowing more time for negotiations. Or it could extend the shutdown deadline into the next Congress, which will convene on January 3, and when Republicans take control of the House.

    That change in majority in the House would dramatically alter the dynamic for negotiations and likely make it far harder to reach a broader funding deal. Lawmakers could pass a full-year CR if it looks like a bipartisan funding deal can’t be reached, but leaders in both parties hope to avoid that scenario since it would keep spending flat for the Pentagon as well as domestic priorities.

    Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell laid out the GOP position in remarks on the Senate floor Thursday. “Our commander-in-chief and his party have spent huge sums on domestic priorities outside the normal appropriations process without a penny for the Defense Department. Obviously, we won’t allow them to now hijack the government funding process, too, and take our troops hostage for even more liberal spending,” McConnell said.

    Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, outlined the argument for his party in his own floor remarks on Thursday. Republicans, Leahy said, are “demanding steep cuts to programs the American people rely on.”

    Referring to Democratic-passed legislation that Republicans have criticized, Leahy said, “Those bills were meant to get us out of the pandemic, get the nation healthy, and get our economy back on track, and I believe they are accomplishing that goal. They were not meant to fund the basic functions of the American government in fiscal year 2023.”

    While lawmakers continue to negotiate, the federal government has begun the process of preparing for a potential shutdown, participating in the mandatory but standard process of releasing shutdown guidance to agencies ahead of Friday’s funding deadline.

    Officials have emphasized that there is no real likelihood of a government shutdown, but the standard procedure laying out the steps toward bringing non-essential government functions to a halt is underway.

    “One week prior to the expiration of appropriations bills, regardless of whether the enactment of appropriations appears imminent, OMB will communicate with agency senior officials to remind agencies of their responsibilities to review and update orderly shutdown plans, and will share a draft communication template to notify employees of the status of appropriations,” a document from the Office of Management and Budget stated.

    That standard guidance was circulated last Friday, marking seven days before a shutdown could occur absent Congressional action.

    Every department and agency has its own set of plans and procedures. Those plans include information on how many employees would get furloughed, what employees are essential and would work without pay (for example, air traffic controllers, Secret Service agents, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention laboratory staff), how long it would take to wind down operations in the hours before a shutdown, and what activities would come to a halt.

    This story has been updated with additional developments.

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  • The mass unbanning of suspended Twitter users is underway | CNN Business

    The mass unbanning of suspended Twitter users is underway | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN Business
     — 

    Thousands of previously banned Twitter users, including members of the far-right and users sharing blatant misinformation, have begun to have their accounts restored to the platform, according to an independent analysis.

    The mass restoration of accounts comes after new owner Elon Musk said late last month that he would offer “general amnesty” to many who had been removed from the platform. In following through on that commitment, however, Musk risks further alienating other users and advertisers, and exacerbating concerns among watchdog groups about the rise of hate speech on the platform under his ownership (a fact Musk has attempted to refute).

    Among those recently unbanned are a range of large and small accounts, including users promoting NFTs and cryptocurrencies, users tweeting about sports, many users tweeting in languages other than English, as well as both users that appear to be left-leaning and pro-Trump, according to observations by CNN.

    But the restored accounts also include far-right figures such as Andrew Anglin, a self-professed white supremacist who founded the neo-Nazi website The Daily Stormer, and Patrick Casey, who is associated with the far-right group “America First” and was subpoenaed by the House January 6 committee for his involvement in the Capitol riot.

    A number of accounts restored in recent days, including many with thousands of followers, used their first tweets in years to thank Musk for allowing them back on the platform, according to a review of their posts by CNN. Some also quickly began sharing conspiracy theories about issues such as Covid-19 and the 2020 US Presidential election.

    A data set of many of the unbanned accounts compiled by researcher and software developer Travis Brown, who worked for Twitter for a year in 2014 and last year began a project tracking hate speech on the platform, shows dozens of users who have had their bans reversed are using QAnon-related phrases or hashtags in their account bios. The dataset was built using Twitter’s API and a tool Brown had originally built to observe and track high-profile Twitter suspensions.

    The accounts that have been restored includes “a really strange mix of accounts” that includes apparent far-right extremists and QAnon adherents, but also, for example, a Miley Cyrus fan account that has been repeatedly suspended and appears aimed mostly at growing a large following, Brown said.

    But Brown added that other accounts he has observed as part of his hate speech tracking project have yet to be reinstated, raising questions about the criteria Twitter is using to restore previously banned accounts, although it’s possible Musk’s reinstatement process will take time. Many users on Twitter have also raised questions about Musk’s move last week to again suspend Kanye West, who has made numerous antisemitic comments, while restoring the accounts of other white supremacists and Neo-Nazis. In another instance, Musk tweeted that he would not restore Alex Jones’s account because of a personal preference.

    “I’ve found it really hard … to generalize about how and why certain accounts are allowed back,” Brown said.

    Twitter, which has made substantial cuts to its public relations team, did not immediately respond to a request for comment and questions on the number of previously banned accounts restored or its process for doing so.

    Musk said last month that he would begin restoring most previously banned accounts to the platform, after having polled his Twitter followers about whether to offer “general amnesty to suspended accounts, provided that they have not broken the law or engaged in egregious spam.” The poll, which garnered more than three million votes, finished with more than 72% voting in favor of the proposition. It is not clear how Musk and Twitter’s remaining staff are sorting out which accounts were banned for spam or illegal activity.

    The new Twitter owner had already begun to restore the accounts of some prominent, controversial users that had previously been banned or suspended from the platform, most notably former President Donald Trump, as well as conservative Canadian podcaster and all-beef diet promoter Jordan Peterson and the right-leaning satire website Babylon Bee.

    Some of the accounts restored in the latest wave have already raised concerns from civil rights groups. The Anti-Defamation League on Monday described as “deeply disturbing” Twitter’s decision to allow Anglin back on the platform.

    “The return of extremists to the platform has the potential to supercharge the spread of extremist content and disinformation, and this in turn could lead to the increased harassment of users,” Yael Eisenstat, vice president of ADL’s Center for Technology and Society said in a statement to CNN. “Musk’s actions to date show that he is not committed to a transparent process that incorporates the best practices we have learned from civil society groups.”

    Before taking over Twitter, Musk said he disagreed with the platform’s policy of permanent bans, which were typically doled out only after a user had received a number of “strikes” for repeatedly violating Twitter’s policies, including those against Covid-19 or civic integrity misinformation.

    Shortly after acquiring the company, Musk said he would create a “content moderation council” prior to making major changes, but there is no evidence such a group was ever formed or involved in the decisions to bring back violative accounts. Instead, Musk has appeared to make the decisions himself.

    Musk and Twitter have repeatedly stressed that the platform’s rules have not changed, despite restoring accounts that had repeatedly violated its rules and ceasing enforcement of the company’s policy prohibiting Covid-19 misinformation. In a blog post last month, Twitter said that its trust and safety team “remains strong and well-resourced, and automated detection plays an increasingly important role in eliminating abuse.” Content that violates Twitter’s rules, it added, will be demoted on the platform.

    Yoel Roth, Twitter’s former head of trust and safety who left the company following Musk’s takeover, criticized the billionaire Twitter owner’s top-down approach to content decisions in an interview with journalist Kara Swisher last month, suggesting that the platform had started to be run by “dictatorial edict rather than by a policy.” He also raised concerns about layoffs that hit Twitter’s safety teams.

    Restoring additional, previously banned accounts could exacerbate several big issues Twitter is currently facing. It could further alienate Twitter’s advertisers, many of whom have fled the platform in the wake of the chaos since Musk took over and out of fear that their ads could end up running alongside objectionable content. Musk has said the departure of key Twitter advertisers in recent weeks has led to a “massive drop in revenue” for the company.

    Ads for major brands, including Kia, Amazon, Snap and Uber, have already begun to appear alongside tweets from reinstated accounts such as Anglin’s, according to reporting from the Washington Post and observations by CNN. (Kia told CNN it “continues to monitor the evolving Twitter environment and work closely with their teams on advertisement placement and usage.” The other brands did not immediately respond to CNN’s requests for comment.)

    It could also draw more attention from Apple, which Musk previously tweeted had threatened to remove Twitter from its app store. Musk later said that the concern had been resolved following a meeting with Tim Cook, but Apple has previously shown a willingness to remove social media platforms from its app store over concerns about their ability to moderate hate speech and other potentially harmful content. Getting booted from Apple’s app store would be detrimental to Twitter’s business by making it harder for the iPhone maker’s more than one billion global customers to access the app, and difficult if not impossible for iPhone users to receive app updates.

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  • Biden administration urges Supreme Court to narrow Big Tech’s liability shield in pivotal Google case | CNN Business

    Biden administration urges Supreme Court to narrow Big Tech’s liability shield in pivotal Google case | CNN Business

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    Washington
    CNN Business
     — 

    The Biden administration has told the US Supreme Court that social media platforms ought to be potentially liable for recommendations made by their AI-driven content algorithms, weighing in against Google in a pivotal case on digital speech and content moderation.

    In a filing to the Court Wednesday evening, the administration argued federal law does not immunize tech platforms from lawsuits that zero in on recommendation algorithms, even when the same law shields the companies from suits about decisions to host or remove actual user content.

    The legal brief could prove instrumental in a closely watched case about the regulation of digital platforms, and reflects longstanding calls by President Joe Biden to roll back liability protections for companies such as Facebook and Google.

    The case in question, Gonzalez v. Google, offers the Supreme Court its first opportunity to rule on Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, the liability shield many websites have used to nip content moderation lawsuits in the bud. Several Supreme Court justices, including most vocally the conservative Clarence Thomas, have expressed interest in hearing a case that may allow the Court to narrow Section 230’s broad protections.

    Section 230 has been called “the 26 words that created the internet,” and was passed by Congress in 1996 as a way to shield all websites, not just social media platforms, from lawsuits over third-party content. But in recent years it has come under fire from members of both parties, with Democrats arguing it has enabled platforms to escape accountability for facilitating hate speech and misinformation, and Republicans arguing it shields platforms from claims of political discrimination.

    Google didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

    The US government’s brief addresses Google-owned YouTube’s recommendation of videos produced by the terrorist group ISIS. The plaintiffs in the case — the family of Nohemi Gonzalez, who was killed in a 2015 ISIS attack in Paris — have alleged, among other things, that Google violated a US antiterrorism law with its content algorithms by recommending pro-ISIS videos to users.

