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Tag: United States government

  • Lavrov blames West for no Ukraine talks, defends navy drills

    Lavrov blames West for no Ukraine talks, defends navy drills

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    PRETORIA, South Africa (AP) — Russia was willing to negotiate with Ukraine in the early months of the war, but the United States and other Western nations advised Kyiv against holding talks, Moscow’s top diplomat said Monday.

    Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s remarks on a visit to South Africa were similar to those made last year by President Vladimir Putin. The U.S. and other Western nations have said that Russia isn’t serious about hammering out a deal to end the nearly year-long war, which began on Feb. 24.

    “It is well known that we supported the proposal of the Ukrainian side to negotiate early in the special military operation and by the end of March, the two delegations agreed on the principle to settle this conflict,” Lavrov said.

    “It is well known and was published openly that our American, British, and some European colleagues told Ukraine that it is too early to deal, and the arrangement which was almost agreed was never revisited by the Kyiv regime.”

    Russia has repeatedly rejected Ukrainian and Western demands that it withdraw completely from Ukraine as a condition for any negotiations. U.S. President Joe Biden has indicated he would be willing to talk with Putin, if the Russian leader demonstrated that he seriously wanted to end the invasion.

    Lavrov is in Pretoria for talks with South African counterpart Naledi Pandor as Russia pushes to strengthen ties with Africa’s most developed country and an historical ally amid the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.

    South Africa was seen as the most significant of several African nations to take a neutral stance on the war and refuse to condemn Russia’s invasion — to the disappointment of the U.S. and other Western partners who also view South Africa as pivotal to their plans to build relationships in Africa.

    Lavrov met with Pandor in the South African capital and is expected to visit other African countries on his trip. It’s the Russian minister’s second visit to Africa in the space of six months as Moscow seeks to rally support.

    Russia’s war in Ukraine and its impact on Africa’s 1.3 billion people, which includes rising oil and food prices, was expected to take center stage during Lavrov’s talks with Pandor.

    “We are fully alert that conflict, wherever it exists in the world, impacts negatively on all of us, and as the developing world it impacts on us particularly as the African continent,” Pandor said before the talks. “This is why as South Africa we consistently articulate that we will always stand ready to support the peaceful resolution of conflicts in the continent and throughout the globe.”

    Lavrov repeated a claim that he’s made before that the West was responsible for the surge in global food prices.

    South Africa continues to keep strong bonds with Russia following the Soviet Union’s support for the country’s current ruling party, the African National Congress, when it was a liberation movement fighting to end the apartheid system of repression against South Africa’s Black majority.

    That relationship is largely what led South Africa to abstain from a U.N. vote last year condemning Russia’s actions in Ukraine, although a small group of people protested against Russia and its full-scale invasion of Ukraine outside the building where Lavrov and Pandor held talks.

    Despite South Africa’s expressed neutrality over Ukraine, Lavrov’s visit comes days after the South African armed forces announced they would hold joint drills with the Russian and Chinese navies off South Africa’s eastern coast next month, bringing Russian and Chinese warships across the Indian Ocean.

    On Monday, Lavrov insisted that the naval exercises would be “transparent” and follow international law.

    “Three sovereign countries will hold drills without violating international law, and I don’t understand with whom this can cause a mixed reaction,” Lavrov was quoted as saying by Russian state news agency Tass.

    Lavrov visited Ethiopia, Egypt, Uganda and the Republic of Congo on his African tour last year. That was closely followed by a visit to South Africa by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, a move seen as a bid by Washington to counter expanding Russian influence in a strategically important continent.

    This time, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will start an official visit to South Africa on Wednesday following stops in Senegal and Zambia.

    Yellin’s arrival in South Africa comes on the same day that a second U.S. Cabinet minister, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield, arrives in Ghana at the start of a three-nation African trip that will also include Mozambique and Kenya.

    Biden announced at the end of a U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit in December that he will visit sub-Saharan Africa in 2023, the first trip to the region by a U.S. leader in a decade.

    The summit and high-level U.S. visits are aimed at strengthening U.S. relations with Africa, where China has surpassed the U.S. in trade and is aiming to increase its military presence, and Russia has military ties with the authorities in Mali and Central African Republic.

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    Follow the AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

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  • FACT FOCUS: Biden administration isn’t banning gas stoves

    FACT FOCUS: Biden administration isn’t banning gas stoves

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    The Biden administration has come under fire this week due to overcooked fears that it is planning a nationwide ban on gas stoves.

    The claim was sparked by comments from a Consumer Product Safety Commission official published Monday that “any option is on the table” when it comes to regulating gas stoves, amid growing health concerns over the appliances. In the days after, discussion online evoked images of the government dragging four-burner cooktops from homes, as social media users shared memes of gas stoves with text like, “Don’t Tread On Me.”

    “I’ll NEVER give up my gas stove. If the maniacs in the White House come for my stove, they can pry it from my cold dead hands. COME AND TAKE IT!!” conservative Texas GOP Rep. Ronny Jackson said on Twitter Tuesday.

    But officials insist that people’s kitchen appliances are in no danger. Here’s a closer look at the facts.

    CLAIM: The Biden administration is planning a ban on gas stoves nationwide.

    THE FACTS: The White House says President Joe Biden would not support a ban, and the commission, an independent agency, says no such ban is in the works.

    “I am not looking to ban gas stoves and the CPSC has no proceeding to do so,” CPSC Chair Alex Hoehn-Saric said in a statement on Wednesday.

    The notion that the government may regulate some stoves out of existence in the future isn’t totally baseless. In an interview published Monday by Bloomberg News, Richard Trumka Jr., a CPSC commissioner who was nominated to the post by Biden and has concerns that gas stoves emit dangerous levels of toxic chemicals, was quoted as saying: “Any option is on the table. Products that can’t be made safe can be banned.”

    However, Trumka tweeted later that day to clarify that he was talking about regulation on new products.

    “To be clear, CPSC isn’t coming for anyone’s gas stoves,” he wrote. “Regulations apply to new products.”

    Despite this, news of a potential “gas stove ban” continued to spread in headlines and on social media. Some users, including Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, shared an old photo of first lady Jill Biden cooking on a gas stove, suggesting hypocrisy.

    “The federal government has no business telling American families how to cook their dinner. I can tell you the last thing that would ever leave my house is the gas stove that we cook on,” West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin tweeted Tuesday.

    The White House responded by distancing itself from Trumka’s comments.

    “The president does not support banning gas stoves,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said at a press briefing on Wednesday. “And the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which is independent, is not banning gas stoves.”

    The CPSC is studying gas stove emissions and ways to address potential health risks and is seeking public input on the issue in the spring, Hoehn-Saric noted in his statement. Pamela Rucker Springs, a spokesperson for the commission, confirmed to The Associated Press that it has not proposed any regulatory action on gas stoves.

    “The chairman’s statement makes it explicit what we are planning and what we’re not planning,” Springs said. “Anything otherwise said is to the contrary.”

    Research has found that gas stoves in California are leaking cancer-causing benzene, while another study determined that U.S. gas stoves are contributing to global warming by putting 2.6 million tons of methane in the air each year even when turned off. There is good evidence that gas stoves emit harmful levels of oxides of nitrogen, which is known to cause asthma, said Dr. Aaron Bernstein, interim director of the center for climate, health, and the global environment at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

    Some federal lawmakers have called on the commission to address the potential health risks through regulation, such as requiring that gas stoves be sold with range hoods to improve ventilation or issuing mandatory performance standards for gas stoves to address the health impacts of hazardous emissions. Some local governments have moved to ban new buildings from using natural gas, such as San Francisco and Berkeley, California.

    Banning gas stoves isn’t a “practical response” to the research on the harmful effects of gas stoves, Bernstein said. Instead, steps should be taken to limit prolonged use of gas stoves and improve ventilation in kitchens with gas stoves, such as using vents or opening doors and windows, he said.

    “What we know is that gas stoves release air pollutants that are absolutely known to be harmful,” Bernstein said. “And the part that’s harder to get clarity on is how much exposure are people getting in their homes.”

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    This is part of AP’s effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.

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  • Top Biden aide Ron Klain expected to soon leave White House

    Top Biden aide Ron Klain expected to soon leave White House

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    REHOBOTH BEACH, Del. (AP) — White House chief of staff Ron Klain, who has spent more than two years as President Joe Biden’s top aide, is preparing to leave his job in the coming weeks, according to a person familiar with Klain’s plans.

    Klain’s expected departure comes not long after the White House and Democrats had a better-than-expected showing in the November elections, buoyed by a series of major legislative accomplishments, including a bipartisan infrastructure bill and a sweeping climate, health care and tax package that all Republicans rejected.

    The personnel change is also a rarity for an administration that has had minimal turnover so far. No member of Biden’s Cabinet has stepped down, in stark contrast to Donald Trump’s White House, with frequent staff turmoil and other crises.

    The person familiar with Klain’s plans was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity to confirm the development, which was first reported by The New York Times.

    The White House did not return calls or emails seeking comment on Klain’s expected exit. Spending the weekend in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, Biden did not respond to shouted questions about when his chief of staff is expected to depart.

    Klain sent an email to White House staff on Friday, which was the second anniversary of Biden’s inauguration. “Although much work remains ahead, as we look back on these two years, I am awestruck at what this team has done and how you have done it,” he wrote in the email, obtained by The Associated Press, and noted that he bought cake to mark the occasion. He added: “These cakes are my small way of adding my personal thanks to those of the President, the Vice President and the country for your service and outstanding achievements.”

    Now that Republicans have regained a majority in the House, the White House is preparing to shift to a more defensive posture. GOP lawmakers are planning multiple investigations into the Biden administration, examining everything from the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan to U.S. border policy. Republicans are also pledging to investigate the president’s son, Hunter Biden.

    Klain’s departure also comes as the White House struggles to contain the fallout after classified documents dating from Biden’s time as vice president were discovered at his home in Wilmington, Delaware, and at his former institute in Washington. Attorney General Merrick Garland has appointed a special counsel to investigate the matter. Biden’s lawyer said Saturday that the FBI searched the Wilmington home on Friday, locating six additional documents containing classified markings and taking possession of some of his notes.

    Among those on the shortlist to succeed Klain include Steve Ricchetti, counselor to the president; Labor Secretary Marty Walsh; former White House COVID-19 response coordinator Jeff Zients; Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack; and Anita Dunn, a White House senior adviser.

    Dunn has publicly ruled out interest in the chief of staff job but would be the first woman in the post. She played a leading role in shaping Biden’s political and communications strategy, including the “ultra-MAGA” framing of Republicans that helped Democrats exceed expectations during the 2022 midterms.

    Zients has returned to the White House since running the COVID-19 response team in a low-profile role to ensure the administration is appropriately staffed for the remainder of Biden’s first term. Ricchetti, a former lobbyist, followed after Klain and senior adviser Bruce Reed as Biden’s final vice presidential chief of staff.

    Walsh, Boston’s mayor before joining the Cabinet, earned praise from Biden as recently as Friday for his job performance. Vilsack, a former Iowa governor, is in his second stint as agriculture secretary after serving in the role for the entirety of the Obama administration. He volunteered for Biden during Biden’s ill-fated 1988 presidential bid in Iowa.

    Klain, a longtime Democratic political operative, has overseen a West Wing that has been largely free of the high-stakes drama that permeated the upper echelons of the Trump administration. Klain has been an outspoken proponent of Biden’s agenda via Twitter, where he frequently engages with reporters to defend the president’s record.

