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Republican insurgents are breaking the rules and upending how the House works
About a dozen renegade House Republicans decided to use their votes on routine procedural measures to win policy concessions, breaking longstanding norms of party discipline and threatening the traditional functioning of the House. Unlike the Senate, where almost everything requires consensus, the House operates under strict majority rules, making partisan unity crucial to the smooth running of business. If all Democrats show up and vote against, Speaker Kevin McCarthy can afford to lose no more than four Republicans and still pass the rules needed to put most major legislation into practice.
Illinois passes book ban
Illinois will ban books from its public schools and libraries, with Gov. JB Pritzker calling a bill he signed Monday the first of its kind. The law, which takes effect next year, is a response to a sharp increase in efforts to ban books across the country in Democratic-controlled states, especially in Republican-led states where it has become easier for lawmakers to remove library books that political groups deem objectionable. The law directs public libraries in the state to adopt or write their own versions of the Library Bill of Rights. Libraries that don’t comply could lose state funding under the bill.
Judge allows Trump to make new comments in Carroll defamation suit
A Manhattan judge on Tuesday granted E. Jean Carroll’s request to amend her defamation lawsuit against former President Donald Trump to include similar comments he recently made on CNN. Trump had asked U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan to stop Carroll’s defamation suit after he said it was impossible for him to deny her allegations of a decades-long rape in 2019. defamed her when charged. Trump said that was because a jury recently found in another case that he was only responsible for sexually abusing Carole, not raping her, as she had long maintained. Carroll’s amended lawsuit seeks at least $10 million in compensatory damages.
Literary loner Cormac McCarthy in a dark world dies at 89
Cormac McCarthy, the formidable and reclusive author of Appalachia and the American Southwest, whose early novels of misfits and grotesques, gaudy and flashy, gave way to lush taciturn “all pretty The apocalyptic minimalism of “The Horse” and “The Road,” died Tuesday at the age of 89. McCarthy’s novels portray the human condition in a dark, often gruesome light. He lived quietly but firmly outside the literary mainstream. However, the mainstream eventually came to him. All the Pretty Horses won the National Book Award in 1992, and The Road won the Pulitzer Prize in 2007. Both films were made into films, and McCarthy’s “Old Men Without Borders” also won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 2008.
Russian troops strike back at advancing Ukrainian troops
Russian air force and artillery weapons countered advancing Ukrainian troops Tuesday, striking them over several southern villages that Ukrainian forces had recaptured in the beginning of the Kiev counteroffensive over the past week. The attack, which left a village in ruins, came on the same day that a Russian missile strike killed at least 11 people in Kryvyi Rih, the hometown of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Conflicting accounts make it difficult to assess the situation on the battlefield, but Russian President Vladimir Putin has acknowledged that his troops have suffered some losses this month, including 54 tanks.
International rescue teams still unable to reach flooded areas controlled by Russia
Moscow has failed to provide security for rescue workers seeking to help thousands of people in flooded areas in Russian-occupied territory, the United Nations said on Tuesday, hampering humanitarian efforts more than a week after the Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine was destroyed. Ukraine said it had provided such assurances to the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross last week over areas it controls, but so far the Kremlin has failed to reach such an agreement. Russian-controlled areas have been among the hardest hit by the floods, but the extent of the damage in these areas remains unclear.
Berlusconi’s death still attracts Italy’s attention
Not even death could stop Silvio Berlusconi from taking center stage. Berlusconi, who ruled Italian politics for decades as prime minister and powerbroker, still ruled the country when he died on Monday at the age of 86, a day after his death. Mourners sent flowers to his palatial villa. His critics debate whether he revolutionized Italy. His most ardent admirers declare him to be their foremost thought and prayer. While Berlusconi’s family decided on Tuesday to hold a strictly private gathering for friends and relatives, the former leader’s gravity brought news channels and website footage to the elegant iron gates surrounding his villa in Arcore, near Milan.
Colombian children rescued in jungle keep running for their lives
After their small plane crashed in the Amazon rainforest, the four children survived an almost inconceivable 40 days in the Colombian jungle as they boarded the plane as they were escaping. Manuel Lanock, the father of the two youngest survivors, explained in an interview that an armed group that forcibly recruited children through threats of violence had taken control of their hometown in southern Colombia. Relatives had tried to fly the children out of the territory, to a city where they could live safely. The children were forced to embark on a week-long journey to survive in the Amazon jungle after their escape plane crashed, killing their mother and two other adults.
US soldier wounded in Syria was part of commando team
The 22 soldiers injured in a helicopter accident in northeastern Syria on Sunday were part of the Army’s top-secret Delta Force commando unit, which has previously carried out kill or capture attacks on Islamic State militants in that part of the country. the senior military official said Tuesday. The Pentagon’s Central Command, which oversees operations in the Middle East and South Asia, said in a brief statement late Monday that nearly two dozen service members were injured in a “helicopter accident” in northeastern Syria. Ten of the soldiers have been evacuated to hospitals outside the area and an investigation is ongoing, the statement said.
British woman eight months pregnant jailed for abortion
A woman was jailed this week for illegally using abortion pills to end a 32- to 34-week pregnancy, sparking a debate in England about its abortion laws and whether women should be prosecuted for the procedure. To add insult to injury, she is being prosecuted under a law that is more than 160 years old. A court in the central England city of Stoke-on-Trent sentenced Kara Foster, 44, to 28 months in prison on Monday for taking abortion pills when she was eight months pregnant, causing a miscarriage. The sentence includes a maximum of 14 months in prison, after which she can be released if certain conditions are met.
via wired source
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