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The Senate is poised to take the first steps toward ending the 40-day government shutdown Sunday after a group of moderate Democrats agreed to proceed without a guaranteed extension of healthcare subsidies, angering many in their caucus who want to…
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By MARY CLARE JALONICK and LISA MASCARO – Associated Press
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Former President Joe Biden spoke to Nebraska Democrats on Friday evening.His appearance at the annual Ben Nelson Gala comes just days after nationwide elections. And, it was one of a handful of times we’ve heard from the former president since he left office and was undergoing radiation therapy for prostate cancer.On Friday, he addressed a crowd of several hundred in downtown Omaha with a message of momentum for the state of Nebraska.“Did you see the results Tuesday?” he asked, igniting another round of cheers as he listed Democratic victories from governorships in New Jersey and Virginia to the mayoral seat in New York to a redistricting decision in California, according to the Associated Press.It was a joyful return to the political stage for the former president, whose party’s effort to remain in the White House was rejected just over a year ago. Biden called for a political comeback, though not for himself, but to an audience hungry for a fight.”You have an election soon, an open seat right here in Omaha,” Biden said. “We can’t be afraid to dream big.”“You know what it feels like to be outnumbered,” he told Democrats in Nebraska, where Republicans have carried the state in every presidential election since 1968. “But every election, you put up the yard signs and you make your voices heard. The country needs you badly.”It was the kind of pep talk that sells in a place where Democrats lose statewide but have staged winning races for the Omaha area’s 2nd District electoral vote, elected a Democratic mayor for the first time since 2009 and feel energized about capturing the 2nd District seat in 2026.Biden’s speech centered around his time in office and the changes he said now hit American families during President Donald Trump’s term.He brought up the ongoing pause of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits and the demolition of the East Wing.The major point from the former president centered around the future of his party.”The Democratic Party is back,” Biden said. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men and women are created equal. We’ve never lived up to it, but we’ve never walked away from it. And folks, we’re not going to walk away from it now. Tuesday night was a good start.”Biden was honored at the gala by four Native Nebraska tribes, draping a blanket quilt over his shoulders, which was then followed by a performance dedicated to the former president.Several other Democrats were at the gala, including Kentucky’s Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear and Omaha Mayor John Ewing Jr.__The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Former President Joe Biden spoke to Nebraska Democrats on Friday evening.
His appearance at the annual Ben Nelson Gala comes just days after nationwide elections. And, it was one of a handful of times we’ve heard from the former president since he left office and was undergoing radiation therapy for prostate cancer.
On Friday, he addressed a crowd of several hundred in downtown Omaha with a message of momentum for the state of Nebraska.
“Did you see the results Tuesday?” he asked, igniting another round of cheers as he listed Democratic victories from governorships in New Jersey and Virginia to the mayoral seat in New York to a redistricting decision in California, according to the Associated Press.
It was a joyful return to the political stage for the former president, whose party’s effort to remain in the White House was rejected just over a year ago. Biden called for a political comeback, though not for himself, but to an audience hungry for a fight.
“You have an election soon, an open seat right here in Omaha,” Biden said. “We can’t be afraid to dream big.”
“You know what it feels like to be outnumbered,” he told Democrats in Nebraska, where Republicans have carried the state in every presidential election since 1968. “But every election, you put up the yard signs and you make your voices heard. The country needs you badly.”
It was the kind of pep talk that sells in a place where Democrats lose statewide but have staged winning races for the Omaha area’s 2nd District electoral vote, elected a Democratic mayor for the first time since 2009 and feel energized about capturing the 2nd District seat in 2026.
Biden’s speech centered around his time in office and the changes he said now hit American families during President Donald Trump’s term.
He brought up the ongoing pause of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits and the demolition of the East Wing.
The major point from the former president centered around the future of his party.
“The Democratic Party is back,” Biden said. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men and women are created equal. We’ve never lived up to it, but we’ve never walked away from it. And folks, we’re not going to walk away from it now. Tuesday night was a good start.”
Biden was honored at the gala by four Native Nebraska tribes, draping a blanket quilt over his shoulders, which was then followed by a performance dedicated to the former president.
Several other Democrats were at the gala, including Kentucky’s Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear and Omaha Mayor John Ewing Jr.
__
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Mohammed Shia al-Sudani is running for re-election Tuesday after managing to keep his country out of the region’s recent conflicts.