    His social-media use has run Klain into trouble at times. In October, he was found to have violated the Hatch Act, which bars government officials from political activity when acting in their official capacity, when he retweeted a message from a political group last spring. At the time, the White House said Klain “got it wrong this time” and he promised to be more careful with his Twitter account.

    The Indianapolis native has served under Biden for decades, including as chief counsel of the Senate Judiciary Committee when Biden was its chairman. Klain also worked on judicial picks in the Clinton White House, helping with the nomination of Ruth Bader Ginsberg for the Supreme Court.

    “With all due respect to my predecessors, I’m sure this is a higher priority for me.” Klain said in an Associated Press interview last month in which he discussed the importance placed by Biden of seating judges on the federal bench. ”The fact that (the president) makes it such a priority, makes it a big priority for me.”

    Klain helped lead then-Vice President Al Gore’s legal team during the 2000 election’s Florida vote recount in the race against Republican George W. Bush. Actor Kevin Spacey portrayed Klain in HBO’s “Recount,” an account of the events that determined the presidency.

    He was also tapped during the Obama administration to lead its response to the Ebola crisis — a background that came in handy as the Biden White House took on the COVID-19 pandemic in the early months of his presidency.

    The father of three is married to Monica Medina, an assistant secretary of state.

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    Balsamo and Miller reported from Washington.

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  • US citizens get chance to play role in resettling refugees

    US citizens get chance to play role in resettling refugees

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — A government program launched Thursday is giving American citizens the chance to play a role in resettling the thousands of refugees who arrive every year in the United States.

    During the first year of the Welcome Corps, the State Department aims to line up 10,000 Americans who can help 5,000 refugees adjust to life in the United States.

    “By tapping into the goodwill of American communities, the Welcome Corps will expand our country’s capacity to provide a warm welcome to higher numbers of refugees,” the department said in announcing the effort.

    When refugees from around the world arrive in the U.S., they face a dramatically different way of life. To ease that transition, the department traditionally has worked with nonprofit groups that specialize in refugee issues. Under the new program, five or more Americans could form a group and help fill this role, as well.

    They would apply to privately sponsor refugees to resettle in the U.S. and would be responsible for raising their own money to help the refugees over the first 90 days. Assistance would include everything from greeting refugees at the airport to finding them place to live and getting kids enrolled in school.

    A consortium of nonprofits with expertise in refugee resettlement will help oversee the vetting and certification of people and groups who want to be private sponsors. They also will offer training so private sponsors understand what’s needed to help refugees adjusting to life in America. The consortium will be responsible for monitoring the program.

    The program will roll out in two phases. First, private sponsors will be matched with refugees already approved for resettlement under the U.S. Refugee Assistance Program. That will start during the first half of 2023.

    Later, private sponsors could identify refugees abroad they would like to help and then refer those people to the Refugee Assistance Program and assist them once they arrive in the U.S.

    The program is different from a recent initiative that allows 30,000 people into the country a month from Nicaragua, Cuba, Haiti and Venezuela. They also need a sponsor but are being admitted to the U.S. under a humanitarian parole designation that lasts two years and offers no path to becoming permanent residents or citizens.

    Under the refugee program, people fleeing violence or persecution can come to the U.S. and stay permanently. Since the Refugee Act was passed in 1980 the U.S. has admitted a little over 3 million refugees.

    The Welcome Corps program comes on the heels of a similar, smaller scale endeavor under which Americans were able to sponsor Afghans or Ukrainians. That program launched in October 2021 and has helped just over 800 people coming to America through a network of 230 certified sponsor circles that included a total of about 5,000 people.

    Sasha Chanoff, founder and chief executive of Boston-based RefugePoint, which supports Afghan refugees, said Canada has long used a similar model to help resettle refugees. Chanoff said the sponsor circle program capitalizes on the huge amount of goodwill among Americans to sponsor refugees, something that crosses political divides.

    “This represents perhaps a unique opportunity in our history — certainly in our recent history — to really open up space for Americans to protect lives by sponsoring a family,” he said. “We’ve seen the incredible interest among the American public — Republicans, Democrats, liberals, conservatives, veterans, so many others across the political spectrum.”

    President Joe Biden pledged in a 2021 executive order to restore the U.S. as the world’s haven and he called for private sponsorship of refugees. Under President Donald Trump, the U.S. had largely rolled back the refugee program.

    But Thursday’s announcement comes as the U.S. is woefully off track if it hopes to meet Biden’s goal of 125,000 refugees admitted into the U.S. during the 2023 budget year. According to State Department data, the U.S. has admitted just 6,750 refugees to the country through December — three months into the fiscal year.

    Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president and CEO of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service commended the Biden administration’s “forward-thinking” program which has “potential to strengthen ties between refugees and the communities they will call home.” But Vignarajah also noted the low number of refugee admissions. The group is a national nonprofit that helps refugees, asylum seekers, and other immigrants.

    “The Biden administration must prioritize the streamlining of refugee admissions, which remain regrettably low this fiscal year. Without urgent action to increase efficiency, it risks letting the compassion of individual sponsors and the expertise of professional refugee resettlement organizations go to waste,” Vignarajah said in a statement.

    Assistant Secretary of State Julieta Valles Noyes told reporters Thursday that the agency responsible for interviewing refugees overseas had conducted over 20,000 interviews during the first quarter of the year and that she was “confident” that the numbers of refugees arriving in the months ahead would increase.

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    AP Diplomatic Writer Matthew Lee contributed to this report.

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    Follow Santana on Twitter @ruskygal

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  • Ohio House ex-speaker’s trial in $60M bribery probe to begin

    Ohio House ex-speaker’s trial in $60M bribery probe to begin

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    COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder goes on trial next week in the highest-profile reckoning yet to arise from a $60 million federal bribery investigation that federal prosecutors call the largest corruption case in state history.

    The 2 1/2 years since the Republican’s arrest have seen the toppling of a Fortune 500 energy company’s CEO and other executives, the resignation of Ohio’s top utility regulator amid FBI scrutiny, and Householder’s ouster as speaker and his subsequent expulsion as state representative — the first in Ohio in 150 years.

    Emerging details have brought the case ever closer to the office of Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine — though without implicating him personally or hurting Ohio Republicans’ electability — and made clear the case’s potential for clarifying federal law on operating a 501(c)4 “dark money” group.

    When it comes to a dark money group, “the two things it’s not supposed to be: Its primary activity’s not supposed to be political, and it’s not supposed to be used to the benefit of a particular individual,” former U.S. Attorney David DeVillers, who initially brought the case, said at a forum Wednesday.

    An indictment alleged Householder, former Ohio Republican Party chair Matt Borges, three other people and a dark money group called Generation Now orchestrated an elaborate scheme, secretly funded by FirstEnergy, to secure Householder’s power, elect his allies, pass legislation containing a $1 billion bailout for two aging nuclear power plants, and then vex a ballot effort to overturn the bill with a dirty tricks campaign.

    Under a deal to avoid prosecution, Akron-based FirstEnergy Corp. admitted to using dark money groups to fund the scheme and bribing the utility regulator. It has also fired half a dozen executives and regrouped. Surcharges slated to be tacked onto electricity bills statewide to pay for the bailout were eliminated in a partial repeal of the legislation in 2021 and never charged.

    Two Householder associates and a related nonprofit pleaded guilty to their roles and await sentencing. A third defendant who pleaded not guilty died by suicide.

    A jury to be selected Friday in Cincinnati now must decide whether Householder, 63, and Borges, 50, are guilty of conspiracy to participate in a racketeering enterprise involving bribery and money laundering. They pleaded not guilty and maintain their innocence.

    Each faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted. The trial could last six weeks.

    Householder and Borges were arrested along with the other defendants in July 2020.

    During his defiant but unsuccessful campaign to retain his House seat while the case plays out against him, Householder said: “I have not nor have I ever taken a bribe or solicited or been solicited for taking a bribe.” His effort to have the conspiracy charge against him dropped ahead of trial failed, as did efforts to disallow evidence related to the bribe of former Public Utilities Commission of Ohio Chair Sam Randazzo.

    Randazzo isn’t charged and denies wrongdoing. None of the fired FirstEnergy executives, including former CEO Chuck Jones, have been charged, either, despite revelations in court filings appearing to show some seeking and receiving favors.

    Householder and other suspects in the criminal probe simultaneously face a massive list of alleged state-level campaign finance violations, referred to the Ohio Elections Commission by the Republican secretary of state. Those claims are on hold until the criminal case is decided, as are the state’s racketeering lawsuit against FirstEnergy, Householder and others, and four related regulatory inquiries against FirstEnergy at the utilities commission.

    The criminal prosecution began under a U.S. attorney appointed by former President Donald Trump, a Republican, and is proceeding under a successor appointed by Democratic President Joe Biden.

    Borges, a never-Trumper ousted as GOP leader before working to elect Biden in 2020, has painted the government’s prosecution of him as a political attack by a Trump appointee. Borges even launched a website to take up his own defense. Borges also used his state proceeding for campaign finance violations to rail against the government’s claims, arguing that the money he received and spent was all handled legally.

    Campaign finance experts view the case as an opportunity for the federal government to clarify just that: where the line sits between legal and illegal handling of the untraceable “dark” money that has flooded politics in recent years. The nonpartisan research group OpenSecrets estimates that dark money groups have spent $1 billion to influence U.S. elections since the landmark Citizens United v. FEC decision unfettered corporations and unions in 2010 to give unlimited amounts.

    Householder’s attorneys have sought to argue that the scheme described by prosecutors was nothing more than business as usual, a way to advance his leadership aspirations that was not unlike those employed by U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican.

    Prosecutors plan to use recorded phone calls, text messages, emails, witness testimony and documentary evidence to prove that Householder entered into what one co-conspirator described as an “unholy alliance” with FirstEnergy that amounted to an illegal racketeering scheme.

    The legislation at the heart of the scandal — the Ohio Clean Air Program bill — included a $1 billion bailout for two nuclear power plants operated at the time by a wholly owned FirstEnergy subsidiary. The criminal complaint said the conspiracy to pass the bill had partial roots on a flight FirstEnergy provided to Householder and his son to Trump’s 2017 inauguration.

    Soon after the trip, $1 million from FirstEnergy began flowing to Generation Now, controlled by Householder, in $250,000 increments. That cash and more were used to elect a slate of Householder-backed candidates in 2018 and win him the speakership for the second time in his career, prosecutors say. Next, the Householder-controlled House passed the energy bill in July 2019. DeWine signed the legislation within hours.

    FirstEnergy subsequently spent around $38 million for a nasty campaign to prevent the new law’s opponents from putting a repeal referendum on the ballot. That included intimidation and payoffs of signature gatherers, among other things, prosecutors say.

    The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission recently announced that FirstEnergy agreed to pay a $3.9 million fine for failing to report nearly $94 million in lobbying on the bill to government auditors in 2019 and 2020. The company also told investors it was under investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, something the commission would neither confirm nor deny.

    The governor himself has not been implicated, but court filings and news reporting on the case have revealed several members of his administration played roles in allowing it to happen.

    Before becoming DeWine’s legislative director, lobbyist Dan McCarthy — who has since changed jobs — helped set up one of the involved dark money groups. Lt. Gov. Jon Husted helped recruit Randazzo as head utility regulator. And then-Chief of Staff Laurel Dawson ignored warnings from environmentalists and fellow Republicans that Randazzo’s ties to FirstEnergy might present problems.