    Google has argued Section 230 protects the company’s ability to organize and curate content, and that a ruling against it could hurt efforts to remove terrorist content. An earlier appellate court ruling had sided with Google.

    “Undercutting Section 230 would make it harder, not easier, to combat harmful content,” José Castañeda, a Google spokesperson, has previously said, “making the internet less safe and less helpful for all of us.”

    According to the Biden administration, Section 230 does protect Google and YouTube from lawsuits “for failing to remove third-party content, including the content it has recommended.”

    But, the government’s brief argued, those protections do not extend to Google’s algorithms because they represent the company’s own speech, not that of others.

    “The effect of YouTube’s algorithms is still to communicate a message from YouTube that is distinct from the messages conveyed by the videos themselves,” the filing said. It added: “Even if YouTube plays no role in the videos’ creation or development, it remains potentially liable for its own conduct and its own communications.”

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  • January 6 committee ends meeting on criminal referrals | CNN Politics

    January 6 committee ends meeting on criminal referrals | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    The House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, insurrection concluded its meeting on Sunday where members discussed criminal referrals, multiple sources told CNN.

    The subcommittee tasked with investigating criminal referrals presented its recommendations to the full panel at a 1 p.m. ET virtual meeting, but it is unclear if those recommendations were officially adopted. A source described the meeting as “successful” but did not elaborate.

    “We are as a subcommittee, several of us that were charged with making the recommendations about referrals, going to be making that recommendation to the full committee today,” panel member Rep. Adam Schiff said prior to the meeting on CBS “Face the Nation.” Members on the committee would then need to approve the recommendations.

    The panel is weighing criminal referrals for former President Donald Trump and a number of other individuals, sources say, including former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, right wing lawyer John Eastman, former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark and Trump’s former lawyer Rudy Giuliani, as CNN previously reported.

    While the referrals would largely be symbolic in nature – as the Justice Department has already undertaken a sprawling investigation into the US Capitol attack and efforts to overturn the 2020 election – committee members have stressed that the move serves as a way to document their views for the record.

    The decision has loomed large over the committee. Members of the panel have been in wide agreement that Trump and some of his closest allies have committed a crime when he pushed a conspiracy to prevent the peaceful transfer of power, as they’ve laid out in their hearings. But they have long been split over what exactly to do about it.

    “We are in common agreement about what our approach should be. I’m not ready or authorized at this point to tell you what that is,” Schiff, a California Democrat, said. “I think we are all certainly in agreement that there is evidence of criminality here. And we want to make sure that the Justice Department is aware of that.

    Committee Chair Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat, told reporters Friday he expected to reach a decision on criminal referrals at Sunday’s virtual meeting. But Schiff reiterated on Sunday that the committee will wait to announce its decision until December 21, when it plans to present the rest of its report.

    Schiff stressed his view on Sunday that criminal referrals from the committee make “an important statement, not a political one, but a statement about the evidence of an attack on the institutions for our democracy and the peaceful transfer of power that Congress – examining an attack on itself – is willing to report criminality.”

    “So I think it’s an important decision in its own right if we go forward with it,” he said. “And one that the Department ought to give due consideration to.”

    This story has been updated with additional developments.

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  • Historic moon mission ends with splashdown of Orion capsule | CNN

    Historic moon mission ends with splashdown of Orion capsule | CNN

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    Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more.



    CNN
     — 

    The Artemis I mission — a 25½-day uncrewed test flight around the moon meant to pave the way for future astronaut missions — came to a momentous end as NASA’s Orion spacecraft made a successful ocean splashdown Sunday.

    The spacecraft finished the final stretch of its journey, closing in on the thick inner layer of Earth’s atmosphere after traversing 239,000 miles (385,000 kilometers) between the moon and Earth. It splashed down at 12:40 p.m. ET Sunday in the Pacific Ocean off Mexico’s Baja California.

    This final step was among the most important and dangerous legs of the mission.

    But after splashing down, Rob Navias, the NASA commentator who led Sunday’s broadcast, called the reentry process “textbook.”

    “I’m overwhelmed,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said Sunday. “This is an extraordinary day.”

    The capsule is now bobbing in the Pacific Ocean, where it will remain until nearly 3 p.m. ET as NASA collects additional data and runs through some tests. That process, much like the rest of the mission, aims to ensure the Orion spacecraft is ready to fly astronauts.

    “We’re testing all of the heat that has come and been generated on the capsule. We want to make sure that we characterize how that’s going to affect the interior of the capsule,” NASA flight director Judd Frieling told reporters last week.

    A fleet of recovery vehicles — including boats, a helicopter and a US Naval ship called the USS Portland — are waiting nearby.

    The spacecraft was traveling about 32 times the speed of sound (24,850 miles per hour or nearly 40,000 kilometers per hour) as it hit the air — so fast that compression waves caused the outside of the vehicle to heat to about 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit (2,760 degrees Celsius).

    “The next big test is the heat shield,” Nelson had told CNN in a phone interview Thursday, referring to the barrier designed to protect the Orion capsule from the excruciating physics of reentering the Earth’s atmosphere.

    The extreme heat also caused air molecules to ionize, creating a buildup of plasma that caused a 5½-minute communications blackout, according to Artemis I flight director Judd Frieling.

    INTERACTIVE: Trace the path Artemis I will take around the moon and back

    As the capsule reached around 200,000 feet (61,000 meters) above the Earth’s surface, it performed a roll maneuver that briefly sent the capsule back upward — sort of like skipping a rock across the surface of a lake.

    There are a couple of reasons for using the skip maneuver.

    “Skip entry gives us a consistent landing site that supports astronaut safety because it allows teams on the ground to better and faster coordinate recovery efforts,” said Joe Bomba, Lockheed Martin’s Orion aerosciences aerothermal lead, in a statement. Lockheed is NASA’s primary contractor for the Orion spacecraft.

    “By dividing the heat and force of reentry into two events, skip entry also offers benefits like lessening the g-forces astronauts are subject to,” according to Lockheed, referring to the crushing forces humans experience during spaceflight.

    Another communications blackout lasting about three minutes followed the skip maneuver.

    As it embarked on its final descent, the capsule slowed down drastically, shedding thousands of miles per hour in speed until its parachutes deploy. By the time it splashed down, Orion was traveling about 20 miles per hour (32 kilometers per hour).

    While there were no astronauts on this test mission — just a few mannequins equipped to gather data and a Snoopy doll — Nelson, the NASA chief, has stressed the importance of demonstrating that the capsule can make a safe return.

    The space agency’s plans are to parlay the Artemis moon missions into a program that will send astronauts to Mars, a journey that will have a much faster and more daring reentry process.

    The Orion capsule captures a view of the lunar surface, with Earth in the background lit in the shape of a crescent by the sun.

    Orion traveled roughly 1.3 million miles (2 million kilometers) during this mission on a path that swung out to a distant lunar orbit, carrying the capsule farther than any spacecraft designed to carry humans has ever traveled.

    A secondary goal of this mission was for Orion’s service module, a cylindrical attachment at the bottom of the spacecraft, to deploy 10 small satellites. But at least four of those satellites failed after being jettisoned into orbit, including a miniature lunar lander developed in Japan and one of NASA’s own payload that was intended to be one of the first tiny satellites to explore interplanetary space.

    On its trip, the spacecraft captured stunning pictures of Earth and, during two close flybys, images of the lunar surface and a mesmerizing “Earth rise.”

    Nelson said if he had to give the Artemis I mission a letter grade so far, it would be an A.

    “Not an A-plus, simply because we expect things to go wrong. And the good news is that when they do go wrong, NASA knows how to fix them,” Nelson said. But “if I’m a schoolteacher, I would give it an A-plus.”

    With the success of the Artemis I mission, NASA will now dive into the data collected on this flight and look to choose a crew for the Artemis II mission, which could take off in 2024.

    Artemis II will aim to send astronauts on a similar trajectory as Artemis I, flying around the moon but not landing on its surface.

    The Artemis III mission, currently slated for a 2025 launch, is expected to put boots back on the moon, and NASA officials have said it will include the first woman and first person of color to achieve such a milestone.

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  • Kyrsten Sinema’s defection without a difference | CNN Politics

    Kyrsten Sinema’s defection without a difference | CNN Politics

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    A version of this story appeared in CNN’s What Matters newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here.



    CNN
     — 

    The recent history of party-switching senators includes stories of moderates feeling abandoned, longtime politicians unwilling to face primary voters or thrown out in primaries, and secret campaigns by one party to pick the other’s pocket.

    President Joe Biden knows this history, since as a senator and then vice president he was instrumental in drawing then-Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania across the aisle in 2009. Specter’s switch from the Republican to the Democratic Party briefly gave Democrats a filibuster-proof majority and allowed them to pass the Affordable Care Act. Specter left the GOP after realizing he wasn’t going to be able to win a primary.

    Joe Lieberman, the moderate Democrat and former longtime senator, lost a Democratic primary in Connecticut in 2006, largely over his support for the Iraq war. He would go on to win reelection as an independent. The corollary to Lieberman is Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who lost a primary but won reelection, incredibly, as a write-in candidate, in 2010. She remained in the GOP.

    Earlier, in 2001, Democrats executed what CNN at the time referred to as a Cold War era defection operation to turn then-Sen. Jim Jeffords, the Vermont Republican, into a Vermont independent and briefly give Democrats control of the Senate. Jeffords was angry that Republicans wouldn’t spend more money on education.

    Other defections, like those of Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama and then-Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, had to do with Southern Democrats realizing they’d be more at home as Republicans. Sen. Bob Smith of New Hampshire left the GOP only to quickly return for a plum committee chairmanship.

    Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema appears to be different as she becomes the 22nd senator to change party affiliation while in office.

    She’s not leaving the Democratic Party and registering as an independent because of a pressure campaign, although she has faced fierce criticism from Democrats for opposing elements of Biden’s agenda. She’s not going to give Republicans a majority. She’s simply exerting independence, as she told CNN’s Jake Tapper in announcing her departure from the Democrats.

    “When I come to work each day, it’ll be the same,” Sinema said. Read more about her decision.

    She doesn’t want to change the balance of power – she dismissed Tapper’s question about such things as a Washington, DC, obsession – and it appears she will maintain the committee assignments she has as a Democrat.

    Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer endorsed the arrangement and agreed to let Sinema keep her committee assignments. He said Democrats would maintain their functional majority.