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Michael Amon
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If you want to see what a “living constitution” looks like, go to Europe. On Tuesday, in Vainik v. Estonia, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that four longtime prisoners in Estonia were due restitution from the state for “weight gain, sleeping problems, depression, and anxiety” caused by not being allowed to smoke in prison.
The decision was grounded on Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The text of Article 8 doesn’t mention any right to enjoy a cigarette whenever one pleases. Rather, it protects a broad “right to private life,” which the court accused Estonia of violating in the Vainik case. “The Court,” the judges wrote, “was sensitive to the context of the already limited personal autonomy of prisoners, and that the freedom for them to decide for themselves—such as whether to smoke—was all the more precious.” An odd ruling, but perhaps Europe loves its cigarettes that much?
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John Masko
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The U.S. appears to be preparing to attack my country. That’s a sentence nobody wants to write. For us Venezuelans, though, it’s especially bitter. For years, we looked to the U.S. to support our fledgling democracy movement against an authoritarian government happy to rewrite history to suit its political convenience. Now, in a bizarre twist of fate, our country faces an attack by an authoritarian American government that is happy to rewrite our history to suit its own political convenience.
Though President Trump has said in recent days that he doubts the U.S. will go to war with Venezuela, the American military buildup is ongoing, and The Wall Street Journal and other sources have reported on the Pentagon’s efforts to select targets in the country. Trump has said again and again that he is going after Nicolás Maduro because the dictator emptied out Venezuela’s prisons as part of a sinister plan to flood U.S. streets with drug dealers.
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RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — As the polls closed on Tuesday across Virginia, it quickly became clear it was a night of firsts: Voters overwhelmingly elected a slate of candidates who broke race and gender barriers in contests considered among the most consequential nationally.
Republicans in Virginia also fielded a historically diverse statewide ticket that would have set records.
The results come as President Donald Trump has made his opposition to diversity initiatives a cornerstone of his platform, dismantling federal civil rights programs that sought to rectify a complicated history of racial discrimination. He has justified those moves by saying that race and gender equity programs overcorrect for past wrongs and foment anti-American sentiment — a position shared among many conservatives across the country.
Still, Virginia’s election results — in tandem with high-profile Democratic victories across the U.S. — call into question whether Trump’s staunch positions on race, gender and gender identity are resonating with voters.
Democrat Abigail Spanberger won the Virginia governor’s race Tuesday, giving Democrats a key victory heading into the 2026 midterm elections and making history as the first woman ever to lead the Commonwealth. Her victory was decisive, with about 57% of the vote.
The race was bound to make history regardless of who came out on top: Spanberger was running against Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, marking the first time two women were the front-runners in a general election for governor.
In her acceptance speech, Spanberger recalled how her husband said to their three daughters, “Your mom is going to be the governor of Virginia.”
“And I can guarantee you those words have never been spoken in Virginia, ever before,” she said, beaming.
Spanberger said her victory meant Virginians were choosing “pragmatism over partisanship” and “leadership that will focus on problem solving and not stoking division.”
Democrat Ghazala Hashmi defeated Republican John Reid in the race for lieutenant governor, becoming the first Indian American woman to win statewide office in Virginia. She is also the first Muslim woman to be elected statewide in the U.S.
Firsts are not new to Hashmi. She was the first Muslim woman elected to the Virginia Senate five years ago. Hashmi, a former English professor born in India, said at the time that her opposition to Trump’s Muslim ban motivated her to break into politics.
This time around, her campaign for lieutenant governor focused less on her identity and more on key issues, such as health and education. Still, some said her identity was a prominent factor in the race. Reid recently took to social media to tie Hashmi to Zohran Mamdani, the first Muslim elected mayor of New York City, despite marked differences in their platforms, nationalities and ages — a comparison critics said was Islamophobic.
Like the governor’s race, the battle for lieutenant governor would have been historic either way: Reid was the first openly gay man nominated to statewide office in Virginia, and he faced hurdles on the trail in connection to his sexuality. GOP Gov. Glenn Youngkin asked him to leave the ticket after opposition research linked him to a social media account with sexually explicit photos of men. At the time, Reid said he felt betrayed.
In her victory speech, Hashmi said her candidacy reflected progress in the state and nation.
“My own journey — from a young child landing at the airport in Savannah, Georgia, to now being elected as the first Muslim woman to achieve statewide office in Virginia and in the entire country — is only possible because of the depth and breadth of opportunities made available in this country and in this commonwealth.”
Democrat Jay Jones defeated Republican incumbent Attorney General Jason Miyares, becoming the first Black person elected as top prosecutor in the former capital of the Confederacy.