    DeWine has said tapping Randazzo was his decision alone and defended the move. His spokesperson, Dan Tierney, said this month that, to his knowledge, “none of these individuals have been subpoenaed to date as they have never been interviewed for this criminal case and the criminal case does not involve our office.”

    Politically, the scandal appears to have done no damage to the Republican brand in Ohio.

    A year out from Householder’s arrest, Ohio Democrats hoped the scandal might taint Republican candidates in 2022 midterm elections, but that didn’t happen. DeWine led the GOP’s entire statewide ticket to reelection, and Republicans picked up even stronger supermajorities in both chambers of the Legislature.

    Democratic strategist Dale Butland said the outcome shows further erosion of Ohio’s former status as a political bellwether.

    “Back in the day, when we were a competitive state, some indictment like this — with the lobbyists and the former chairman of the Ohio Republican Party — this would have been an earthquake,” he said. “Now, it’s barely a ripple.”

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  • Biden-McConnell: Personally mismatched, professionally bound

    Biden-McConnell: Personally mismatched, professionally bound

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — When Joe Biden stepped to the lectern in the shadow of the Brent Spence Bridge in northern Kentucky this month, he couldn’t stop showering praise on the state’s senior Republican senator, who had fought to repair the ramshackle span for decades.

    It was quite a contrast to the clipped introduction delivered just a few minutes earlier by that senator, Mitch McConnell, who referenced Biden only in noting that the president had signed the bill to finally fix the aging bridge.

    By temperament and manner, the two men — whose relationship in Washington has been scrutinized, analyzed and satirized for years — are decidedly mismatched. Biden is tactile, gregarious and gaffe prone; McConnell is tactical, often grim-faced and rarely utters an unscripted word.

    But with the new days of divided government underway, the Biden-McConnell relationship will become more important.

    McConnell’s experience in cutting deals and the political capital he retains among Republican members could leave him much freer to negotiate with the White House on thorny matters such as government spending and the debt ceiling than new House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., whose ranks have already issued hardline demands on the debt that the White House says are nonstarters.

    Both Biden and McConnell see political imperatives in strategically cooperating. McConnell, who fell short of regaining the Senate majority last November, will have a far more advantageous political map in the 2024 election cycle and wants to demonstrate that Republicans can govern responsibly. Meanwhile, central to Biden’s case for reelection is promoting his policy accomplishments and selling a record of competent governing — punctured somewhat by recent discoveries of classified documents at his former office and Delaware home.

    “Look, I got elected by the people of Kentucky,” McConnell said in a radio interview Tuesday with Louisville’s 840 WHAS. “I don’t view my job, even though I’m the Republican leader of the Senate, as objecting to everything just because Joe Biden might sign the bill.”

    When asked about McConnell after the Kentucky bridge visit, Biden pointed to their joint efforts in the Obama administration to ward off federal fiscal calamities.

    “I’ve had a relationship with Mitch McConnell for years,” Biden said. “We’ve always been able to work together.”

    McConnell’s acceptance of the White House invitation to attend the bridge event surprised even some of those close to him.

    He was among those who greeted Biden on the tarmac at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport. Then McConnell joined Biden in the armored presidential limousine, known as the “beast,” where the two men talked foreign policy and how to keep the international coalition united on Ukraine. Having McConnell ride with the president was not planned in advance, according to an official familiar with the interaction, but it wasn’t a surprise, either.

    “On the one hand, it’s easy to overread it,” said Scott Jennings, a veteran Kentucky-based party strategist with close ties to the Republican leader. “McConnell had long said he would be more than happy to work with Biden on policy things that are within what he considers the 40-yard line in American politics and building a bridge in Kentucky is right in the middle of that field.”

    Jennings continued: “On the other hand, I do think there’s a message in that whole event, that there is a basic threshold of governing responsibility that people expect out of a political party, and I do think the Republicans sort of got judged as failing that threshold” at the end of the Donald Trump presidency and with some GOP Senate candidates last year.

    Indeed, Biden and McConnell have demonstrated in the past that they could capably govern when others couldn’t.

    Their deal-making through a trio of financial agreements prevented what could have been major economic and political catastrophes. Those agreements temporarily extended the Bush tax cuts in 2010, lifted the debt limit in summer 2011, and in late 2012 avoided the “fiscal cliff” that would have hiked tax rates and enacted steep spending cuts, risking a recession.

    Former President Barack Obama and then-House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, were unable to reach an agreement as the fiscal cliff loomed. McConnell dialed up the then-vice president and asked: “Is there anyone over there who knows how to make a deal?”

    “Obviously, I don’t always agree with him, but I do trust him implicitly,” McConnell said in a farewell tribute to Biden on the Senate floor in December 2016. “He doesn’t break his word. He doesn’t waste time telling me why I’m wrong. He gets down to brass tacks. And he keeps in sight the stakes.”

    McConnell continued: “There’s a reason ‘get Joe on the phone’ is shorthand for ‘time to get serious,’ in my office.”

    Biden also has found McConnell trustworthy. In a February 2011 speech at the McConnell Center in Louisville, Biden lavished the highest of praise for a congressional leader: “Mitch knows how to count better than anyone else I have ever known.”

    “This is not a joke,” Biden said as the crowd chuckled. “When Mitch says, ‘Joe, I have 41 votes’ or ‘I have 59 votes,’ it is the end of the discussion. … He has never once been wrong from what he’s told me.”

    Over the years, the interactions between the two men has turned, at times, deeply personal. McConnell was the sole Republican senator to attend the funeral of Beau Biden, the president’s elder son, who died from glioblastoma in 2015. The following year, an emotional Biden presided over the Senate as McConnell, then the majority leader, surprised him by leading the renaming of legislation to bolster cancer research at the National Institutes of Health in Beau Biden’s honor.

    Biden recalled that moment in his first joint address to Congress in April 2021, remarking directly to McConnell: “I’ll never forget you standing and mentioning — saying you’d name it after my deceased son.”

    Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said of the two: “There is a personal relationship that — transcends isn’t the right word, but that is different from their philosophical leanings. And my experience has been that personal relationships count in this setting.”

    That working relationship has been evident throughout the Biden presidency.

    As the military in Myanmar was staging a coup in February 2021 and arrested de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi, the White House put national security adviser Jake Sullivan on the phone with McConnell — who has long advocated on behalf of democracy efforts in the Southeast Asian country — to brief him on the administration’s efforts and to solicit feedback. McConnell has backed Biden on aid to Ukraine even as some Republican lawmakers question continued U.S. support to resist Russia’s invasion.

    They’ve even found cooperation when it comes to the judiciary, an area deeply important to McConnell and where Biden has set records in how quickly he has gotten new judges confirmed. Last summer, the White House agreed to nominate an anti-abortion lawyer favored by McConnell to a federal judgeship in Kentucky, despite significant resistance from Democrats in the weeks after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. That nomination was later scuttled due to opposition from the state’s other senator, Rand Paul.

    “Instead of just using the next two years to dig in and fight and hash it out until the ’24 election, I know McConnell — as you’ve heard him say — believes that a divided government can be a time of significant accomplishment,” said South Dakota Sen. John Thune, the No. 2 Senate Republican. “He’s always been a believer in the long game.”

    Still, it hasn’t always been so smooth between the two men during Biden’s first two years.

    In the run-up to the midterms, Biden wove McConnell’s name into his usual fusillade of warnings about Republicans threatening to take hostage the debt limit — the nation’s borrowing cap that lawmakers will have to suspend or lift later this year. When asked in September whether Biden viewed McConnell differently from Republicans like McCarthy, Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson and Florida Sen. Rick Scott — the president’s campaign-season GOP boogeymen — White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre responded: “I wouldn’t go that far.”

    And in January 2022, McConnell took umbrage at a fiery speech that Biden delivered in Atlanta, during which the president compared opponents of Democrats’ voting-law legislation to racist politicians such as the segregationist Alabama Gov. George Wallace and Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy. McConnell called Biden’s remarks “profoundly unpresidential.”

    “I have known, liked, and personally respected Joe Biden for many years,” McConnell said. “I did not recognize the man at that podium.”

    Notably, the most significant bipartisan achievements of the Biden presidency were clinched without McConnell in the room, although the Republican leader did eventually vote for two of the major ones: the big infrastructure bill and a measure to boost production of computer chips.

    But with no major Biden legislative accomplishments on the horizon, McConnell almost certainly will have to be a fixture in negotiating with the White House for the basic tasks of governing.

    “While they would be the first to tell you that they disagree on all kinds of things,” Jean-Pierre told reporters earlier this month, “they believe in cooperating when they have specific areas of mutual agreement for the good of the country.”

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  • UN chief: Rule of law risks becoming `Rule of Lawlessness’

    UN chief: Rule of law risks becoming `Rule of Lawlessness’

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    UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned Thursday that the rule of law is at grave risk of becoming “the Rule of Lawlessness,” pointing to a host of unlawful actions across the globe from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and coups in Africa’s Sahel region to North Korea’s illegal nuclear weapons program and Afghanistan’s unprecedented attacks on women’s and girls’ rights.

    The U.N. chief also cited as examples the breakdown of the rule of law in Myanmar since the military ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021 leading to “a cycle of violence, repression and severe human rights violations,” and the weak rule of law in Haiti which is beset by widespread rights abuses, soaring crime rates, corruption and transnational crime.

    “From the smallest village to the global stage, the rule of law is all that stands between peace and stability and a brutal struggle for power and resources,” Guterres told the U.N. Security Council.

    The secretary-general lamented, however, that in every region of the world civilians are suffering the effects of conflicts, killings, rising poverty and hunger while countries continue “to flout international law with impunity” including by illegally using force and developing nuclear weapons.

    As an example of the rule of law being violated, Guterres pointed first to Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine.

    The Ukraine conflict has created “a humanitarian and human rights catastrophe, traumatized a generation of children, and accelerated the global food and energy crisis,” the secretary-general said. And referring to Russia’s annexation of four regions in Ukraine in late September as well as its 2014 annexation of Crimea, he said any annexation resulting from the threat or use of force is a violation of the U.N. Charter and international law.

    The U.N. chief then condemned unlawful killings and extremist acts against Palestinians and Israelis in 2022, and said Israel’s expansion of settlements — which the U.N. has repeatedly denounced as a violation of international law — “are driving anger and despair.”

    Guterres said he is “very concerned” by unilateral initiatives in recent days by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s new conservative government, which is implementing an ultra-nationalist agenda that could threaten a two-state solution.

    “The rule of law is at the heart of achieving a just and comprehensive peace, based on a two-state solution, in line with U.N. resolutions, international law and previous agreements,” he stressed.

    More broadly, the secretary-general said the rule of law is the foundation of the United Nations, and key to its efforts to find peaceful solutions to these conflicts and other crises.

    He urged all 193 U.N. member states to uphold “the vision and the values” of the U.N. Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to abide by international law, and to settle disputes peacefully.

    The council meeting on strengthening the rule of law, presided over by Japan’s Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi whose country decided on the topic, sparked clashes, especially over the war in Ukraine, between Russia and Western supporters of the Kyiv government. Nearly 80 countries spoke.

    “Today, we are beset by the war of aggression in Europe and conflicts, violence, terrorism and geopolitical tensions, ranging from Africa to the Middle East to Latin America to Asia Pacific,” Hayashi said.

    “We, the member states, should unite for the rule of law and cooperate with each other to stand up against violations of the Charter such as aggression” and “the acquisition of territory by force from a member state,” he said in a clear reference to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

    U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the council “an ironclad commitment” for the U.S. and a fundamental principle of the United Nations is that “no person, no prime minister or president, no state or country is above the law.”