    Certainly a sure-thing primary challenge when she’s up for reelection in 2024 must have crossed Sinema’s mind.

    But she argued that she’s making space in the middle.

    “Removing myself from the partisan structure – not only is it true to who I am and how I operate, I also think it’ll provide a place of belonging for many folks across the state and the country, who also are tired of the partisanship,” she told Tapper.

    The other lawmaker who has frequently frustrated the party is Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who is the last Democrat standing in a state that during his lifetime was full of them.

    Manchin has turned his moderating effect on national Democrats into a potent political brand in West Virginia.

    Sinema’s political evolution has taken her from anti-war supporter of Green Party candidate Ralph Nader to senator in the mold of the late Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain.

    It’s hard to pin down exactly what Sinema’s ideology is – she said it’s hard to put her in a box. She rejected Democrats’ attempts to raise the minimum wage and raise corporate tax rates. She opposed a voting rights bill. But she hasn’t exactly sided with Republicans on social issues.

    Independence and bipartisanship are her entire brand at this point, and she’s used it to play pivotal roles in bipartisan efforts on infrastructure, guns and marriage.

    Much of Nader’s politics in the early 2000s, when he arguably spoiled Democrat Al Gore’s presidential run, was about breaking up what he referred to as the two-party “duopoly.”

    McCain tried to fashion himself as a “maverick” who could buck the party system. Some of his most awkward political moments came when he had to appeal to primary voters, such as in 2010 when the Arizona primary dragged him to the right. He stayed a Republican even after former President Donald Trump demonized and insulted him.

    Sinema will be the first independent senator who isn’t from New England in more than a generation. Among sitting senators, she’ll join Sens. Angus King of Maine, a former Democrat, and Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a democratic socialist, as lawmakers who aren’t technically Democrats but give Democrats their majority.

    Sanders and his influence in the party he doesn’t technically belong to, dragging Democrats to the left during successive presidential campaigns, is perhaps part of what makes Sinema seem out of place as a Democrat.

    Sanders’ previous decision to run for president as a Democrat is evidence of how hard it is to be in national politics without a party. It will be interesting to see how and whether Sinema can maintain support in her state and how and whether she can mount a bid as an independent without help from the party that put her in office.

    While Arizona is frequently referred to as the home of modern conservatism, it’s been a long time since Barry Goldwater, the former Republican senator, ran for president from there – and the state’s political makeup has changed at lightning speed.

    Until Sinema was elected, Arizona had two Republican senators and a Republican governor.

    Now it has two elected Democratic senators (Sinema was elected as a Democrat in 2018) and a governor-elect who is a Democrat.

    But there are and more independents in Arizona.

    In the recent midterm election, just 22% of Arizona voters described themselves as liberal and 36% said they were conservatives. The largest portion, 42%, said they were moderates.

    About a third of voters said they were Republicans, 27% said they were Democrats and 40% said they were independents.

    Four years ago when Sinema was elected, a smaller portion, 31%, described themselves as independents.

    Nationwide, in 2022, voters had a similar ideological split to Arizona in the exit polls – 24% liberal, 40% moderate and 36% conservative.

    But across the country, more identified with the two major parties and less than a third said they were independents, the same portion as in 2018.

    It can be hard to maintain political shape-shifting. Charlie Crist, a moderate who felt out of place in the GOP, went from being a Republican governor in Florida to Democratic congressman. He recently lost a bid to rewin the governor’s mansion as a Democrat.

    The most complete political evolution may be that of Lincoln Chafee, the Rhode Island politician who was a Republican senator, independent governor and failed Democratic and Libertarian presidential candidate.

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  • The Fed will raise rates again. But it’s playing with fire | CNN Business

    The Fed will raise rates again. But it’s playing with fire | CNN Business

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    A version of this story first appeared in CNN Business’ Before the Bell newsletter. Not a subscriber? You can sign up right here.


    New York
    CNN
     — 

    The Federal Reserve is all but guaranteed to announce Wednesday that it will once again raise interest rates. But investors are hopeful it will be a smaller increase than the last four hikes.

    Traders are betting on just a half-point increase. Federal funds futures on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange show an 80% probability of a half-point hike.

    The Fed bumped up rates by three-quarters of a percentage point in the past four meetings (June, July, September and November). That followed two smaller rate hikes earlier this year. The central bank’s key short-term interest rate, which sat at zero at the beginning of the year, is now at a range of 3.75% to 4%.

    The hope is that inflation pressures are finally starting to abate enough that the Fed can pivot — Fed-speak for a series of smaller rate hikes -— to avoid crashing the economy into a recession.

    But it may not be that simple. The government reported Friday that a key measure of wholesale prices, the Producer Price Index, rose 7.4% over the past 12 months through November. That was a bit higher than the expected rate of 7.2% but a marked slowdown from the 8% increase through October.

    The more widely watched Consumer Price Index data for November comes out Tuesday, just a day before the Fed announcement. CPI rose 7.7% year-over-year through October.

    As long as inflation remains a problem, the Fed is going to have to tread cautiously.

    “Inflation has probably peaked but it may not come down as quickly as people want it to,” said Kathy Jones, chief fixed income strategist for the Schwab Center for Financial Research.

    Jones still thinks the Fed will raise rates by only half a point this week and may look to hike them just a quarter point in early 2023. But she conceded that the Fed is now sort of “making it up as they go along.”

    The other problem: The Fed’s rate hikes this year have had limited impact on the economy so far. Yes, mortgage rates have spiked and that has severely hurt demand for housing, but the job market remains strong. Wages are growing, and consumers are still spending. That can’t last indefinitely.

    “The cumulative impact of higher rates are just beginning. Hence, the Fed has to step down its pace a bit,” Jones said.

    So investors are going to need to pay attention not to just what the Fed says in its policy statement about rates and what Powell talks about in his press conference. The Fed also will release its latest projections for gross domestic product growth, the job market and consumer prices Wednesday.

    In September, the Fed’s consensus forecasts called for GDP growth of 1.2% in 2023, an unemployment rate of 4.4% and an increase in personal consumption expenditures, the Fed’s preferred measure or inflation, of 2.8%. It seems likely that the Fed will cut its GDP target and raise its expectations for the jobless rate and consumer prices.

    The likelihood of an economic downturn is increasing, and the Fed’s projections may reflect that. But the Fed is not expected to start cutting interest rates until 2024 at the earliest, so it may be too late for the central bank to prevent a recession.

    “A pivot or pause is not a cure-all for this market,” said Keith Lerner, co-chief investment officer at Truist Advisory Services. “Rate cuts may be too late. Recession risks are still relatively high.”

    The US economy isn’t in a recession yet. But are American shoppers tapped out? We’ll get a better sense of that Thursday after the government reports retail sales figures for November.

    Economists are actually forecasting a small dip of 0.1% in retail sales from October. But it’s important to put that number in context. Retail sales surged 1.3% from September and 8.3% over the past 12 months.

    So it’s possible consumers were simply getting a head start on holiday shopping. Inflation has an effect on the numbers too, since retail sales have been impacted (positively) by the fact that people have to spend more money for stuff.

    One market strategist also pointed out that as long as price increases continue to slow, consumers will feel more confident as well.

    “Everybody has been talking about inflation this year. Going forward, it will be more about disinflation in 2023 or 2024,” said Arnaud Cosserat, CEO of Comgest Global Investors.

    What does that mean for investors? Cosserat said people should be looking for quality consumer companies that still have pricing power and can maintain their profit margins. Two stocks that his firm owns that he said fit that bill: Luxury goods maker Hermes

    (HESAF)     and cosmetics giant L’Oreal

    (LRLCF)    .

    Monday: UK monthly GDP; earnings from Oracle

    (ORCL)

    Tuesday: US Consumer Price Index; Germany economic sentiment

    Wednesday: Fed meeting; EU industrial production; UK inflation; earnings from Lennar

    (LEN)     and Trip.com

    (TCOM)

    Thursday: US retail sales; US weekly jobless claims; ECB and Bank of England rate decisions; earnings from Jabil

    (JBL)

    Friday: Eurozone PMI; UK retail sales; earnings from Accenture

    (ACN)    , Darden Restaurants

    (DRI)     and Winnebago

    (WGO)

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  • DC attorney general sues Amazon for allegedly misusing driver tips | CNN Business

    DC attorney general sues Amazon for allegedly misusing driver tips | CNN Business

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    Washington
    CNN Business
     — 

    Amazon faces a new lawsuit from the attorney general of Washington, D.C. that alleges the e-commerce giant used customer tips meant for delivery drivers to reduce what it owed in driver wages.

    The lawsuit by Attorney General Karl Racine further claims that Amazon covered up the practice, which allegedly began in 2016. The allegations are virtually identical to those leveled previously by the Federal Trade Commission, which announced a settlement with Amazon on the matter in 2021.

    The business practice at issue involved Amazon’s public claims that it would pay Amazon Flex delivery drivers a rate of at least $18 per hour, plus 100% of any tips that customers contributed. According to the FTC, and now Racine, Amazon in 2016 changed its payment model without notifying drivers or customers. The new model allegedly used a portion of customer tips to subsidize Amazon’s own labor costs, and tried to hide the change from drivers by reporting their tips and wages as a combined figure.

    Racine’s office said Tuesday it is bringing the new complaint because the FTC settlement, although it involved Amazon agreeing to pay drivers a total of $61.7 million to make them whole, did not impose any fines on the company.

    Amazon “has thus far escaped appropriate accountability, including any civil penalties, for consumer harm,” Racine’s office said in a release. It added that the DC lawsuit seeks civil penalties “for every violation” of DC’s consumer protection law stemming from the practice and a court order barring Amazon from such violations in the future.

    In a statement responding to Racine’s suit, Amazon spokesperson Maria Boschetti said the company revised its payment model for delivery drivers in 2019. In its earlier allegations, the FTC said Amazon only changed its payment model after the company learned that federal regulators were investigating the practice. (The 2019 changes, the FTC said at the time, appeared to largely revert the 2016 changes and provided more transparency to drivers about their earnings.)

    “This lawsuit involves a practice we changed three years ago and is without merit,” Boschetti said. “All of the customer tips at issue were already paid to drivers as part of a settlement last year with the FTC.”

    As part of the 2021 FTC settlement, Amazon agreed on a nationwide basis not to mislead drivers about their earnings, including tipped earnings, and to seek drivers’ explicit consent before changing how much of the customer tips they actually receive.