Jones, a former Virginia delegate, comes from a long line of racial-justice trailblazers — a fact he emphasized throughout his campaign and after his victory.
“My ancestors were slaves. My grandfather was a civil rights pioneer who braved Jim Crow,” Jones said Tuesday. “My mother, my uncles, my aunts endured segregation, all so that I could stand before you today.”
That said, Jones’ victory is as much a referendum on dissatisfaction with the government shutdown and Trump’s mass firings, which have hit Virginia especially hard due to its high concentration of federal workers.
Ever since Democrat Jimmy Carter won the White House in 1976, every time a new president has been elected, Virginia has voted in a governor the following year from the opposite party.
Jones’ win comes after Miyares, elected in 2021, became the first Latino to hold a Virginia statewide office.
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Leader Xi Jinping marked a step in his mission to modernize the nation’s military.
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Chun Han Wong
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A detachment of Israeli engineering troops was demolishing tunnels behind the withdrawal line in Gaza last month when Hamas militants sprang from a hidden shaft, fired an antitank missile toward their excavator and killed two soldiers.
A little over a week earlier, Israel and Hamas had agreed to a cease-fire. Israel responded to the deadly encounter with a round of airstrikes on Gaza that killed dozens of people.
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WASHINGTON—President Trump has recently expressed reservations to top aides about launching military action to oust Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, fearing that strikes might not compel the autocrat to step down, according to U.S. officials familiar with the deliberations.
The debate underscores that the administration’s Venezuela strategy remains in flux, despite a buildup of military forces in the region and public threats by Trump to launch attacks.
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[ad_2] Alexander Ward[ad_1]
Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his top security officials to draw up plans for potential nuclear weapons testing should President Trump follow through on his suggestions that the U.S. resume testing its nuclear arsenal, in a fresh sign of the faltering relationship between the two leaders.
While the threats from each side are likely still tools for political signaling at this stage, if either Washington or Moscow pushes ahead with testing it would raise nuclear tensions to levels unseen since the peak of the Cold War.
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[ad_2] Thomas Grove[ad_1]
TEL AVIV—The body of the last dead American hostage in Gaza was returned by Hamas after more than two years, marking the close of a painful chapter for U.S. families whose relatives were taken by the militant group.
Itay Chen, 19, an Israeli-American soldier who also holds German citizenship, was killed during the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack while fighting off militants with his tank crew in southern Israel. Chen was one of around 250 hostages taken during the attack, including around a dozen U.S. nationals, according to the Hostages Families Forum, an advocacy group.
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LOUISVILLE, Ky. — A UPS cargo plane crashed and exploded in a massive fireball Tuesday while taking off from the company’s global aviation hub in Louisville, Kentucky, killing at least seven people and injuring 11, authorities said.
The plane crashed about 5:15 p.m. as it was departing for Honolulu from UPS Worldport at Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport.
Video showed flames on the plane’s left wing and a trail of smoke. The plane then lifted slightly off the ground before crashing and exploding in a huge fireball. Video also revealed portions of a building’s shredded roof next to the end of the runway.
Among the 11 who were hurt, some had “very significant” injuries, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said.
“Anybody who has seen the images, the video, knows how violent this crash is,” he said.
Beshear said he didn’t know the status of the three crew members aboard the plane, a McDonnell Douglas MD-11 made in 1991.
UPS’s largest package handling facility is in Louisville. The hub employs thousands of workers, has 300 daily flights and sorts more than 400,000 packages an hour.
“We all know somebody who works at UPS,” Louisville Metro Council member Betsy Ruhe said. “And they’re all texting their friends, their family, trying to make sure everyone is safe. Sadly, some of those texts are probably going to go unanswered. My heart goes out to those families and those friends.”
UPS acknowledged the crash in a brief statement and said the National Transportation Safety Board would handle the investigation.
The airport, meanwhile, was shut down and wasn’t expected to resume operations until Wednesday morning.
“We don’t know how long it’s going to take to render that scene safe,” said Louisville Police Chief Paul Humphrey.
The governor said a business, Kentucky Petroleum Recycling, appeared to be “hit pretty directly,” and a nearby auto parts operation was also affected.
A video taken by Leirim Rodríguez shows several massive balls of flames exploding into the sky in a row, followed by large billowing clouds of black smoke. Rodriguez told the AP she and her husband just happened to be in the area at the time of the explosion.