    Despite “unparalleled” advancements toward peace and prosperity since the U.N. was founded on the ashes of World War II, she said some countries are failing in their commitment to the U.N. Charter’s principles — “the most glaring example” Russia — or are “enabling rule breakers to carry on without accountability.”

    Thomas-Greenfield called for those who don’t respect sovereignty, territorial integrity, human rights and fundamental freedoms to be held accountable, naming Russia, North Korea, Iran, Syria, Myanmar, Belarus, Cuba, Sudan and Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers.

    Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia accused the West of using the council meeting “to sell the narrative about the apparent responsibility of Russia for causing threats to international peace and security, ignoring, however, their own egregious violations.”

    He said that before last Feb. 24, “international law was repeatedly flouted,” claiming the roots of the current situation “lie in the astonishing desire of Washington to play a role of global policeman.”

    Nebenzia pointed to numerous instances including NATO bombings in former Yugoslavia and Libya, the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq “using a false pretext” of the presence of weapons of mass destruction, of the “war on terror” in Afghanistan — and he blamed the West for what Moscow calls the current “special military operation.”

    Ukraine’s First Deputy Foreign Minister Emine Dzhaparova said “it’s very black and white” that Russia is responsible for the crimes in Ukraine and should be held accountable.”

    She also warned the Security Council: “The law of force that Russia has been barbarically practicing today over Ukraine gives a very clear signal to everyone in this room: No one is secure any more.”

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  • EXPLAINER: List of states banning TikTok grows

    EXPLAINER: List of states banning TikTok grows

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    MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin and North Carolina have joined at least 22 other states in banning the popular social media app TikTok on state-owned devices, including Mississippi, Indiana, Louisiana and South Dakota.

    Congress also recently banned TikTok from most U.S. government-issued devices over bipartisan concerns about security.

    TikTok is owned by ByteDance, a Chinese company that moved its headquarters to Singapore in 2020. It has been targeted by critics who say the Chinese government could access user data, such as browsing history and location. U.S. armed forces also have prohibited the app on military devices.

    TikTok is consumed by two-thirds of American teens and has become the second-most popular domain in the world. But there’s long been bipartisan concern in Washington that Beijing would use legal and regulatory power to seize American user data or try to push pro-China narratives or misinformation.

    Here’s a look at the action in Wisconsin and North Carolina and the broader debate over TikTok:

    ___

    WHY DID WISCONSIN AND NORTH CAROLINA BAN TIKTOK?

    Democratic Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers cited concerns about privacy, safety and security, after consulting with the FBI and emergency management officials about the app. Evers’ order applies to most state agencies, with some exceptions like criminal investigators who may be using the app to track certain people.

    The University of Wisconsin System, which employs 40,000 faculty and staff, is also exempt. But a UW System spokesperson said despite the exemption, the university was conducting a review and moving toward placing restrictions on the app being used on devices in order to protect against serious cybersecurity risks.

    Both Evers and North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper also prohibited the use of WeChat, a Chinese instant messaging app, on state devices.

    “It’s important for us to protect state information technology from foreign countries that have actively participated in cyberattacks against the United States,” Cooper said. “Protecting North Carolina from cyber threats is vital to ensuring the safety, security, privacy, and success of our state and its people.”

    ___

    WHAT ARE THE CONCERNS ABOUT TIKTOK?

    Both the FBI and the Federal Communications Commission have warned that TikTok user data could be shared by owner ByteDance Ltd. with China’s authoritarian government. U.S. officials also worry that the Chinese government might use TikTok to push pro-China narratives or misinformation.

    Fears were stoked by news reports last year that a China-based team improperly accessed data of U.S. TikTok users, including two journalists, as part of a covert surveillance program to ferret out the source of leaks to the press.

    There are also concerns that the company is sending masses of user data to China, in breach of stringent European privacy rules.

    Additionally, there’s been concern about TikTok’s content and whether it harms teenagers’ mental health.

    ___

    WHO HAS PUSHED FOR RESTRICTIONS?

    In 2020, then-President Donald Trump and his administration sought to ban dealings with TikTok’s owner, force it to sell off its U.S. assets and remove it from app stores. Courts blocked Trump’s efforts to ban TikTok, and President Joe Biden rescinded Trump’s orders after taking office but ordered an in-depth study of the issue. A planned sale of TikTok’s U.S. assets was shelved.

    In Congress, concern about the app has been bipartisan. Congress last month banned TikTok from most U.S. government-issued devices over bipartisan concerns about security.

    The Senate in December approved a version of the TikTok ban authored by conservative Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, a vocal critic of big tech companies.

    But Democratic U.S. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, of Illinois has co-sponsored legislation to prohibit TikTok from operating in the U.S. altogether, and the measure approved by Congress in December had the support of Democratic U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

    ___

    WHAT DOES TIKTOK SAY?

    “We’re disappointed that so many states are jumping on the political bandwagon to enact policies that will do nothing to advance cybersecurity in their states and are based on unfounded falsehoods about TikTok,” Jamal Brown, a spokesperson for TikTok, said in an emailed statement.

    TikTok is developing security and data privacy plans as part of an ongoing national security review by President Joe Biden’s administration.

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  • US launches online system to seek asylum on Mexican border

    US launches online system to seek asylum on Mexican border

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    SAN DIEGO (AP) — The Biden administration on Thursday launched an online appointment system as the only way for migrants to get exceptions from pandemic-era limits on asylum — the U.S. government’s latest major step in eight days to overhaul border enforcement.

    U.S. Customs and Border Protection began allowing migrants to make appointments up to two weeks out using its website and through CBPOne, a mobile app that the agency has used in limited ways since 2020. CBPOne is replacing an opaque, bewildering patchwork of exemptions to a public health order known as Title 42 under which the government has denied migrants’ U.S. and international rights to claim asylum since March 2020.

    Until now, CBP has arranged exemptions through advocates, churches, attorneys and migrant shelters, without publicly identifying them or saying how many slots were available. The advocates have chosen who gets in, with CBP having final say.

    Under the new system, migrants apply directly to the agency and a government official will determine who gets in. Their appointments will be at one of eight crossings — at Brownsville, El Paso, Hidalgo and Laredo in Texas; Nogales, Arizona; and Calexico and San Diego in California.

    Exemptions for Title 42 are meant to go to the most vulnerable migrants.

    Thursday’s rollout is separate from measures announced last week to expel migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela to Mexico under Title 42 and — at the same time — allow up to 30,000 migrants from those four countries to be admitted to the United States every month under humanitarian parole for two years if they apply online, pay their airfare and provide a financial sponsor.

    While the administration previously signaled that it would introduce CBPOne for people seeking asylum at land border crossings with Mexico, the speed of change caught advocates off-guard.

    “Utter and complete confusion,” said Priscilla Orta, an attorney at Lawyers For Good Government’s Project Corazon in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley.

    U.S. officials told advocates Friday they expected the app to be ready in a month, Orta said. Then on Monday, advocates were informed the rollout had been moved up to this week.

    Under Title 42, the U.S. has expelled migrants 2.5 million times since March 2020 on grounds of preventing the spread of COVID-19. To qualify for an exemption under CBPOne, migrants must have a physical or mental illness, disability, pregnancy, lack housing, face a threat of harm, or must be under 21 years old or over 70.

    The government’s app is currently available only in English and Spanish and requires access to a smartphone, email and reliable internet.

    U.S. Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, a Florida Democrat and Haitian American, expressed concern that the app wasn’t available in Haiti’s primary languages, Creole and French. Officials say a Creole version will be added soon.

    The Homeland Security Department said the app will be available to migrants in central and northern Mexico. Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement that it allows people “to seek protection in a safe, orderly, and humane manner and to strengthen the security of our borders.”

    It’s the administration’s latest attempt to address extraordinarily high numbers of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border, many of whom are fleeing inequality and violence at home. U.S. authorities stopped migrants 2.38 million times in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, up 37% from 1.73 million times during an unusually busy 2021.

    Savitri Arvey, a senior policy adviser at the Women’s Refugee Commission, said she struggled to explain all the recent policy changes to migrants during a visit to Monterrey, Mexico.

    “It was just impossible in (migrant) shelters,” she said Thursday. ”‘There’s this option for you, Venezuelans but not for you, Central Americans,’” she said.

    Some advocates welcomed the new system for seeking exemptions, saying it the old one was rife with favoritism and prone to corruption. CBP began working with advocacy groups to select people who are exempt from Title 42 during President Joe Biden’s first year in office.

    Albert Rivera, director of the Agape Mision Mundial shelter in Tijuana, said he previously didn’t have the connections to help migrants get exemptions, but on Thursday a Mexican woman at his shelter was able to sign up for an online appointment.

    “We feel excited,” said Rivera said. “Everything was a monopoly.”

    Last month, The Associated Press reported that Calvary Church in the San Diego suburb of Chula Vista was getting 40 exemptions a day and doling them out to people who paid $1,800 each or $3,500 for a married couple. Asylum is supposed to be free and intended for those most in need. About a week after the AP story ran, the church-linked group that facilitated exemptions, Most V USA, said CBP decided to stop working with it.

    CBP has been giving 180 exemptions a day in San Diego, Enrique Lucero, director of migrant affairs for Tijuana, Mexico, said this week. El Paso, Texas, was said to be getting 70 exemptions a day.

    ___

    Associated Press writer Terry Spencer in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and Jim Heintz in Moscow contributed.

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  • In Washington, ‘classified’ is synonymous with ‘controversy’

    In Washington, ‘classified’ is synonymous with ‘controversy’

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — Hillary Clinton’s presidential dreams were undermined by her use of a private email server that included classified information.

    Donald Trump has risked criminal charges by refusing to return top-secret records to the government after leaving the White House.

    And now misplaced files with classified markings has led to another investigation that’s causing a political and legal headache for President Joe Biden.

    The three situations are far from equivalent. But taken together, they represent a remarkable stretch in which document management has been a recurring source of controversy at the highest levels of American politics.

    For some, it’s a warning about clumsiness or hubris when it comes to handling official secrets. For others, it’s a reminder that the federal government has built an unwieldy — and perhaps unmanageable — system for storing and protecting classified information.

    “Mistakes happen, and it’s so easy to grab a stack of documents from your desk as you’re leaving your office, and you don’t realize there’s a classified document among those files,” said Mark Zaid, a lawyer who works on national security issues. “You just didn’t hear about it, for whatever reason.”

    Now Americans are hearing about it all the time. Political talk shows have been clogged with conversations about which papers were stashed in which box in which closet. Voters are getting schooled in intelligence jargon like TS/SCI, HUMINT and damage assessments.

    Clinton’s email server was a dominant storyline of her presidential campaign, and the criminal investigation into Trump has clouded his hopes of returning to the White House.

    Biden is facing scrutiny of his own after documents with classified markings were found at a former office in Washington and his home in Wilmington, Delaware. Republicans who recently took control of the House are preparing to investigate, and Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a special counsel to in the Biden case, following a similar step he took with Trump in November.

    “Investigations can quickly spiral,” said Alex Conant, a Republican political consultant. “For the Biden administration, having a prosecutor digging into these documents, you never know where that might lead.”

    With overlapping investigations underway, there may be no end in sight for daily discussions of filing cabinets, storage rules and concerns about national security risks.

    “The American people are very well aware of issues involving classified documents in part because we’ve been talking about them for almost eight years,” said Alex Conant, a Republican political consultant.