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  • Meta avoids showdown over news content in US after journalism bargaining bill shelved | CNN Business

    Meta avoids showdown over news content in US after journalism bargaining bill shelved | CNN Business

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    Washington
    CNN Business
     — 

    A threat by Facebook owner Meta to remove news content from its platforms appears to have been averted — for now — after US lawmakers omitted an antitrust bill it opposed from the text of an annual defense spending bill released late Tuesday evening.

    Meta had warned on Monday that if Congress passed the competition bill as part of the larger legislation — temporarily allowing digital news publishers to negotiate collectively against tech platforms for a larger share of ad revenues — then the social media giant “will be forced to consider removing news from our platform altogether.”

    The warning had come amid 11th-hour reports that lawmakers were considering including the measure as part of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023. Meta declined to comment on Wednesday morning.

    Minnesota Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a key architect of the news media bill, has argued that the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA) is necessary to help small, local journalism outlets survive in the face of Google and Facebook’s advertising dominance. It is one of several tech-focused antitrust bills pending in Congress.

    In a statement, Klobuchar said: “Continually allowing the big tech companies to dominate policy decisions in Washington is no longer a viable option when it comes to news compensation, consumer and privacy rights, or the online marketplace. We must get this done.”

    Danielle Coffey, executive vice president of the News Media Alliance, a supporter of the JCPA, said the bill was removed from the NDAA due to the ordinary give-and-take of high-stakes legislation. Congressional Republicans were strongly opposed to including non-defense legislation in the defense bill, resulting in many “ornaments” being rejected, not just the JCPA, said Coffey.

    “At the end of the day, that determines our fate, even though there’s bipartisan support for this legislation,” Coffey said. “I don’t think anyone disagrees with the overall intention, which is to help newsrooms around the country.”

    Coffey vowed to keep pushing for the JCPA’s passage, adding that it would be “devastating” if the United States fails to pass the JCPA while other countries including Canada and New Zealand consider similar measures.

    Fight for the Future, a digital rights group opposed to the JCPA, applauded the bill’s omission from the NDAA on Wednesday and called on congressional leaders to advance the remaining tech antitrust legislation, which would erect new barriers between tech giants’ various lines of business and force Apple to allow iOS users to download apps from any source.

    “There are precious few days left,” said Evan Greer, director of Fight for the Future. “It would be an embarrassment, and a travesty, if the Biden administration and Democratic leadership can’t deliver on their promise to rein in the abuses of Big Tech giants.”

    The prospect of the JCPA’s imminent passage this week prompted swift pushback from the bill’s opponents, including some that at times have heavily criticized Big Tech.

    In a letter Monday to congressional leaders, more than two dozen groups said the JCPA could make mis- and disinformation worse by allowing news websites to sue tech platforms for reducing a story’s reach and intimidating them into not moderating offensive or misleading content.

    The letter also said the JCPA could end up disproportionately favoring large media companies over the small, local and independent outlets that have been hit the hardest by falling digital ad revenues.

    Among those that signed the letter were the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, The Wikimedia Foundation and Public Knowledge.

    The tech industry launched its own offensive to keep the JCPA out of the defense bill, with groups including NetChoice and the Computer and Communications Industry Association announcing ad campaigns targeting the measure.

    Meta, meanwhile, turned to a familiar playbook in threatening to remove from the platform. When similar legislation was on the verge of passing in Australia last year, the company briefly suspended users’ ability to share and view links to news stories on its platforms. (It later changed course and the legislation passed later that year.)

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  • Strong midterm turnout in Georgia sparks new debate about a controversial election law | CNN Politics

    Strong midterm turnout in Georgia sparks new debate about a controversial election law | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The strong turnout in Georgia’s runoff election that cemented Democrats’ control of the US Senate is sparking fresh debate about the impact of the state’s controversial 2021 election law and could trigger a new round of election rule changes next year in the Republican-led state legislature.

    Voters showed up in droves for the midterms, with more than 3.5 million casting ballots in the December 6 runoff – or some 90% of the general election turnout, a far higher rate than typical runoffs. And top Republicans in Georgia, including Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, argued those numbers refute claims that the 2021 law was designed to suppress votes in this increasingly competitive state.

    “There’s no truth to voter suppression,” Raffensperger said in an interview this week with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, a day after Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock secured reelection in the first federal election cycle since Georgia voting law took effect.

    Georgia Democrats and voting rights groups, however, continue to criticize the 2021 law – enacted in the wake of Democratic gains two years ago – as erecting multiple barriers to voting. And the surging turnout, they said, masked extraordinary efforts by voters and activists to overcome both new and longstanding obstacles to the franchise in this once deep-red state.

    “Just because people endured long lines that wrapped around buildings, some blocks long … doesn’t mean that voter suppression does not exist,” Warnock said during his victory speech Tuesday – echoing a theme he made repeatedly on the campaign trail. “It simply means that you, the people, have decided that your voices will not be silenced.”

    Warnock’s victory Tuesday solidified Georgia’s standing as a battleground state and comes after Warnock and fellow Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff won runoffs in the 2020 election cycle. In that election, President Joe Biden became the first Democratic presidential nominee to win the Peach State in nearly three decades.

    Voting rights activists said the 2021 law made it harder to cast a ballot in myriad ways: It limited the number and location of ballot drop boxes, instituted new ID requirements to vote by mail and shortened the window for a runoff from the nine weeks in the 2020 election to four weeks, contributing to long lines during the early voting period.

    Additionally, the voter registration deadline fell on November 7 – the day before the general election and before Georgians knew for certain that the contest would advance to a runoff because neither Warnock nor his Republican challenger Herschel Walker had surpassed the 50% threshold to win outright in the general election.

    In the 2020 election cycle, at least 23,000 people who registered after Election Day went on to vote in the Senate runoff in January 2021, according to an analysis of Georgia’s Secretary of State data by Catalist, a company that provides data, analytics and other services to Democrats, academics and nonprofit issue-advocacy organizations.

    And only an 11th hour court victory for Warnock and Democrats paved the way for counties to hold early in-person voting on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. State election officials had opposed casting ballots on that date, saying Georgia law prohibited voting on a Saturday if there is a state holiday on the Thursday or Friday before.

    “It’s death by a thousand cuts,” Kendra Cotton, CEO of the voting rights group New Georgia Project Action Fund, said of the new restrictions. “They are not trying to hit the jugular, so you bleed out at once. It’s these little nicks, so you slowly become anemic before you pass out.”

    “It’s a margins game,” she added. “I wish folks would stop acting like the purpose of SB202 was to disenfranchise the masses. Joe Biden won this state by a little less than 12,000 votes. I can guarantee you that there are more than 12,000 people across this state who were eligible to vote in this election and they could not.”

    Even Cotton’s 21-year-old daughter, Jarah Cotton, became ensnared.

    The younger Cotton, a Harvard University senior, said she had planned to vote absentee in November’s general election – but misunderstood a new requirement of Georgia’s law: that she print out her online application for absentee ballot, sign it “with a pen and ink” and then upload it.

    In the runoff, Jarah Cotton said she successfully completed her application for an absentee ballot but did not receive it before she returned home to Powder Springs, Georgia, for the Thanksgiving holiday.

    The court ruling permitting voting the Saturday after Thanksgiving allowed her to cast an in-person ballot in the runoff – but only after her family paid $180 to delay her return flight to Boston by a day.

    “I don’t think it should be this hard,” Jarah Cotton said of her experience. “It should be more straightforward, but I think that’s reflective of the voting process in Georgia.”

    Gabriel Sterling, the chief operating officer in the secretary of state’s office, said too many critics of the state’s voting process are comparing the 2022 election with the ease of voting during the height of the pandemic in the 2020 election cycle when election officials across the state “moved heaven and earth” to guarantee the franchise.

    That so many people voted in a four-week runoff shows “the system works really well,” he told CNN in an interview Friday. “The problem now is that it that is has become so politicized. I’ve been saying now, for 24 months, that both sides have to stop weaponizing election administration.”

    Voting rights activists say the state’s runoff system, first enacted in 1964, itself is a vestige of voter-suppression efforts from the state’s dark past. Its original sponsor sought to guarantee that candidates backed by Black Georgians could not win outright with a plurality of the vote.

    Most states decide general election winners based on which candidate gets the most votes, unlike Georgia, where candidates must win more than 50% of the votes cast to avoid a runoff.

    Runoffs also are costly affairs.

    A recent study by researchers at Kennesaw State University estimated that the Senate runoffs in the 2020 election cycle had a $75 million price tag for taxpayers.

    In the CNN interview earlier this week, Raffensperger suggested that the Republican-controlled General Assembly might revisit some of the state’s election rules, including potentially lowering to 45% the threshold needed to win a general election outright.

    He also said he wanted to work with counties to guarantee more polling places are available to ease the long lines voters endured during the early voting window in the runoff.

    And Raffensperger said lawmakers might weigh a ranked-choice instant runoff system. In so-called instant runoffs, voters rank candidates by order of preference. If one candidate doesn’t receive more than 50% of the vote, voters’ second choices would be used to determine the winner, without the need to hold a second election.

    Given the shortened runoff schedule in Georgia, state lawmakers instituted the instant runoff for a narrow slice of voters – those in the military and overseas – in this year’s midterms.

    “There will be a push for this in the upcoming legislative session,” said Daniel Baggerman, president of Better Ballot Georgia, a group advocating for the instant runoff.

    “It’s asking a lot from voters” to show up again for a runoff “when there’s a simple way that achieves the same outcome,” he said.

    Sterling agreed that there “needs to be a discussion about general election runoffs,” but he said he worries that moving to an instant runoff system risks disenfranchising a wide swath of Georgians who might not understand the process without “a tremendous amount of voter education.”

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  • White House Security Breaches Fast Facts | CNN Politics

    White House Security Breaches Fast Facts | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Here’s a selected list of White House intrusions and security breaches.

    The White House grounds include 18 acres of land. That and the adjacent 52-acre Ellipse to the south belong to President’s Park, a national park.

    The Secret Service is in charge of White House security.

    According to the White House Historical Society, US President Thomas Jefferson was the first to put a fence around the White House. Over the years, the fence has been updated and fortified, with the wrought-iron fences of the 19th century having been replaced in the 1930s by a steel fence with tall bronze spears atop it. Most of the fence is currently about six feet six inches tall, and is undergoing an eight-phase replacement with an approximately 13 foot tall fence which began in July 2019.