Tom Brooks Jr., who runs a metal recycling business down the street, said the unbelievable magnitude of the crash “just rocked the whole place.”
“This was massive. I mean, it literally looked like a war zone,” he said.
Destyn Mitchell said she was working as a host at an Outback restaurant, about a 15-minute drive from the crash, when she heard a loud boom. About 20 people were in the restaurant.
“The mood in the restaurant was very shaken up,” Mitchell said. “Everyone is really concerned. People who just sat down to eat got up and left in under 30 minutes and packed up their food because they wanted to hurry up and get home.”
Pablo Rojas, an aviation attorney, said that based on the videos it looked like the aircraft was struggling to gain altitude as a fire blazed on its left side around one of its engines. Given the large amount of fuel it was carrying, once the fire started in that area, it would’ve been only a matter of time before there was an explosion or the fire grew rapidly.
“Really the plane itself is almost acting like a bomb because of the amount of fuel,” he said.
The Louisville airport is only a 10-minute drive from the city’s downtown, which sits on the Ohio River bordering the Indiana state line. There are residential areas, a water park and museums in the area.
A UPS statement reads, “Our heartfelt thoughts are with everyone involved. We are terribly saddened by the accident tonight in Louisville. Our heartfelt thoughts are with everyone involved. UPS is committed to the safety of our employees, our customers and the communities we serve. This is particularly true in Louisville, home to our airline and thousands of UPSers. We are engaged with the National Transportation Safety Board’s investigation of the accident and are staying in close contact with the Federal Aviation Administration. We will work tirelessly with state and local authorities on response efforts. As a result of the accident, we are halting package sorting operations tonight at Worldport. Family members seeking information should call 800-631-0604.”
Golden reported from Seattle. AP reporters Ed White in Detroit, John Raby in Cross Lanes, West Virginia, and Adrian Sainz in Memphis, Tennessee, contributed to this report.
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When Russian soldier Sergey Khandozhko got married the day after enlisting in October 2023, his family and friends were confused. The 40-year-old had never mentioned the bride. Nor had he spoken of marriage.
More puzzling was the 20-minute wedding ceremony without photos or exchange of rings, and only one guest. Afterward, Khandozhko’s new wife even carried on living with her ex-husband and their children, according to testimony and a court ruling reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
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Matthew Luxmoore
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Dick Cheney, who served four Republican presidents and whose role as an architect of the post-9/11 war on terror made him one of the most powerful—and controversial—U.S. vice presidents in history, died on Monday. He was 84.
He died due to complications of pneumonia and cardiac and vascular disease, his family said in a statement.
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John D. McKinnon
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President Trump wanted the attention of Nigerian President Bola Tinubu, and he’s got it. On Friday Mr. Trump designated Africa’s most populous nation a “country of particular concern” for religious persecution. And on Saturday he wrote that if Nigeria fails to protect its Christians, the U.S. may go in “‘guns-a-blazing,’ to completely wipe out the Islamic Terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities.”
Christians account for nearly half of Nigeria’s population, and they’ll welcome Mr. Trump’s attention. Open Doors International, which tracks religious persecution, says more Christians are killed for their faith in Nigeria than anywhere else in the world.
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In the turquoise waters of the South China Sea, one country is challenging Beijing’s grip on one of the world’s most important maritime thoroughfares.
Over four years, Vietnam has built out a series of remote rocks, reefs and atolls to create heavily fortified artificial islands that expand its military footprint in the Spratly Islands, an archipelago where Hanoi’s claims clash not only with China’s but also with those of Taiwan, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei.
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Gabriele Steinhauser
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Republicans and Democrats remained at a stalemate on the government shutdown over the weekend as it headed into its sixth week, with millions of Americans starting to lose food aid benefits and President Donald Trump pushing GOP leaders to change…
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By MARY CLARE JALONICK – Associated Press
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LOUISVILLE, Ky. — People across the country formed long lines for free meals and groceries at food pantries and drive-through giveaways over the weekend after monthly benefits through the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, were suddenly cut off because of the ongoing government shutdown.
In the New York borough of the Bronx, about 200 more people than usual showed up at the World of Life Christian Fellowship International pantry, many bundled in winter hats and coats and pushing collapsible shopping carts as they waited in a line that spanned multiple city blocks. Some arrived as early as 4 a.m. to choose from pallets of fruits, vegetables, bread, milk, juice, dry goods and prepared sandwiches.
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By SUSAN HAIGH and DYLAN LOVAN – Associated Press
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