    That’s when a House Republican committee investigating the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, discovered that Clinton had used a private email account while serving as secretary of state. The revelation led to a federal investigation that didn’t result in any charges, but 110 emails out of 30,000 that were turned over to the government were determined to have had classified information.

    Trump, who pummeled Clinton over her handling of the emails, won the election and swiftly demonstrated carelessness with secrets. He memorably discussed sensitive intelligence with the Russian ambassador to the United States, leading to concerns that he may have jeopardized a source who helped foil terrorist plots.

    After disputing the results of his election defeat, Trump left office in haphazard fashion, and he brought boxes of government documents with him to Mar-a-Lago, his Florida resort. Some of them were turned over to the National Archives, which is responsible for presidential records, but he refused to provide others.

    Eventually the Justice Department, fearing that national security secrets were at risk, obtained a search warrant and found more top secret documents at the resort.

    A special counsel was appointed to determine whether any criminal charges should be filed in the case or a separate investigation into Trump’s attempts to cling to power on Jan. 6, 2021, when a mob of his supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol.

    Larry Pfeiffer, a former intelligence official, said the situation with Trump’s documents is far different than ones he encountered while working in government.

    During the time that Pfeiffer was CIA chief of staff, classified files turned up in the wrong place in presidential libraries a handful of times, he said.

    “It just happens,” said Pfeiffer, now director of the Michael V. Hayden Center for Intelligence, Policy and International Security at George Mason University. “Mistakes get made, and stuff gets found.”

    He said that seems more likely to be the case regarding the documents with classified markings that were found at an office used by Biden at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement after his term as vice president ended.

    Biden’s personal lawyers discovered the documents and contacted the White House counsel’s office, and the National Archives picked up the records the next day.

    The situation appears like “an average, run-of-the-mill mistake” that’s “being handled in a by-the-book, textbook fashion,” Pfeiffer said.

    However, he said it would be wise for the government to review its practices for managing documents during transitions between administrations. It’s been six years since Biden left the vice president’s office, meaning classified records have been in the wrong place for a long time.

    “That’s not a good thing, no matter how anyone is playing it,” he said.

    The files were found at the Penn Biden Center in November, but their existence only became public this week. After the discovery, Biden’s lawyers conducted a search of other properties as well. The search was finished on Wednesday evening, and more documents with classified markings were located in his Wilmington home, according to Richard Sauber, a lawyer for the president.

    Garland asked a U.S. attorney to review the matter after the initial discovery, and he named a special counsel on Thursday.

    Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., the new chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, sent a letter to the White House on Tuesday saying that his panel will be investigating Biden’s “failure to return vice-presidential records — including highly classified documents.”

    “The Committee is concerned that President Biden has compromised sources and methods with his own mishandling of classified documents,” Comer wrote.

    Biden said Thursday that he is “cooperating fully and completely” with the Justice Department. He previously said he was “surprised” to learn that documents were in his old office. Biden said he he didn’t know what kind of information they contained, and he said his team “did what they should have done” when they were found.

    Matt Miller, a former Justice Department spokesman who worked for Biden’s National Security Council last year, said it’s unlikely that such an episode would have made the news if it wasn’t for the concurrent Trump investigation.

    “The Penn Biden Center would have turned this stuff in, it would have gone to the Archives, and that would have been the end of it,” he said.

    Miller said the situation is a reminder that “the government classifies way too many documents.”

    “There’s not a good process for declassifying them,” he said. “And when you create this structure, you’ve unnecessarily widened the universe of classified documents that could unintentionally be mishandled.”

    It’s not a new problem, and it’s a concern that’s even shared by Biden’s top intelligence adviser, Avril Haines. In a letter to senators last year, Haines said there are “deficiencies in the current classification system,” calling it “a fundamentally important issue that we must address.”

    Said Miller: “No one has figured out a good answer to this problem.”

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  • Source: Biden team finds more docs with classified markings

    Source: Biden team finds more docs with classified markings

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden’s legal team has discovered additional documents containing classification markings in a second location, a person familiar with the matter told The Associated Press on Wednesday. The revelation comes days after an attorney for the president said Biden’s lawyers had discovered a “small number” of classified documents at his former office space in Washington.

    Earlier this week, the White House confirmed that the Department of Justice was reviewing “a small number of documents with classified markings” found at the office. Biden’s attorneys had discovered the documents at the offices of the Penn Biden Center and then immediately called the National Archives about the discovery, the White House said. Biden kept an office there after he left the vice presidency in 2017 until shortly before he launched his Democratic presidential campaign in 2019.

    The person who spoke to the AP Wednesday said the president’s legal team found additional classified material at a second location. The person was not authorized to publicly discuss details of the sensitive matter and spoke on condition of anonymity. The person did not say when or where the material was found or specific details about the level of classification of the documents.

    The revelation that additional classified documents were uncovered by Biden’s attorneys came hours after White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre dodged questions about Biden’s handling of classified information and the West Wing’s management of the discovery. She said the White House was committed to handling the matter in the “right way,” pointing to Biden’s personal attorneys’ immediate notification of the National Archives.

    But she refused to say when Biden himself had been briefed, whether there were any more classified documents potentially located at other unauthorized locations, and why the White House waited more than two months to reveal the discovery of the initial batch of documents, which were found Nov. 2, days before the midterm elections.

    “As my colleagues in the Counsel have stated and said to all of you yesterday, this is an ongoing process under the review of the Department of Justice. So we are going to be limited on what we can say here,” Jean-Pierre said.

    The White House and Justice Department declined to comment Wednesday on reports of the second set of classified records. It was first reported by NBC News.

    The Justice Department is reviewing the records that were found at the Penn Biden Center and Attorney General Merrick Garland has asked John Lausch, the U.S. attorney in Chicago, to review the the matter, another person familiar with the matter told the AP this week. That person also was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.

    Lausch is one of the few U.S. attorneys to be held over from former President Donald Trump’s administration.

    Irrespective of the Justice Department review, the revelation that Biden potentially mishandled classified or presidential records could prove to be a political headache for the president, who called Trump’s decision to keep hundreds of such records at his private club in Florida “irresponsible.”

    Biden has said he was “surprised to learn that there are any government records that were taken there to that office” but his lawyers “did what they should have done” when they immediately called the National Archives.

    The top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee has requested that the U.S. intelligence community conduct a “damage assessment” of potentially classified documents.

    The revelation also may complicate the Justice Department’s consideration of whether to bring charges against Trump, a Republican who is trying to win back the White House in 2024 and has repeatedly claimed the department’s inquiry into his own conduct amounted to “corruption.”

    There are significant differences between the Trump and Biden situations, including the gravity of an ongoing grand jury investigation into the Mar-a-Lago matter.

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  • Biden inspects US-Mexico border in face of GOP criticism

    Biden inspects US-Mexico border in face of GOP criticism

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    EL PASO, Texas (AP) — President Joe Biden walked a muddy stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border and inspected a busy port of entry Sunday on his first trip to the region after two years in office, a visit shadowed by the fraught politics of immigration as Republicans blame him for record numbers of migrants crossing into the country.

    At his first stop, the president observed as border officers in El Paso demonstrated how they search vehicles for drugs, money and other contraband. Next, he traveled to a dusty street with abandoned buildings and walked along a metal border fence that separated the U.S. city from Ciudad Juarez.

    His last stop was the El Paso County Migrant Services Center — but there were no migrants in sight. As he learned about the services offered there, he asked an aid worker, “If I could wave the wand, what should I do?” The answer was not audible.

    Biden’s nearly four-hour visit to El Paso was highly controlled. He encountered no migrants except when his motorcade drove alongside the border and about a dozen were visible on the Ciudad Juárez side. His visit did not include time at a Border Patrol station, where migrants who cross illegally are arrested and held before their release. He delivered no public remarks.

    The visit seemed designed to showcase a smooth operation to process legal migrants, weed out smuggled contraband and humanely treat those who have entered illegally, creating a counter-narrative to Republicans’ claims of a crisis situation equivalent to an open border.

    But his visit was likely do little to quell critics from both sides, including immigrant advocates who accuse him of establishing cruel policies not unlike those of his hard-line predecessor, Donald Trump.

    In a sign of the deep tensions over immigration, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, handed Biden a letter as soon as he touched down in the state that said the “chaos” at the border was a “direct result” of the president’s failure to enforce federal laws. Biden later took the letter out of his jacket pocket during his tour, telling reporters, “I haven’t read it yet.”

    House Speaker Kevin McCarthy dismissed Biden’s visit as a “photo op,” saying on Twitter that the Republican majority would hold the administration “accountable for creating the most dangerous border crisis in American history.”

    El Paso County Judge Ricardo Samaniego welcomed Biden’s visit, but said a current lull in arrivals prevented the president from seeing how large the group of newcomers has been.

    “He didn’t get to see the real difficulties,” said Samaniego, who was in the local delegation that greeted Biden. “It was good that he was here. It’s a first step. But we still need to do more and have more time with him.”

    Elsewhere in El Paso where Biden did not visit, hundreds of migrants were gathered Sunday outside the Sacred Heart Catholic Church, where they have been sleeping outdoors and receiving three meals a day from faith groups and other humanitarian organizations.

    The migrants included several pregnant women, including Karla Sainz, 26, eight months along. She was traveling in a small group that included her 2-year-old son, Joshua. Sainz left her three other children back home in Venezuela with her mother.

    “I would ask President Biden to help me with a permission or something so we can work and continue,” she said.

    Juan Tovar, 32, one of several people in her group, suggested he also had political reasons for leaving his home country.

    “Socialism is the worst,” he said. “In Venezuela, they kill us, they torture us, we can’t talk bad about the government. We are worse off than in Cuba.”

    Noengris Garcia, also eight months pregnant, was traveling with her husband, teen son and the small family dog from the tiny state of Portuguesa, Venezuela, where she operated a food stall.

    “We don’t want to be given money or a house,” said Garcia, 39. “We just want to work.”

    Asked what he’s learned by seeing the border firsthand and speaking with the officers who work along it, Biden said: “They need a lot of resources. We’re going to get it for them.”

    El Paso is currently the biggest corridor for illegal crossings, in large part due to Nicaraguans fleeing repression, crime and poverty in their country. They are among migrants from four countries who are now subject to quick expulsion under new rules enacted by the Biden administration in the past week that drew strong criticism from immigration advocates.

    Biden’s recent policy announcements on border security and his visit to the border were aimed in part at blunting the impact of upcoming investigations into immigration promised by House Republicans. But any enduring solution will require action by the sharply divided Congress, where multiple efforts to enact sweeping changes have failed in recent years.

    From Texas, Biden traveled south to Mexico City, where he and the leaders of Mexico and Canada will gather on Monday and Tuesday for a North American leaders summit. Immigration is among the items on the agenda. Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador met Biden at the airport Sunday night and joined him in the presidential limousine for the ride to Biden’s hotel.

    The numbers of migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border has risen dramatically during Biden’s first two years in office. There were more than 2.38 million stops during the year that ended Sept. 30, the first time the number topped 2 million. The administration has struggled to clamp down on crossings, reluctant to take measures that would resemble those of Trump’s administration.

    The policy changes announced this past week are Biden’s biggest move yet to contain illegal border crossings and will turn away tens of thousands of migrants arriving at the border. At the same time, 30,000 migrants per month from Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti and Venezuela will get the chance to come to the U.S. legally as long as they travel by plane, get a sponsor and pass background checks.