    Security became especially tighter during World War II. After a truck-bomb attack on the US Marine barracks in Lebanon in 1983, low concrete walls were put up around the White House. Bollards – sturdy, vertical posts that can stop vehicles – were added a few years later.

    “Security incidents occur frequently,” according to a 2015 House of Representatives report. Data from the Secret Service included in the report show that there were 104 security breaches or attempted breaches between April 2005 and April 15, 2015.

    April 13, 1912 – On his second attempt to enter the White House to see President William Howard Taft, Michael Winter makes it several feet inside the front door before being noticed.

    September 26, 1963 – Doyle Allen Hicks rams his pickup truck through the gates and drives up to within 25 feet of the North Portico main entrance. When stopped, he tells guards that he must see the president, because communists are taking over his state, North Carolina.

    February 17, 1974 – Robert K. Preston, an Army private, steals a helicopter from Fort Meade, Maryland. He hovers over the Washington Monument and White House grounds before leading two state police helicopters on an aerial chase around Maryland and Washington, DC. After more than an hour, Preston heads back to the White House, according to a state police officer. Officers shoot at the helicopter, forcing Preston to land. He reportedly was upset about flunking out of flight school.

    February 22, 1974 – Samuel Joseph Byck tries to hijack a Delta passenger jet at Baltimore-Washington International Airport, with the plan to crash it into the White House. He forces his way on to the plane, killing an airport policeman and the copilot. Byck is killed by police before takeoff.

    December 25, 1974 – Marshall Fields crashes his automobile through the Northwest Gate and drives it close to the North Portico. He threatens to blow himself up with explosives he has strapped to his body, which later turn out to be flares. After four hours of negotiation, Fields surrenders to officials.

    November 26, 1975 – Gerald Gainous Jr. makes his way over the fence, hides for two hours on the grounds undetected and is able to get within five feet of Susan Ford, President Gerald Ford’s daughter. Gainous jumps the fence three more times within the next year.

    July 25, 1976 – Chester Plummer Jr. climbs over the White House fence carrying a metal pipe and starts running toward the White House. A guard chases him, yelling at him to stop. When he doesn’t, the guard shoots and kills him. Plummer’s motive is not discovered.

    October 1978 – A barefoot man wearing a karate uniform and carrying a Bible with a knife hidden inside, scales the White House fence. He slashes two officers before White House guards are able to subdue him. The suspect, Anthony Henry, reportedly wanted to convince President Jimmy Carter to remove the phrase “In God We Trust” from US currency.

    January 20, 1985 – Robert Latta, a meter-reader from Denver, follows the Marine Band into the White House before President Ronald Reagan’s second inauguration ceremony. Latta wanders around the mansion for about 15 minutes before being arrested in the dining room.

    September 12, 1994 – A man flying a stolen Cessna plane enters the prohibited airspace around the White House and crashes on the lawn just south of the Executive Mansion. The pilot, identified as Frank Eugene Corder, dies in the crash.

    October 29, 1994 – Francisco Martin Duran, armed with a semiautomatic rifle, fires at least 29 rounds at the White House from the sidewalk on Pennsylvania Avenue. Duran is later convicted of attempting to kill President Bill Clinton.

    May 23, 1995 – Leland W. Modjeski is shot by the Secret Service after climbing over a security fence and running toward the White House with a handgun that was later determined to be unloaded.

    February 7, 2001 – Robert Pickett, an accountant who was fired from the IRS in the 1980s, fires shots outside the White House. Secret Service agents shoot him in the leg after a standoff lasting more than 10 minutes at the White House fence. President George W. Bush was not endangered, White House officials say later.

    January 18, 2005 – Lowell Timmers, of Cedar Springs, Michigan, threatens to blow up his van in front on the White House, two days before Bush’s second inauguration, saying he has an explosive substance in the vehicle. The FBI, Secret Service and other authorities evacuate nearby buildings and shut down several blocks. Four hours pass before Timmers, who had demanded that his son-in-law be released from jail, surrenders.

    April 9, 2006 – Brian Lee Patterson from New Mexico jumps the White House fence and makes it well inside the grounds before being stopped. It is the fourth time he has jumped the fence.

    November 24, 2009 – A publicity-seeking Virginia couple, Michaele and Tareq Salahi, sneak into a White House dinner. The uninvited guests finesse their way through a security checkpoint staffed by uniformed Secret Service officers, according to congressional testimony by the agency’s director Mark Sullivan. Sullivan apologizes for the breach, saying agents violated protocol by allowing the Salahis to enter without verifying that they were on the guest list.

    November 11, 2011 – A gunman fires an assault rifle at the White House, hitting the residential wing of the building at least seven times. Secret Service supervisors fail to recognize the danger, dismissing the gunfire as a gang-related shootout rather than an attack on the White House, according to the Washington Post. Four days later, a housekeeper and a White House usher spot bullet holes in the residence. Five days after the shooting, the gunman, Oscar Ramiro Ortega-Hernandez is arrested at a Pennsylvania hotel. In 2014, Ortega-Hernandez is sentenced to 25 years in federal prison.

    October 3, 2013 – An unarmed woman is shot and killed by a Secret Service agent and a Capitol police officer after she drives toward a security checkpoint near the White House, hits a barricade and speeds away. The woman is a 34-year-old mother battling postpartum depression, according to her sister. Her one-year-old daughter, seated in the back of the car during the chase, is unharmed.

    September 11, 2014 – A man wearing Pokemon gear and carrying a plush doll of the character Pikachu makes it over the White House fence and onto the north lawn, where he is apprehended. He is later identified as Jeffrey Grossman.

    September 19, 2014 – After jumping the White House fence, 42-year-old Omar Gonzalez, of Copperas Cove, Texas, gets through the North Portico doors with a three-and-a-half-inch folding knife in his pants pocket, according to the Secret Service. In early accounts of the incident, the Secret Service claims the intruder didn’t get past the portico doors. Days later, the Washington Post reveals the man had actually made his way past the front entrance, through the main hall and into the East Room, where he was apprehended.

    October 22, 2014 – Dominic Adesanya, 23, of Bel Air, Maryland, jumps the White House fence and barely makes it onto the lawn before he is subdued as he fights off two police dogs, according to the Secret Service. Adesanya, who suffers from mental health problems, had been arrested in a previous White House breach, his father later says.

    January 26, 2015 – The Secret Service locks down the White House shortly after 3 a.m. after an officer spots a drone flying above the White House grounds before crashing on the southeast side of the complex. An employee of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, a government entity with mapping and national security duties, later calls the Secret Service and admits that he was operating the drone for fun.

    April 19, 2015 – Jerome R. Hunt, of Hayward, California, climbs the fence on the south side of the White House complex while carrying a suspicious package, later deemed harmless, and is cornered by security dogs.

    November 26, 2015 – The Secret Service stops a man draped in an American flag after he jumps a White House fence during a Thanksgiving celebration at the executive mansion.

    April 1, 2016 – A man tosses a backpack over the north fence and then jumps over, himself, and is immediately arrested. His name is not released to the public.

    March 10, 2017 – A man carrying a backpack with mace and a letter for President Donald Trump makes it onto the grounds and roams for more than 15 minutes before he is discovered and arrested by a Secret Service officer near the south entrance. The suspect, identified in court records as Jonathan T. Tran, 26, of California, tells the agency’s officers that he was there to see the president.

    March 21, 2017 – Marci Anderson Wahl of Everett, Washington, jumps a fence on the south side but gets stuck. Officers find her hanging by her shoelaces, which were “caught on top of the fence,” according to a police report. Wahl is arrested two more times within the next week, near the Treasury Building and in Lafayette Park.

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  • House Republicans brace for doomsday scenario if McCarthy falls short of 218 votes for speaker | CNN Politics

    House Republicans brace for doomsday scenario if McCarthy falls short of 218 votes for speaker | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    As a right-wing faction threatens to tank his speakership ambitions, House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy delivered a promise: “I’ll never leave,” making clear he has no plans to drop out of the race even if the fight goes to many ballots on the floor.

    “I’ll get 218,” McCarthy told CNN, referring to the votes he’d need to become House speaker.

    But Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona, a conservative hardliner who is challenging McCarthy to be the most powerful member of Congress, doubled down on his commitment to stop the California Republican’s ascension.

    “I’m not bluffing,” Biggs told CNN on Thursday when asked if he would drop out.

    With the increasing likelihood that the speaker’s race could go to multiple ballots – something that hasn’t happened since 1923 – McCarthy’s allies and foes alike are starting to quietly game out the next steps if he can’t get the necessary 218 votes on the first round and they move into uncharted territory.

    Bash asks Pelosi if McCarthy has what it takes to be House Speaker. See her response

    McCarthy’s supporters are vowing to keep voting for him on multiple ballots, and GOP sources said there are early discussions about a floor strategy for that potential scenario, including whether to recess the House or let the votes keep rolling – no matter how long it takes.

    To prevent that from happening, McCarthy and his team have been engaged in serious talks with a group of conservatives, including over potentially giving them influential committee assignments and more power to drive the legislative process. GOP sources said those negotiations are still early in the process and could ultimately end up giving the group some aspect of what the hardliners desperately want: additional power to seek a sitting speaker’s ouster with a vote on the floor.

    Asked if he would drop out of the race if he doesn’t get 218 votes on the first ballot, Biggs refused to say.

    “I’m not going to talk about hypotheticals,” said Biggs, who lost his conference’s nomination to become speaker last month after securing 31 votes.

    But in the case of a doomsday scenario – where neither McCarthy nor Biggs can get 218 votes on January 3 and neither drops out – some pro-McCarthy Republicans are signaling support for a different approach. Some said they would be willing to work with Democrats to find a moderate Republican who can get the 218 votes to clinch the gavel – a long-shot idea that underscores the uncertainty looming over the speaker’s race.

    “Our initial plan is vote for Kevin and let him fight this out repeatedly. … But if they think they’re going to use this to infinity to drive him out, well, we’re not going to bend to their will,” said Rep. Don Bacon, a Nebraska Republican.

    Bacon added if GOP hardliners don’t bend, then he would be willing to work with Democrats to find another more moderate Republican to secure the 218 votes to become speaker.

    “If a small group refuses to play ball and be part of the team, then we’ll work across the aisle to find an agreeable Republican,” Bacon said. “But I hope we don’t get there.”

    McCarthy’s detractors don’t buy it.