    The U.S. will also turn away migrants who do not seek asylum first in a country they traveled through en route to the U.S. Migrants are being asked to complete a form on a phone app so that they they can go to a port of entry at a pre-scheduled date and time.

    Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told reporters aboard Air Force One that the administration is trying to “incentivize a safe and orderly way and cut out the smuggling organizations,” saying the policies are “not a ban at all” but an attempt to protect migrants from the trauma that smuggling can create.

    The changes were welcomed by some, particularly leaders in cities where migrants have been massing. But Biden was excoriated by immigrant advocate groups, which accused him of taking measures modeled after those of the former president. Administration officials disputed that characterization.

    For all of his international travel over his 50 years in public service, Biden has not spent much time at the U.S.-Mexico border.

    The only visit that the White House could point to was Biden’s drive by the border while he was campaigning for president in 2008. He sent Vice President Kamala Harris to El Paso in 2021, but she was criticized for largely bypassing the action, because El Paso wasn’t the center of crossings that it is now.

    Trump, who made hardening immigration a signature issue, traveled to the border several times.

    ___

    Associated Press writers Andres Leighton in El Paso, Texas; Anita Snow in Phoenix; Morgan Lee in Santa Fe, New Mexico; and Josh Boak in Washington contributed to this report.

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  • Biden, López Obrador open Mexico meetings with brusque talk

    Biden, López Obrador open Mexico meetings with brusque talk

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    MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexican President Andres Manuel López Obrador challenged U.S. President Joe Biden to end an attitude of “abandonment” and “disdain” for Latin America and the Caribbean as the two leaders met on Monday, making for a brusque opening to a summit of North American leaders.

    The comments were a stark contrast to the public display of affection between López Obrador and Biden shortly before, as they smiled and embraced and shook hands for the cameras. But once the two sat down in an ornate room at the Palacio Nacional, flanked by delegations of top officials, it didn’t take long for tensions to bubble to the surface.

    Most of the summit’s work will be handled on Tuesday, when the two leaders and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau are to hold hours of talks. Migration, both legal and illegal, and border security will be key topics.

    On Monday, López Obrador challenged Biden to improve life across the region, telling him that “you hold the key in your hand.”

    “This is the moment for us to determine to do away with this abandonment, this disdain, and this forgetfulness for Latin America and the Caribbean,” he said.

    He also complained that too many imports are coming from Asia instead of being produced in the Americas.

    “We ask ourselves, couldn’t we produce in America what we consume?” he said. “Of course.”

    Biden responded by defending the billions of dollars that the United States spends in foreign aid around the world, saying “unfortunately our responsibility just doesn’t end in the Western Hemisphere.” And he referenced U.S. deaths from fentanyl, a drug that flows over the border from Mexico.

    While both men pledged to work together, it was a noticeably sharp exchange, on full display before reporters. They met privately for about an hour before having dinner with Trudeau and their wives.

    The meeting is held most years, although there was a hiatus while Donald Trump was U.S. president. It’s often called the “three amigos summit,” a reference to the deep diplomatic and economic ties between the countries, but new strains have emerged.

    All three countries are struggling to handle an influx of people arriving in North America and to crack down on smugglers who profit from persuading migrants to make the dangerous trip to the U.S.

    In addition, Canada and the U.S. accuse López Obrador of violating a free trade pact by favoring Mexico’s state-owed utility over power plants built by foreign and private investors. Meanwhile, Trudeau and López Obrador are concerned about Biden’s efforts to boost domestic manufacturing, creating concerns that U.S. neighbors could be left behind.

    Biden and López Obrador haven’t been on particularly good terms for the past two years either. The Mexican leader made no secret of his admiration for Trump, and last year he skipped a Los Angeles summit because Biden didn’t invite the authoritarian regimes of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua.

    However, there have been attempts made at thawing the relationship. Biden made a point of flying into the new Felipe Angeles International Airport, a prized project of the Mexican president even though it’s been a source of controversy.

    The airport, which is expected to cost $4.1 billion when finished, is more than an hour’s drive north of the city center, has few flights and until recently lacked consistent drinking water. However, it’s one of the keystone projects that López Obrador is racing to finish before his term ends next year, along with an oil refinery, a tourist train in the Yucatan Peninsula and a train linking Gulf coast and Pacific seaports.

    The two leaders rode into Mexico City in Biden’s limousine. López Obrador was fascinated by the presidential vehicle known as “the beast,” and he said Biden “showed me how the buttons work.”

    In a notably warm comment, the Mexican president described the two leaders’ first encounter of the trip as “very pleasant,” and he said “President Biden is a friendly person.”

    The U.S. and Mexico have also reached an agreement on a major shift in migration policy, which Biden announced last week.

    Under the plan, the U.S. will send 30,000 migrants per month from Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti and Venezuela back across the border from among those who entered the U.S. illegally. Migrants who arrive from those four countries are not easily returned to their home countries for a variety of reasons.

    In addition, 30,000 people per month from those four nations who get sponsors, background checks and an airline flight to the U.S. will get the ability to work legally in the country for two years.

    On Monday, before the summit began, López Obrador said he would consider accepting more migrants than previously announced.

    “We don’t want to anticipate things, but this is part of what we are going to talk about at the summit,” López Obrador said. “We support this type of measures, to give people options, alternatives,” he said, adding that “the numbers may be increased.”

    Mexico would likely also require an increase in those receiving work authorization in the U.S. in order to take back more migrants who are being expelled.

    Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, cautioned that nothing was decided yet.

    “What we need is to see how the program announced last week works in practice, what if any adjustments need to be made to that program and then we can talk about taking the next steps,” he said.

    On his way to Mexico, Biden stopped in El Paso, Texas, for four hours — his first time at the border as president and the longest he’s spent along the U.S-Mexico line. The visit was highly controlled and seemed designed to counter Republican claims of a crisis situation by showcasing a smooth operation to process migrants entering legally, weed out smuggled contraband and humanely treat those who’ve entered illegally.

    But the trip was likely to do little to quell critics from both sides, including immigrant advocates who accuse the Democratic president of establishing cruel policies not unlike those of his hardline predecessor, Republican Donald Trump.

    The number of migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border has risen dramatically during Biden’s first two years in office. There were more than 2.38 million stops during the year that ended Sept. 30, the first time the number topped 2 million.

    On Monday afternoon, López Obrador formally welcomed Biden at the Palacio Nacional, the first time since 2014 that Mexico has hosted a U.S. president.

    In a display of solidarity, the first ladies of the U.S. and Mexico delivered the same speech, alternating between Jill Biden in English and Beatriz Gutiérrez Müller in Spanish.

    “We believe that poverty is not destined by God, but the product of inequality,” Jill Biden said. “We know that the poor deserve to live better and are working with compassion, every day, to improve lives for everyone.”

    Earlier in the day, Jill Biden met with women from the fields of education, art and business, most of them recipients of U.S. cooperation programs or scholarships.

    “Do whatever you want but teach others,” she said.

    Biden is expected to follow up his first trip to Mexico as president with another to Canada, although it has not yet been scheduled.

    A senior Canadian official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because not authorized to discuss the matter publicly, said Canada is working with Americans on a visit in the near future.

    ___

    Associated Press writers Andres Leighton in El Paso, Texas; Anita Snow in Phoenix; Morgan Lee in Santa Fe, New Mexico; Mark Stevenson and Christopher Sherman in Mexico City; Rob Gillies in Toronto and Chris Megerian and Josh Boak in Washington contributed to this report.

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  • Outgoing Sen. Sasse knows Trump criticism shapes his legacy

    Outgoing Sen. Sasse knows Trump criticism shapes his legacy

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    OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Nebraska’s outgoing U.S. Sen. Ben Sasse knows he may be remembered more for his criticisms of former President Donald Trump than for the policies he supported during his eight years in office.

    Sasse talked about his political legacy with the Omaha World-Herald as he prepared to leave the Senate Sunday to become president of the University of Florida.

    Sasse was a prominent Trump critic who joined with a handful of other Republicans to vote to convict the former president at his impeachment trial after the 2021 Capitol riot. Those criticisms led to Sasse being sharply criticized by his own political party in Nebraska even though Sasse voted with Trump 85% of the time and helped get his three U.S. Supreme Court nominees confirmed.

    Sasse acknowledged that his complicated relationship with Trump will shape his legacy.

    “I’m just sad for him as a human because obviously there’s a lot of complicated stuff going on in that soul,” Sasse said to the newspaper. “Just at a human level, I’m sad for him to be that needy and desperate. But at a policy level, I always loved that he kept his word on the judges. … And so we got to work closely on judges.”

    Sasse said he is especially proud of his work with the Senate Intelligence committee that included setting up a commission on cybersecurity. He said 120 of that group’s 190 recommendations have been passed into law.

    The University of Florida job will allow Sasse — who studied American history at Harvard, Yale and Oxford — to return to academia at a much bigger institution. Before he was elected to the Senate, Sasse led the small, private Midland University in his hometown of Fremont, Nebraska.

    Sasse said he couldn’t resist the chance to lead one of the nation’s largest public universities even after rejecting overtures from other universities in recent years.

    “South Florida is like a giant blank canvas,” Sasse said. “And so I’m very excited about a lot of the new stuff that we’re going to build.”

    Newly elected Gov. Jim Pillen will name Sasse’s replacement, and the leading candidate for the job is former Gov. Pete Ricketts who Pillen replaced this month after term limits kept the Republican from running again.

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  • Boebert’s backers urge her to ‘tone down the nasty rhetoric’

    Boebert’s backers urge her to ‘tone down the nasty rhetoric’

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    RIFLE, Colo. (AP) — Debbie Hartman voted for Lauren Boebert for Congress in 2020 and again in 2022, delighted by Boebert’s unequivocal defense of cultural issues that animate the Republican Party’s far right flank. But as Hartman shopped recently at a supermarket in this Rocky Mountain ranching outpost, she had one piece of advice for the Colorado lawmaker.

    “Tone down the nasty rhetoric on occasion and just stick with the point at hand,” said Hartman, 65, a veterinary tech assistant.

    That sentiment reflects Boebert’s challenge as she begins her second term in the House. In her relatively short time in Washington, she has built a national profile with a combative style embracing everything from gun ownership to apocalyptic religious rhetoric. Constituents such as Hartman in the Republican-leaning 3rd Congressional District laud Boebert for defending their rights, but cringe at her provocations, contributing to an unexpectedly tight race last year that she won by just 546 votes out of more than 300,000 cast.

    “She tapped into what Trump was doing, and she maybe took it too far in some instances,” said Alex Mason, 27, adding that Boebert, whom he supports, is still more tactful than former President Donald Trump.

    In an interview, Boebert said “this slim victory, it opened my eyes to another chance to do everything that I’ve been promising to do.”

    To the congresswoman, that means being “more focused on delivering the policies I ran on than owning the left,” adding she hoped “to bring the temperature down, to bring unity.”

    For much of past week, however, the temperature on Capitol Hill was only rising. Boebert was a leading voice among a group of lawmakers who refused to support Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s bid to become House speaker, a historic revolt against a party leader. McCarthy finally won the gavel early Saturday morning.

    Some of Boebert’s toughest words are increasingly aimed at fellow Republicans, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, another controversial Trump acolyte who was one of McCarthy’s most prominent conservative supporters.

    “I have been asked to explain MTG’s beliefs on Jewish space lasers, on why she showed up to a white supremacist conference. … I’m just not going to go there,” Boebert said over the phone as she rode in a car winding through the high canyons near her hometown of Silt before the speakership vote. “She wants to say all these things and seem unhinged on Twitter, so be it.”