    “There are very significant rules, changes being discussed that would open the House up, that would be transformative, that would give us the ability to actually legislate and represent our constituents,” said Rep. Matt Gaetz, a Republican from Florida who said he’s a “hard no” on McCarthy. “And whoever is speaker is going to have to agree to those rules, I think. And I don’t think that person will be Kevin McCarthy because Kevin McCarthy won’t have 218 votes.”

    Gaetz added: “I think the person who is ultimately going to be the speaker isn’t even the candidate yet.”

    Indeed, the small group of Republicans known as the “Never Kevin” movement – confident that Biggs could not win a majority of the House – has been trying to recruit a viable alternative, and claim “several” Republicans have privately told them they would be interested in running if McCarthy drops out. Their goal with voting for Biggs is to show that McCarthy is weak on the first ballot, which they hope would inspire other candidates to jump in.

    “How many members vote for someone else will show the strength (of the anti-McCarthy group),” Rep. Bob Good, a Virginia Republican who is a “hard no” on McCarthy, told CNN. “I think the second ballot is going to have more candidates. … There are already Republicans letting us know they’d like to be considered.”

    Even House Republicans who are supporting McCarthy predicted that a number of lawmakers would run if McCarthy withdrew his name, with some saying that House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, McCarthy’s top deputy, would emerge as the front runner in that case.

    “If at some point, if Kevin did take his name out, then you would have good people (running). Scalise would probably be the guy,” one GOP lawmaker said.

    Scalise has repeatedly vowed to support McCarthy and refused to speculate on whether he would jump into the race if the GOP leader can’t get the votes.

    “No, I’m not going to get into speculation,” Scalise told CNN. “Obviously, our focus is on getting it resolved by January 3. And there’s a lot of conversations that everybody has been having, Kevin, surely, with the members who have expressed concerns.”

    Rep. Jim Jordan, the conservative set to become the chair of the House Judiciary Committee, went even further, ruling out jumping into the race even though Gaetz and other hardliners have urged him to seek the speakership.

    “No,” Jordan said when asked if he’d run if McCarthy couldn’t get the votes. “I want to chair the Judiciary Committee.”

    With 222 GOP seats next year, McCarthy can only afford to lose four Republican votes and still win the speakership. But he and his team are still hopeful he can win on the first round as he has been working both publicly and privately to win over holdouts. So far, at least five Republicans have promised to oppose him on the floor – but in a positive sign for McCarthy, one of them has shown he’s gettable.

    “I will vote for Andy for speaker, subject to what we’re discussing,” said Rep. Ralph Norman, a South Carolina Republican after leaving a meeting in McCarthy’s office on Wednesday. He later added: “All this is positive. We’re having good change, regardless of what happens. And you’ll see more of it.”

    In addition to those five, a new group of seven Republican hardliners on Thursday laid out a list of conditions to earn their vote, although they did not specifically threaten to vote against McCarthy if their demands aren’t met.

    WASHINGTON, DC - NOVEMBER 15: House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) talks briefly with reporters before heading into House Republican caucus leadership elections in the U.S. Capitol Visitors Center on November 15, 2022 in Washington, DC. McCarthy is expected to be elected leader of the caucus, paving the way for his election to Speaker of the House if the GOP wins control of the House of Representatives. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

    GOP lawmaker explains why he won’t vote for McCarthy to become House Speaker

    Their list of demands – which shows the work McCarthy needs to do to get to 218 – includes a promise that leaders won’t play in primaries, restoring the motion to vacate the speaker’s chair, placing more conservatives on key committees, giving members at least 72 hours to read bill text before a vote, and committing to using the debt ceiling as a bargaining chip to demand more spending cuts, according to a copy of the letter obtained by CNN.

    McCarthy has already begun brokering some rules changes to empower rank-and-file members, created a new select committee on China, vowed to boot some Democratic lawmakers from their committees, and sketched out in greater detail his investigative plans – including a potential impeachment inquiry into Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

    But McCarthy still has additional levers he could pull. Conservative hardliners are pushing for more representation on the powerful House Rules Committee, a leadership-aligned panel that decides how and when bills come to the floor. In one private meeting with a member of the House Freedom Caucus, McCarthy was urged to take a harder public stance on the coming policy issues for next year, according to a person familiar with the matter.

    And the anti-McCarthy group is also still pressing for a process that would allow any single member to hold a floor vote on ousting the sitting speaker, which was wielded over former Speaker John Boehner before he was forced out of the job by the far right in 2015.

    McCarthy has been adamantly opposed to restoring the “motion to vacate the chair,” and a majority of the House GOP voted against the idea during a during a closed-door meeting last month. When asked by CNN on Thursday if he would visit the issue, McCarthy laughed and refused to answer.

    But McCarthy’s detractors said it’s an issue very much still on the table and think he may end up needing to embrace it if he still doesn’t have the speaker votes by January 3. GOP sources told CNN there’s potential room to negotiate to give members more power to call for a vote to oust the speaker – perhaps by allowing the vote to occur if a certain number of members call for one, rather than allowing a single lawmaker to call for a vote as the hardliners want.

    “A competent secure leader is not threatened by (the motion to vacate),” Good said. “And so, yeah, that I think that’s central to many members.”

    Yet others said what Good and his allies are seeking is a recipe for chaos — and are calling on their colleagues to fall in line.

    “I think that’s one of the reasons that we didn’t see a red wave … the idea that people are sick and tired of the noise, and they’re sick and tired of the fighting,” Rep. David Joyce, an Ohio Republican, said of the impact of a January 3 floor fight. “And I know I get that wherever I go in my district is, ‘why can’t you guys just get things done?’”

    As McCarthy scrambles to lock down speaker’s votes, he also delayed the GOP’s internal elections for committee chairmanships. There was some speculation that one of the members competing for a gavel, Rep. Vern Buchanan of Florida, may retire early if he doesn’t win, which would make McCarthy’s math problem even tougher. But Buchanan vehemently disputed the notion.

    “It’s ridiculous, laughable,” he told reporters. “I’m doing everything I can to help get Kevin to 218.”

    McCarthy could also try to convince Democrats or his GOP detractors to vote present or not show up to the floor proceedings, which would lower the threshold he needs to become speaker. But McCarthy promised his GOP colleagues he would not court Democratic votes.

    In recent weeks, part of McCarthy’s pitch to his critics has been warning that if they don’t unify, then Democrats could theoretically band together and peel off a few Republicans to elect the next speaker.

    Some Democrats have said they would entertain the idea, including Rep. Henry Cuellar, a moderate Democrat from Texas who told CNN some of his GOP colleagues have approached him “informally” about it.

    Joyce also said some members have reached out to him about potentially running, but he dismissed it. “At the end of the day, Kevin’s going to be the new speaker.”

    New York Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, the next House Democratic leader, said, “there are no behind-the-scenes conversations” that he has had with Republicans to put up an alternative candidate. But he refused to rule out a scenario where his caucus would help elect the next speaker if McCarthy couldn’t get the votes.

    Hakeem Jeffries Kevin McCarthy split

    Hear if Hakeem Jeffries would be willing to help Kevin McCarthy

    “Democrats are in the process of organizing the Democratic Conference,” Jeffries told CNN on Thursday. “Republicans are in the process of organizing the Republican Conference. Let’s see what happens on January 3.”

    Some of the potential consensus picks that have been floated included retiring Reps. Fred Upton of Michigan and John Katko of New York, who both voted to impeach Donald Trump for inciting the Capitol insurrection; Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, co-chair of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus; and Oklahoma Rep. Tom Cole, a veteran lawmaker and incoming head of the House Rules Committee.

    But that would require agreement from every single Democrat and the help of five Republicans – no easy feat. Upton said he has no plans to be in Washington that day, telling CNN: “I’ll be skiing.”

    And progressives like Rep. Jamaal Bowman of New York said they would never vote for a GOP speaker candidate, no matter how moderate.

    “No,” Bowman said, indicating he’d be voting for Jeffries on every ballot on January 3. “It’s going to be Hakeem.”

    But Republican Rep. Bruce Westerman said this has happened before – nearly a decade ago in his state where minority Democrats in the Arkansas legislature joined forces with a handful of Republicans to elect a GOP speaker of their choice. Westerman privately made this case to his colleagues at a closed-door meeting this week.

    “I’m concerned about January 3 getting here and us not being able to form a Congress and organize committees and getting delayed in pushing the policy objectives that we want to push,” Westerman said.

    Westerman added that the discussion over changing House rules is good for the party. But he added: “I’m not really excited about any type of destructive movement.”

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  • First Gen Z congressman-elect says he was denied DC apartment over bad credit | CNN Politics

    First Gen Z congressman-elect says he was denied DC apartment over bad credit | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The congressman-elect set to become the first member of Generation Z to serve in Congress said Thursday his rental application for an apartment in Washington, DC, was denied because of his “really bad” credit.

    “Just applied to an apartment in DC where I told the guy that my credit was really bad. He said I’d be fine. Got denied, lost the apartment, and the application fee. This ain’t meant for people who don’t already have money,” Maxwell Frost said in a tweet.

    Frost, an Orlando-based community organizer, made history last month when he won election in Florida’s 10th Congressional District at just 25 years old. Frost surprised party leaders with his victory in a crowded primary filled with senior political figures to replace outgoing Rep. Val Demings, before comfortably winning against his Republican opponent in a solidly blue district.

    In a Twitter thread, the congressman-elect expressed frustrations with relocating to the capital, saying that he has bad credit because he “ran up a lot of debt running for Congress for a year and a half” and that he did not make enough money working for Uber to pay for the cost of living.

    Frost said that he quit his full time job during his race’s primary, because “I knew that to win at 25 yrs old, I’d need to be a full time candidate. 7 days a week, 10-12 hours a day. It’s not sustainable or right but it’s what we had to do.”

    “As a candidate, you can’t give yourself a stipend or anything till the very end of your campaign,” he added. “So most of the run, you have no $ coming in unless you work a second job.”

    CNN has reached out to Frost’s office for comment.

    In comments to The Washington Post, Frost declined to identify the building, the size of his debt or credit score, but said the building where his application was rejected was in the city’s Navy Yard neighborhood, roughly a mile from the US Capitol. He said he lost the $50 application fee.

    Frost is not the only incoming member of Congress to have struggled to find housing in DC.

    On Twitter, he referenced New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who, in 2018 became the youngest woman elected to Congress at age 29 – and who also had a hard time as an incoming lawmaker finding affordable housing in Washington on her then-salary.