    Boebert, 36, insisted that while she may try to pick fewer fights with the left, she’s not going to become a different person even after barely beating an opponent, Democrat Adam Frisch, who had targeted what he called Boebert’s “angertainment.”

    “A lot of those on the left have said: ‘Look at your election, are you going to tone it down, little girl?’” she said. “I’m still going to be me.”

    The slim margin has stirred discussion about whether she might be vulnerable in another race next year, with Frisch saying he has received encouragement from lawmakers in Washington to run again..

    But, she said, she’s thinking more about what it’s like to be a member of the majority party.

    “In the minority, all I had was my voice, the only thing I could do was be loud about the things I’m passionate about,” she said. Now, “We have to lead right now, we have to show Americans that we deserve to be in the majority.”

    People in Boebert’s district, which runs from the ruddy red mesas in Grand Junction that stand sentry over rugged, high-desert terrain to the coal mining hamlets nestled in the Rockies, say the landscape promotes a kind of frontier libertarianism. To many voters, Boebert became a standard-bearer for a rural way of life and values that they feel are being both persecuted and forgotten.

    Larry Clark, who spent 50 years tending to his family’s 160-acre ranch before his relatives sought cash for the land, points to one example. Many more liberal city-dwellers east of the Rockies voted to reintroduce wolves to the Western Slope, where the predators’ prey includes livestock that drives the local economy.

    “They don’t understand what rural life is like,” said Clark, who only had encouraging words for Boebert, a staunch opponent of reintroduction. “Send the wolves to Boulder.”

    Even if they’ve grown wary of her excesses, many of Boebert’s supporters say she’s amplified their concerns nationally and served as an an antidote to progressive Democrats such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York.

    Raleigh Snyder, a retired aircraft mechanic in Grand Junction, said Boebert was America’s only chance against “endemic corruption” in Washington. Still, he said “she’s probably going to have to learn to temper her approach, but don’t change her goals.”

    Outside Rifle’s City Market, Maryann Tonder said she doesn’t want Boebert “even to feel that she has to compromise principles to get stuff done.” But, she added, “you can do it in a way that is not over the top.”

    Another Boebert supporter in Rifle, Julie Ottman, who was pushing a cart out of City Market, said, “sometimes you got to give a little bit in order to get.”

    But others are pressing Boebert to stand firm.

    “I don’t want her to bow,” said Mike Gush, 64, a coal miner from the small town of Craig. “I would stop supporting her.”

    __

    Jesse Bedayn is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

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  • McCarthy’s next big task: Win GOP support for House rules

    McCarthy’s next big task: Win GOP support for House rules

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — After an epic 15-ballot election to become House speaker, Republican Kevin McCarthy faces his next big test in governing a fractious, slim majority: passing a rules package to govern the House.

    The drafting and approval of a set of rules is normally a fairly routine legislative affair, but in these times, it’s the next showdown for the embattled McCarthy.

    To become speaker and win over skeptics, McCarthy had to make concessions to a small group of hard-liners who refused to support his ascension until he yielded to their demands.

    Now those promises — or at least some of them — are being put into writing to be voted on when lawmakers return this week for their first votes as the majority party.

    On Sunday, at least two moderate Republicans expressed their reservations about supporting the rules package, citing what they described as secret deals and the disproportionate power potentially being handed out to a group of 20 conservatives.

    The concessions included limits on McCarthy’s power, such as by allowing a single lawmaker to initiate a vote to remove him as speaker and curtailing government spending, which could include defense cuts. They also give the conservative Freedom Caucus more seats on the committee that decides which legislation reaches the House floor.

    They also raise questions about whether McCarthy can garner enough support from Republicans, who hold a 222-212 edge, on a critical vote in the coming months to raise the debt limit, given conservatives’ demand that there also be significant spending cuts, over opposition from the White House and a Democratic-controlled Senate.

    Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., a strong McCarthy supporter, said she currently is “on the fence” about the proposed rules.

    “I like the rules package,” Mace said, in reference to what has been released publicly. “What I don’t support is a small number of people trying to get a deal done or deals done for themselves in private, in secret.”

    She said it will be hard to get anything done in the House if a small band is given a stronger hand compared with the larger number of moderates. “I am concerned that commonsense legislation will not get through to get a vote on the floor,” she said.

    Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Texas, was an outright “no” against the rules package, decrying an “insurgency caucus” that he said would cut defense spending and push extremist legislation, such as on immigration.

    Democrats are expected to be united against the package.

    Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, a member of the Freedom Caucus who is expected to lead the House Judiciary Committee, defended the concessions McCarthy made and said he believes the rules package will get enough Republican support to pass. He insisted that the agreements will help ensure broader representation on committees and will curtail unfettered government spending.

    “We’ll see tomorrow,” he said Sunday, but “I think we’ll get the 218 votes needed to pass the rules package.”

    In the coming months, Congress will have to work to raise the debt limit before the government reaches its borrowing cap or face a devastating default on payments, including those for Social Security, military troops and federal benefits such as food assistance. Lawmakers will also have to fund federal agencies and programs for the next budget year, which begins Oct. 1.

    “Our general concern is that the dysfunction — that was historic — that we saw this week is not at an end, it’s just the beginning,” said House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York.

    The White House has rejected Republican calls to slash spending in return for an increase in the federal government’s borrowing authority. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre went so far on Sunday as to call House Republicans’ likely demands “hostage taking” that would risk default, an event that could trigger an economic crisis.

    “Congress is going to need to raise the debt limit without — without — conditions and it’s just that simple,” Jean-Pierre told reporters aboard Air Force One as President Joe Biden flew to Texas. “Attempts to exploit the debt ceiling as leverage will not work. There will be no hostage taking.”

    Yet the White House also said it had no plans to sidestep the needed congressional approval through possible budget gimmicks such as the minting of a coin to help cover a deficit that could be roughly $1 trillion this fiscal year.

    “We’re not considering any measures that would go around Congress,” Jean-Pierre said. “That’s not what we’re doing. This is a fundamental congressional responsibility, and Congress must act.”

    Jordan argued that “everything has to be on the table” when it comes to spending cuts, including in defense, in light of the government’s $32 trillion debt. “Frankly we better look at the money we send to Ukraine as well and say, how can we best spend the money to protect America?” he said.

    Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, one of the 20 who initially voted against McCarthy before throwing his support behind the Californian, said he and other conservatives will be holding their position that there should be spending cuts in a debt ceiling bill. Asked whether he would exercise members’ new authority and unilaterally initiate a vote to remove the speaker if McCarthy doesn’t ultimately agree, Roy offered a warning.

    “I’m not going to play the ‘what if’ games on how we’re going to use the tools of the House to make sure that we enforce the terms of the agreement, but we will use the tools of the House to enforce the terms of the agreement,” Roy said.

    Mace and Gonzales appeared on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” Jordan spoke on “Fox News Sunday,” Jeffries was on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” and Roy was on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

    ___

    Associated Press writer Josh Boak contributed to this report.

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  • Cubans crossing into US stunned to hear of new asylum limits

    Cubans crossing into US stunned to hear of new asylum limits

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    YUMA, Ariz. (AP) — Migrants who entered the U.S. illegally under moonlit skies and waist-deep cold water Friday were devastated to learn they may be sent back to Mexico under expanded limits on the pursuit of asylum.

    About 200 migrants who walked in the dark for about an hour to surrender to Border Patrol agents in Yuma, Arizona, included many Cubans — who were stunned to hear that a ban on asylum that previously fell largely on other nationalities now applies just as much to them. Several were political dissidents of the Cuban government who were driven to leave by longstanding fears of incarceration and persecution and a new sense of economic desperation.

    President Joe Biden announced Thursday that Cubans, Nicaraguans, Haitians and Venezuelans will be expelled to Mexico if they enter the U.S. illegally, effective immediately. At the same time, he offered humanitarian parole for up to 30,000 people a month from those four countries if they apply online, pay for their airfare and find a financial sponsor.

    Mario Enrique Perez, 32, said he would rather be incarcerated in the U.S. than be returned to Mexico, where, he said, he and his wife endured many slights and poor treatment during a two-month journey across the country. They frequently had to get off buses to avoid shakedowns at government checkpoints, slowing their pace.

    The vast majority of Cubans reach the U.S. by flying to Nicaragua as tourists and make their way to the U.S. border with Mexico. Perez said they trade information “like ants” about which routes are safest and easiest, which is why he picked Yuma.

    Nelliy Jimenez, 50, said she rode horses on her three-month journey through Mexico to avoid shakedowns at government checkpoints. Her son, whom she described as an active dissident, fled to Spain years ago. She held out in Cuba despite links to her son — even getting jailed during the July 2021 protests — but held out until economic desperation forced her to sell her convenience store in the city of Cienfuegos to finance her trip to the United States.

    She hopes to settle with relatives in Nebraska.

    “I did not see this coming,” Jimenez said of the new limits on asylum.

    Niurka Avila, 53, said the Cuban government surveils her and her husband, who are known dissidents. She spoke with disgust of Cuban officials, saying she couldn’t bring herself to wear traditional guayabera dress because they do. They “appropriated” it, she said.

    Avila, a nurse in Cuba, said that Mexico was not an attractive option and that she and her husband hope to join family in Florida.

    “(Mexico) is a violent place, and our family is here,” she said.

    The new rules expand on an existing effort to stop Venezuelans attempting to enter the U.S., which began in October and led to a dramatic drop in Venezuelans coming to the southern border. Together, they represent a major change to immigration rules that will stand even if the Supreme Court ends a Trump-era public health law that allows U.S. authorities to turn away asylum-seekers.

    “Do not, do not just show up at the border,” Biden said as he announced the changes, even as he acknowledged the hardships that lead many families to make the dangerous journey north.

    “Stay where you are and apply legally from there,” he advised.

    Biden made the announcement just days before a planned visit to El Paso, Texas, on Sunday for his first trip to the southern border as president. From there, he will travel on to Mexico City to meet with North American leaders on Monday and Tuesday.

    At the U.S.-Mexico border, migrants have been denied a chance to seek asylum 2.5 million times since March 2020 under Title 42 restrictions, introduced as an emergency health measure by former President Donald Trump to prevent the spread of COVID-19. But there always has been criticism that the restrictions were used as a pretext by the Republican to seal off the border.

    Biden moved to end the Title 42 restrictions, and Republicans sued to keep them. The U.S. Supreme Court has kept the rules in place for now. White House officials say they still believe the restrictions should end, but they maintain they can continue to turn away migrants under immigration law.

    On Friday, spokesperson Boris Cheshirkov of UNHCR, the U.N. refugee agency, welcomed the expansion of safe and regular pathways that will now be available to an “unprecedented number” of people trying to enter the United States, but said the agency also wants more details about how the new process will be implemented.

    “These are quite significant and multifaceted announcements,” he told reporters in Geneva at a regular U.N. briefing. “We’re analyzing what has been announced and especially the impact that these measures may have — including on the situation and the thousands of people that are already on the move.”

    Cheshirkov reiterated the U.N. agency’s long-running concerns about the use of Title 42 because of the risk that many people may get sent back to Mexico “without considerations of the dangers that they fled and the risks and hardships that many of them may then face.”

    “What we’re reiterating is that this is not in line with the refugee law standards,” he added. “Seeking asylum is a fundamental human right.”

    ___

    Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Jamey Keaten in Geneva; Colleen Long, Zeke Miller and Rebecca Santana in Washington; and Gisela Salomon in Miami.

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  • Jan. 6 remembrance led by Dems as GOP wrestled with rebels

    Jan. 6 remembrance led by Dems as GOP wrestled with rebels

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden conferred high honors on those who stood against the Jan. 6 Capitol mob two years ago and the menacing effort in state after state to upend the election, declaring “America is a land of laws, not chaos,” even as disarray rendered Congress dysfunctional for a fourth straight day.

    Democrats at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue commemorated the police officers attacked that day and the local election workers and state officials who faced fierce intimidation from supporters of former President Donald Trump as they fought to keep him in office after his defeat.

    “Our democracy held,” Biden said Friday in awarding Presidential Citizens Medals to about a dozen recipients from across the country in the White House East Room. “We the people did not flinch.”

    Yet democracy’s vulnerability was equally on display at the Capitol as Republicans struggled to break their stalemate over the next House speaker, leaving that chamber in limbo for what should have been the first week under a GOP majority.

    A resolution to the immediate crisis finally came after a series of concessions by the GOP leaders to appease its hard-right flank. In a vote sealed early Saturday after midnight. Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California got the majority he needed to become House speaker and get the chamber back to business.

    Many hours earlier, lawmakers held a moment of silence to commemorate the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the building that drew mostly Democrats, with brief remarks from Democratic leaders past and incoming — Reps. Nancy Pelosi and Hakeem Jeffries — and none from the GOP.

    The event was focused on the Capitol Police officers who protected the building Jan. 6 and families of law enforcement officers who died after the riot. Jeffries said 140 officers were seriously injured and “many more will forever be scarred by the bloodthirsty violence of the insurrectionist mob. We stand here today with our democracy intact because of those officers.”

    At the White House ceremony, Biden described the violence in evocative and at times graphic detail — the officer speared by a flagpole flying the American flag, the beatings, the bloodshed and racist screams from rioters who professed to be pro-law enforcement as they overran police and hunted for lawmakers.

    “Sick insurrectionists,” he said. “We must say clearly with a united voice that there is no place … for voter intimidation or election violence.”

    Although the horrors of Jan. 6 came down on members of both parties, it is being remembered in a largely polarized fashion now, like other aspects of political life in a divided country.

    Biden, in his afternoon remarks, played up the heroism of the honorees, whether in the face of the violent Capitol mob or the horde of Trump-inspired agitators who threatened election workers or otherwise sought to overturn the results.

    But he couldn’t ignore warning signs that it could happen again.

    In the midterms, candidates who denied the outcome of 2020’s free and fair election were defeated for many pivotal statewide positions overseeing elections in battleground states, as were a number of election deniers seeking seats in Congress.

    Yet many of the lawmakers who brought baseless claims of election fraud or excused the violence on Jan. 6 continue to serve and are newly empowered.

    Trump’s 2024 candidacy has been slow off the starting blocks, but his war chest is full and some would-be rivals for the Republican presidential nomination have channeled his false claims about the 2020 race.

    As well, several lawmakers who echoed his lies about a stolen election at the time were central in the effort to derail McCarthy’s ascension to speaker — unswayed by Trump’s appeals from afar to support him and end the fight.

    The protracted struggle left the House leaderless, unable to pass bills and powerless to do much more than hold vote after vote for speaker until a majority was reached. Everything from national security briefings to helping their constituents navigate the federal bureaucracy was on pause because the members-elect couldn’t yet take their oath of office.

    Some Democrats saw a throughline from Jan. 6.

    The chaos of the speaker’s election was “about destruction of an institution in a different way,” said Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington, one of the lawmakers who fled the rioters two years ago.

    Then, the insurrectionists trapped some lawmakers in the House chamber but never breached it. They held up national business for hours that day.

    Now some felt trapped in the same chamber by the repeated, fruitless votes for speaker.

    “The stream of continuity here is extremism, elements of Trumpism, norms don’t matter,” says Democratic Rep. Mike Quigley of Illinois. “It’s not about governing, it’s about pontificating and advocating an extremist point of view.”

    At least nine people who were at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, died during or after the rioting, including a woman who was shot and killed by police as she tried to break into the House chamber and three other Trump supporters whom authorities said suffered medical emergencies.

    Two officers, Howard Liebengood of the Capitol Police and Jeffrey Smith of the Metropolitan Police, were at the Capitol that Jan. 6 and died by suicide in the days following the attack. Biden honored both Friday with posthumous medals.

    A third officer, Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, collapsed and died after engaging with the protesters. A medical examiner later determined he died of natural causes.

    The Metropolitan Police announced months later that two more of their officers who had responded to the insurrection, Kyle DeFreytag and Gunther Hashida, had also died by suicide.

    On Capitol Hill, the mostly Democratic lawmakers held a 140-second moment of silence in honor of those officers as some of their families said their names and a bell was rung in their honor.

    “I wish we didn’t have to be here,” said Ken Sicknick, brother of Brian Sicknick, after the ceremony.

    After the unsatisfying midterm election for Trump allies, the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack wrapped up its work with a recommendation to the Justice Department to prosecute the former president. A special counsel and ultimately Attorney General Merrick Garland will now decide whether to indict him.

    While the congressional investigations have ended, the criminal cases are still very much continuing, both for the 950 arrested and charged in the violent attack and for Trump and his associates who remain under investigation. The second seditious conspiracy trial begins this week, for members of the far-right Proud Boys.

    In a measured but significant step, Congress in December amended the Electoral Count Act to limit the role of the vice president in counting electoral votes, to make it harder for individual lawmakers to mount objections to properly certified election results and to eliminate “fake electors” like those deployed by Trump allies in a bid to overturn his defeat to Biden.

    After all that, Biden, who made it a tentpole of his agenda to prove to the world that democracies can deliver for their citizens, said he hoped that this was “the first time we’re really getting through the whole issue relating to Jan. 6. Things are settling out.”

    But then came the fight for speaker, rare in the annals of Congress.

    “And now, for the first time in 100 years, we can’t move?” Biden said earlier this week. “It’s not a good look. It’s not a good thing.”

    “Look,” he went on, “how do you think it looks to the rest of the world?”

    ___

    Associated Press writer Colleen Long contributed to this report.

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  • Russia’s hypersonic missile-armed ship to patrol global seas

    Russia’s hypersonic missile-armed ship to patrol global seas

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    Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday sent a frigate armed with the country’s latest Zircon hypersonic missile on a trans-ocean cruise in a show of force as tensions with the West escalate over the war in Ukraine.

    Russia touts that the Zircon missile can evade any Western air defenses by flying at an astounding 7,000 miles per hour (11,265 km/h).

    Here is a glance at the ship and its weapons.

    THE PRIDE OF THE RUSSIAN NAVY

    Commissioned by the navy in 2018 following long trials, the Admiral Gorshkov is the first ship in the new series of frigates which were designed to replace the aging Soviet-built destroyers as a key strike component of the Russian navy.

    Armed with an array of missiles, the ship is 130-meters (427-feet) long and has a crew of about 200.

    In 2019, it circled the world oceans on a 35,000-nautical mile journey.

    INTENSIVE TESTS

    The Admiral Gorshkov has served as the main testbed for the latest Russian hypersonic missile, Zircon.

    In recent years, the Zircon has undergone a series of tests, including being launched at various practice targets. The military declared the tests successful and Zircon officially entered service last fall.

    Zircon is intended to arm Russian cruisers, frigates and submarines and could be used against both enemy ships and ground targets. It is one of several hypersonic missiles that Russia has developed.

    THE NEW WEAPON

    Putin has hailed Zircon as a potent weapon capable of penetrating any existing anti-missile defenses by flying nine times faster than the speed of sound at a range of more than 1,000 kilometers (over 620 miles).

    Putin has emphasized that Zircon gives the Russian military a long-range conventional strike capability, allowing it to strike any enemy targets with precision.

    Russia’s hypersonic weapons drive emerged as the U.S. has been working on its own Conventional Prompt Global Strike capability that envisions hitting an adversary’s strategic targets with precision-guided conventional weapons anywhere in the world within one hour.

    Putin heralded Zircon as Russia’s answer to that, claiming that the new weapon has no rival, giving Russia a strategic edge.

    Months before ordering the invasion of Ukraine, Putin put the U.S. and its NATO allies on notice when he warned that Russian warships armed with Zircon would give Russia a capability to strike the adversary’s “decision-making centers” within minutes if deployed in neutral waters.

    Speaking via video link during Wednesday’s sendoff ceremony, Putin again praised Zircon as a “unique weapon” without an “equivalent for it in any country in the world.”

    OTHER RUSSIAN HYPERSONIC WEAPONS

    Russia has already commissioned the Avangard hypersonic glide vehicles for some of its ground-based intercontinental ballistic missiles that constitute part of Russia’s strategic nuclear triad. Putin has hailed the Avangard’s ability to maneuver at hypersonic speeds on its approach to target, dodging air defenses.

    The Russian military has also deployed the Kinzhal hypersonic missiles on its MiG-31 aircraft and used them during the war in Ukraine to strike some priority targets. Kinzhal reportedly has a range of about 1,500 kilometers (about 930 miles).

    PATROL DUTY

    Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu reported to Putin on Wednesday that the Admiral Gorshkov will patrol the Atlantic and Indian Oceans and the Mediterranean, but didn’t give further details.

    Shoigu said the Admiral Gorshkov’s crew will focus on “countering the threats to Russia, maintaining regional peace and stability jointly with friendly countries.” He added the crew will practice with hypersonic weapons and long-range cruise missiles “in various conditions.”

    Some military experts say a single, hypersonic missile-armed warship is no match for the massive naval forces of the U.S. and its allies.

    But others noted that the frigate’s potential deployment close to U.S. shores could be part of Putin’s strategy to up the ante in the Ukrainian conflict.

    “This is a message to the West that Russia has nuclear-tipped missiles that can easily pierce any missile defenses,” pro-Kremlin political analyst Sergei Markov wrote in a commentary.

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  • Rockets hit US base in eastern Syria, no casualties reported

    Rockets hit US base in eastern Syria, no casualties reported

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    BEIRUT — Two rockets struck a base housing American troops in eastern Syria on Wednesday without causing any human or material losses, the U.S. military said.

    The morning attack on Mission Support Site Conoco came as Iran and its allies in the region marked the third anniversary of the killing of Iran’s leading general and chief of the powerful Quds force, Qassem Soleimani, in a U.S. drone strike in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad.

    No one claimed responsibility for the attack in eastern Syria, where it is not uncommon for bases housing U.S. troops to come under rocket fire or mortar attacks. Iran-backed militia are based nearby as are sleeper cells of the Islamic State group that was defeated in Syria in March 2019.

    The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, said the rockets were fired by Arab tribesmen in the region who are armed by Iran.

    “Attacks of this kind place Coalition Forces and the civilian populace at risk and undermine the hard-earned stability and security of Syria and the region,” said Joe Buccino, spokesman for the U.S. Central Command, in a statement.

    CENTCOM said members of the Kurdish-led and U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces visited the site from which the rockets originated, and found a third that was not fired.

    The U.S.-backed Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces announced later Wednesday that they arrested a senior figure in the Islamic State group, the militants’ financial official from Deir el-Zour province. His arrest comes amid a dayslong campaign by the U.S.-backed force against IS sleeper cells in parts of northeastern Syria that have claimed responsibility for deadly attacks in recent weeks.

    There are roughly 900 U.S. troops in Syria, including in the north and farther south and east.

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