    Frost pointed out that once his congressional salary kicks in, he’ll be fine, adding that “we have to do better” for others.

    “I also recognize that I’m speaking from a point of privilege cause in 2 years time, my credit will be okay because of my new salary that starts next year,” Frost said. “We have to do better for the whole country.”

    Members of the House and Senate earn $174,000 a year, according to the Congressional Research Service, but that salary will not begin until Frost is sworn in on January 3.

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  • Sinema leaving the Democratic Party and registering as an independent | CNN Politics

    Sinema leaving the Democratic Party and registering as an independent | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema is leaving the Democratic Party and registering as a political independent, she told CNN’s Jake Tapper in an exclusive TV interview.

    “I’ve registered as an Arizona independent. I know some people might be a little bit surprised by this, but actually, I think it makes a lot of sense,” Sinema said in a Thursday interview with Tapper in her Senate office.

    “I’ve never fit neatly into any party box. I’ve never really tried. I don’t want to,” she added. “Removing myself from the partisan structure – not only is it true to who I am and how I operate, I also think it’ll provide a place of belonging for many folks across the state and the country, who also are tired of the partisanship.”

    Sinema’s move away from the Democratic Party is unlikely to change the power balance in the next Senate. Democrats will have a narrow 51-49 majority that includes two independents who caucus with them: Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Angus King of Maine.

    While Sanders and King formally caucus with Democrats, Sinema declined to explicitly say that she would do the same. She did note, however, that she expects to keep her committee assignments – a signal that she doesn’t plan to upend the Senate composition, since Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer controls committee rosters for Democrats.

    “When I come to work each day, it’ll be the same,” Sinema said. “I’m going to still come to work and hopefully serve on the same committees I’ve been serving on and continue to work well with my colleagues at both political parties.”

    But Sinema’s decision to become a political independent makes official what’s long been an independent streak for the Arizona senator, who began her political career as a member of the Green Party before being elected as a Democrat to the US House in 2012 and US Senate in 2018. Sinema has prided herself on being a thorn in the side of Democratic leaders, and her new nonpartisan affiliation will further free her to embrace an against-the-grain status in the Senate, though it raises new questions about how she – and Senate Democrats – will approach her reelection in 2024 with liberals already mulling a challenge.

    Sinema wrote an op-ed in the Arizona Republic released Friday explaining her decision, noting that her approach in the Senate has “upset partisans in both parties.”

    “When politicians are more focused on denying the opposition party a victory than they are on improving Americans’ lives, the people who lose are everyday Americans,” Sinema wrote.

    “That’s why I have joined the growing numbers of Arizonans who reject party politics by declaring my independence from the broken partisan system in Washington.”

    Sinema is up for reelection in 2024 and liberals in Arizona are already floating potential challengers, including Arizona Rep. Ruben Gallego, who said earlier this year that some Democratic senators have urged him to run against Sinema.

    “Unfortunately, Senator Sinema is once again putting her own interests ahead of getting things done for Arizonans,” Gallego said in a statement following Sinema’s announcement.

    Sinema declined to address questions about her reelection bid in the interview with Tapper, saying that simply isn’t her focus right now.

    She also brushed aside criticism she may face for the decision to leave the Democratic Party.

    “I’m just not worried about folks who may not like this approach,” Sinema said. “What I am worried about is continuing to do what’s right for my state. And there are folks who certainly don’t like my approach, we hear about it a lot. But the proof is in the pudding.”

    White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called Sinema a “key partner” following her decision and said the White House has “every reason to expect that we will continue to work successfully with her.”

    Sources familiar with the matter tell CNN that Sinema gave the White House a heads up that she was leaving the Democratic Party. Schumer said in a statement he also was aware of Sinema’s bombshell announcement ahead of Friday morning.

    “She asked me to keep her committee assignments and I agreed,” Schumer said. “Kyrsten is independent; that’s how she’s always been. I believe she’s a good and effective Senator and am looking forward to a productive session in the new Democratic majority Senate.”

    Schumer also outlined how he did not expect Sinema’s decision to impact Democrats’ plans for next year, saying in his statement, “We will maintain our new majority on committees, exercise our subpoena power, and be able to clear nominees without discharge votes.”

    The Biden White House is offering a muted reaction Friday morning and insisting that they expect to continue having a productive working relationship with the senator.

    One White House official tells CNN that the move “doesn’t change much” other than Sinema’s own reelection calculations.

    “We’ve worked with her effectively on a lot of major legislation from CHIPS to the bipartisan infrastructure law,” the official said. The White House, for now, has “every reason to expect that will continue,” they added.

    Sinema has long been the source of a complex convergence of possibility, frustration and confusion inside the White House.

    “Rubik’s cube, I guess?” was how one former senior White House official described the Arizona senator who has played a central role in President Joe Biden’s largest legislative wins and also some of his biggest agenda disappointments.

    There was no major push to get Sinema to change her mind, a White House official said, noting that it wouldn’t have made a difference.

    “Nothing about the last two years indicates a major effort would’ve made helped – the exact opposite actually,” a White House official said.

    The most urgent near-term effort was to quietly find out what it meant for their newly expanded Senate majority, officials said.

    While there were still clear details to figure out about process, “I think people exhaled when we had a better understanding of what she meant,” one source familiar with the discussion said.

    Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota told “CNN This Morning” that “Senator Sinema has always had an independent streak,” adding that “I don’t believe this is going to shake things up quite like everyone thinks.”

    She added, “Senator Sinema has been an independent in all intents and purposes.”

    Sinema and West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin have infuriated liberals at various points over the past two years, standing in the way of Biden’s agenda at a time when Democrats controlled the House, Senate and White House.

    Sinema and Manchin used their sway in the current 50-50 Senate – where any single Democrat could derail a bill – to influence a host of legislation, especially the massive $3.5 trillion Build Back Better bill that Biden proposed last year. Sinema’s objections to increasing the corporate tax rate during the initial round of negotiations over the legislation last year particularly rankled liberals.

    While Sinema was blindsided by the surprise deal that Manchin cut with Schumer in July on major health care and energy legislation, she ultimately backed the smaller spending package that Biden signed into law before the election.

    Both Manchin and Sinema also opposed changes to the Senate’s filibuster rules despite pressure from their Senate colleagues and Biden to change them. After a vote against filibuster changes in January, the Arizona Democratic Party’s executive board censured Sinema.

    Sinema has been in the middle of several significant bipartisan bills that were passed since Biden took office. She pointed to that record as evidence that her approach has been an effective one.

    “I’ve been honored to lead historic efforts, from infrastructure, to gun violence prevention, to protecting religious liberty and helping LGBT families feel secure, to the CHIPs and science bill to the work we’ve done on veterans’ issues,” she told CNN. “The list is really long. And so I think that the results speak for themselves. It’s OK if some people aren’t comfortable with that approach.”

    Sinema’s announcement comes just days after Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock won reelection in Georgia, securing Democrats a 51st Senate seat that frees them from reliance on Vice President Kamala Harris’ tiebreaking vote.

    Sinema declined to address questions about whether she would support Biden for president in 2024, and she also said she’s not thinking about whether a strong third party should emerge in the US.

    This story has been updated with additional developments.

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  • Key inflation measure shows price pressures cooled off in November, but remain high | CNN Business

    Key inflation measure shows price pressures cooled off in November, but remain high | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    Another key inflation measure shows price pressures cooled off but remained stubbornly high in November, despite the Federal Reserve’s monthslong efforts to fight inflation through higher interest rates.

    The Producer Price Index, which measures prices paid for goods and services by businesses before they reach consumers, rose 7.4% in November compared to a year earlier, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday. That’s down from the revised 8.1% gain reported for October.

    US stocks fell immediately after the report, as economists surveyed by Refinitiv had expected wholesales prices to have risen just 7.2%, annually. The higher-than-expected inflation readings raised concerns about whether the Fed will be able to slow the pace of rate hikes.

    But futures for the Fed funds rate still show a strong likelihood of a half-point increase at the central bank’s policymaking meeting next week, rather than the three-quarter point hike instituted at the last four meetings.

    “Overall inflation is moving in the right direction, though at a slow pace,” said Kurt Rankin, senior economist at PNC. “The Federal Reserve’s tightening plans will remain aggressive until clear, consistent signs of inflation’s demise have been demonstrated.”

    The PPI report generally gets less attention that the corresponding Consumer Price Index, which measures prices paid by US consumers for goods and services. But this is a rare month in which the PPI report came out before the CPI report, which is due out Tuesday.

    That and the Fed meeting scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday next week is making this inflation report of particular importance to investors.

    “Next Tuesday’s CPI release will be more important than today’s data, but with traders on edge, any indication that prices remain elevated and that inflation is more sticky than currently believed is a negative for markets,” said Chris Zaccarelli, Chief Investment Officer for Independent Advisor Alliance.

    Overall prices rose a seasonally adjusted 0.3% compared to October — the same monthly increase as was reported in both September and October — but were slightly higher than the 0.2% rise forecast by economists.

    Stripping out volatile food and energy prices, core PPI rose 6.2% for the year ending in November, down from the revised 6.8% increase the previous month. Economists had forecast only a 5.9% increase.

    Core PPI posted a 0.4% increase from October, a far bigger rise than the revised 0.1% month-over-month rise in that previous month, and twice as big as the 0.2% rise forecast by economists.

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  • US military braces for impact of Covid vaccine mandate repeal | CNN Politics

    US military braces for impact of Covid vaccine mandate repeal | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    As a repeal of the US military’s Covid-19 vaccine mandate took a step closer to becoming law on Thursday, military officials and experts are warning it’s a change that could have adverse ripple-effects on military readiness and the ability of service members to deploy around the world.

    “This isn’t just our side of the equation,” a defense official told CNN regarding the possible impact of the change. “It’s what our partners and people that we would train and work with are asking us to do to enter the country.”

    The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) released on Tuesday includes a provision that would rescind the Pentagon’s current mandate requiring troops receive the Covid vaccine. And while Republican lawmakers have celebrated its inclusion, the White House said it’s a mistake – though President Joe Biden has not made clear if he will sign the bill with the included provision in it.

    The House passed the NDAA on Thursday in a 350-80 vote.

    Deputy Defense Press Secretary Sabrina Singh declined on Wednesday to go into detail about what the Pentagon was preparing for if the mandate was repealed, instead emphasizing that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin believes the mandate is important for the health of the force.

    “What is important to the readiness of the force is getting the vaccine,” Singh said. “So yes, it would impact the readiness of the force – you’re more prone to getting Covid-19.”

    It’s not just about the US. American troops often have additional vaccine requirements depending on the area of the world to which they are deploying or being rotated through. Under the Pentagon’s current policy, service members who have not gotten the vaccine are considered non-deployable, Singh said Wednesday.

    Indeed, retired Gen. Robert Abrams, who previously commanded US troops in South Korea, told CNN that the vaccine repeal “will make our job more difficult,” referring to the duties of overseas commanders. The Covid-19 vaccine is required for entry to South Korea and Japan – countries that host thousands of US service members.

    Repealing the vaccine mandate “will put the US forces in an awkward position,” Abrams said, because “the host nation expects us to follow their regulations (and SOFA [status of forces agreement] requires it).”

    Republicans have long railed against the Covid vaccine requirement – which is one of more than 15 required vaccines, depending on where a service member is deployed.

    An August 2021 policy signed by Austin required all service members to receive the vaccine; the services set their own deadlines for when their troops had to be fully vaccinated.

    Now, roughly a year later, the vast majority of US troops are: 97% of active duty soldiers are completely vaccinated, as are 99% of active duty airmen, 96% of active duty Marines, and 98% of active duty sailors.

    But as the military faces the biggest recruiting crisis in decades, critics of the mandate say it is pushing out willing service members at a time when the military needs them most and standing in the way of recruits who want to join but do not want to get the vaccine.

    Marine Corps Commandant Gen. David Berger said over the weekend that the mandate is having an impact on recruiting, specifically “in parts of the country there’s still myths and misbeliefs about the back story behind it.” Capt. Ryan Bruce, a Marine Corps spokesman, later told CNN Berger was referencing “anecdotal conversations” he has had with recruiters, and not specific data showing an impact of the mandate on recruitment.

    Officials and experts raised other concerns, however, about the impact repealing the mandate could have on troops already in uniform. Rachel VanLandingham, a retired Air Force judge advocate and law professor at Southwestern Law School, told CNN that there could be “ripple effects” for units if some service members are unable to deploy because of the vaccine.

    That is especially notable for smaller units, like those found in the special operations community. While conventional forces may be able to ensure they have the numbers they need for a deployment or rotation, smaller units could face more of a challenge if the few people they have are unable to deploy because of a vaccine requirement.

    “If one unit can’t go, then the unit they’re replacing, they don’t get to go home on leave … It’s not just one unit and one person,” VanLandingham said. “One person’s inability to show up to work in a military unit affects that entire unit, and that unit is depended on by other units. It is truly a team dynamic.”

    Abrams also pointed out that vaccinations “help prevent serious illness,” and US Forces Korea “does not have the medical capacity to handle a large number of very sick infected personnel.” Instead, US personnel would have to be sent to Korean facilities, he said, which could raise issues if there is a lack of availability or if the facility is not approved by TRICARE, the US military’s health care provider.

    Experts also raised questions about the precedent it would set to roll back a lawful military order after so many refused to follow it.

    “If I’m a commander, what concerns do I have about managing this person who failed to comply with a lawful order?” said Kate Kuzminski, the director of the Military, Veterans, and Society Program at the Center for New American Security.

    “I think there are some bigger challenges within the social context and the culture of the military if pushing back on a lawful order actually changes the nature of the lawful order,” she added. “You might see people refusing to do other things in the future that we very much need them to do.”

    Among the debated points of the vaccine repeal is the question of what will happen to the roughly 8,000 service members who have already been separated and forced to leave the military because they refused to be vaccinated. While some speculate that because they refused a lawful order they will remain separated, some lawmakers are pushing for them to be reinstated.

    A letter sent on November 30 to Republican leadership and signed by 13 Republican senators requests that not only is the mandate rescinded, but that service members who have been separated are reinstated “with back pay.” Pentagon leaders are reportedly discussing the possibility.

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  • House Committee investigation finds NFL owner Dan Snyder led by a ‘culture of fear’ | CNN

    House Committee investigation finds NFL owner Dan Snyder led by a ‘culture of fear’ | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A year-long investigation by the House Committee on Oversight and Reform revealed on Thursday that Washington Commanders owner Dan Snyder established a “culture of fear” within the NFL organization and attempted to intimidate witnesses from cooperating with investigators.

    The 79-page report found “sexual harassment, bullying, and other toxic conduct” pervaded the workplace for decades. The investigation was announced last October by Rep. Carolyn Maloney, chairwoman of the Committee on Oversight and Reform, and Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, chairman of the Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy, following allegations against Snyder.

    At a previous congressional roundtable, former employees and cheerleaders accused Snyder of asking staff to compile lewd video clips of cheerleaders without their knowledge or consent.

    An internal investigation by attorney Beth Wilkinson last year resulted in the NFL fining the Commanders $10 million and Snyder handing control of the franchise’s daily operations to his wife. But the NFL declined to publicly release its findings, sparking the House Oversight Committee’s review in October.

    Snyder has denied the accusations and said last month that he is considering a sale of the team.

    The report noted the NFL was aware that Snyder and the Commanders organization “used a variety of tactics to intimidate, surveil, and pay off whistleblowers and to influence and obstruct Ms. Wilkinson’s work.”

    The investigation revealed Snyder attempted to intimidate witnesses by sending private investigators to the homes of former employees. The congressional report also states how Snyder told former team president Bruce Allen that Snyder planned to deploy private investigators to follow others, including NFL commissioner Roger Goodell.

    CNN has reached out to Snyder for comment.

    NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy issued a statement on Thursday afternoon in response to the report’s findings, saying it did not impede the investigation.

    “No individual who wished to speak to the Wilkinson firm was prevented from doing so by non-disclosure agreements,” the statement reads. “And many of the more than 150 witnesses who participated in the Wilkinson investigation did so on the condition that their identities would be kept confidential. Far from impeding the investigation, the common interest agreement enabled the NFL efficiently to assume oversight of the matter and avoided the potential for substantial delay and inconvenience to witnesses.”

    The NFL said it has cooperated “extensively” with the committee’s investigation and is committed to “ensuring that all employees of the NFL and the 32 clubs work in a professional and supportive environment that is free from discrimination, harassment, or other forms of illegal or unprofessional conduct.”

    In October, Snyder denied allegations he hired private investigators to look into his NFL counterparts, as well as Goodell.

    On Thursday, lawyers for the Commanders said congressional investigators “were not interested in the truth” in their investigation of Snyder and “no new revelations” were revealed in Thursday’s report.

    As for the NFL, the congressional inquiry concluded the league was complicit in Snyder’s behavior by aligning “its legal interests with Mr. Snyder’s.” The league “failed to curtail his abusive tactics, and buried the investigation’s findings,” the committee said.

    “Today’s report reflects the damning findings of the Committee’s year-long investigation and shows how one of the most powerful organizations in America, the NFL, mishandled pervasive sexual harassment and misconduct at the Washington Commanders,” Maloney said in a statement.

    “Our report tells the story of a team rife with sexual harassment and misconduct, a billionaire owner intent on deflecting blame, and an influential organization that chose to cover this up rather than seek accountability and stand up for employees,” the statement continued. “To powerful industries across the country, this report should serve as a wake-up call that the time of covering up misconduct to protect powerful executives is over.”

    In its conclusion, the committee has called for Congress to introduce reforms that would “strengthen oversight of toxic workplaces in the NFL and other professional sports leagues.”

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  • FTC sues to block Microsoft’s $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard | CNN Business

    FTC sues to block Microsoft’s $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard | CNN Business

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    Washington
    CNN
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    The Federal Trade Commission on Thursday sued to block Microsoft’s $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, challenging one of the largest tech acquisitions in history.

    The administrative complaint filed Thursday by the FTC alleges that the blockbuster deal, which would make Microsoft the third-largest video game publisher in the world, would give Microsoft “both the means and motive to harm competition” — claiming it could negatively affect prices of video games as well as game quality and player experiences on consoles and gaming services, according to an agency release.

    “We continue to believe that this deal will expand competition and create more opportunities for gamers and game developers,” Brad Smith, Microsoft’s president, said in a statement Thursday. “We have been committed since Day One to addressing competition concerns, including by offering earlier this week proposed concessions to the FTC. While we believed in giving peace a chance, we have complete confidence in our case and welcome the opportunity to present our case in court.”

    In an email sent to employees and provided to CNN, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick said the FTC suit may sound “alarming” but he remains confident the deal will close. “The allegation that this deal is anti-competitive doesn’t align with the facts, and we believe we’ll win this challenge,” he said.

    The US merger challenge reflects the biggest setback yet for Microsoft as it has aggressively courted regulators around the world in hopes of persuading them to bless the deal. It also marks the FTC’s most significant challenge to the tech industry since it sued to break up Facebook-owner Meta in 2020, underscoring US officials’ vocal promises of a tough antitrust enforcement agenda.

    “Today we seek to stop Microsoft from gaining control over a leading independent game studio and using it to harm competition in multiple dynamic and fast-growing gaming markets,” said Holly Vedova, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Competition, in a statement.

    Microsoft’s proposed deal would give it control over key video game franchises, including “Call of Duty,” “World of Warcraft” and more.

    Officials in the United Kingdom and the European Union have also scrutinized the deal as potentially anticompetitive. But the FTC complaint marks the first attempt by an antitrust regulator to block the deal outright.

    Microsoft could use its ownership over Activision titles to raise prices, or to try to funnel players to gaming platforms it controls, such as Xbox or Windows, the FTC said. The deal could also affect the emerging market for cloud-based gaming services, the FTC said, which Microsoft is involved with through its subscription service, Xbox Game Pass.

    In recent days, Microsoft has announced a slew of partnerships apparently intended to head off claims that it would withhold gaming content from rivals. This week, Microsoft said it had reached a 10-year deal with Nintendo ensuring that it will have access to Call of Duty for the foreseeable future.

    In a Wall Street Journal op-ed Monday, Microsoft’s Smith said an FTC suit to block the Activision deal would be a “huge mistake” and added that the acquisition would allow Microsoft to innovate new features such as the ability for consumer to play the same game on multiple devices, just as they can with streaming TV shows or music.

    Months earlier, in February, Microsoft made an 11-point pledge related to all of its app marketplaces and its gaming business. The list included a promise, which would cover the proposed Activision deal, not to give preferential treatment to its own published games on digital marketplaces it runs.

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