Moldovan President Nominates Ex-Finance Minister As Prime Minister  

Moldovan President Maia Sandu has nominated former Finance Minister Natalia Gavrilita to try to become the country's new prime minister.

Biden makes prime-time pitch for infrastructure, but Ohioans press on voting rights and more  

President Biden went to Cincinnati to promote his infrastructure plans at a union hall and a CNN town hall, amid bipartisan talks at the Capitol.

US issues more Cuba sanctions as Joe Biden prepares to meet Cuban-American leaders   12%

The United States imposed sanctions on the Cuban police force and two of its leaders on Friday in response to the Havana government’s crackdown on protesters as President Joe Biden prepared to meet Cuban-American leaders at the White House.The US Treasury Department said the sanctions were a reaction to “actions to suppress peaceful, pro-democratic protests in Cuba that began on July 11.”Treasury said that targets of the sanctions were two Cuban police force leaders as well as the Cuban…

US lawmakers call on Hilton to cut link to Xinjiang project at site of bulldozed mosque  

A bipartisan US congressional commission has called on Hilton Worldwide not to allow its name to be associated with a hotel project on the site of a mosque bulldozed by authorities in China’s Xinjiang region, where Washington says minority Muslims have been victims of genocide.In a letter on Thursday to Christopher Nassetta, president and CEO of Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc, Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley and congressman Jim McGovern raised concerns about reports that a Hampton by Hilton…

Biden Backs Democrats Advancing Immigration Changes Unilaterally   14%

The president said that White House staff were “putting out a message right now” that “we should include in the reconciliation bill the immigration proposal.”

Biden says US to see new Covid restrictions 'in all probability'   13%

U.S. Lawmakers Say White House 'Seems' To Be Preventing Congress From Meeting Zelenskiy  

A bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers has called on the administration of Joe Biden to reschedule a visit by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

How a Texas city coped after debilitating ransomware hack  

Cities in Texas were hit by Russian ransomware attacks before the United States fully acknowledged the cybersecurity threat. Here’s how they mended the damage without paying millions of dollars to overseas criminals.

Week In Politics: New Notes Further Show Trump's Attempt To Stop Transfer Of Power  

More troubles for former president Donald Trump, with the release of handwritten notes detailing the pressure he put on former Justice Department officials following the 2020 election.

Joe Biden picks Jonathan Kaplan for Singapore ambassador post   6%

President Joe Biden has selected tech entrepreneur Jonathan Kaplan to be the next US ambassador to Singapore, planning to fill a position in the critical Pacific trade hub that hasn’t had a formal American envoy since the end of the Obama administration in early 2017.Kaplan, whose appointment requires Senate confirmation, was CEO of Pure Digital Technologies when he invented the Flip video camera, according to a biography released by the White House. The company was sold to Cisco in 2009 for US…

Depiction of Macron as Hitler tests France's tolerance for satire  

Michel-Ange Flori, owner of a French street advertising business, decided to use some of his billboards for what he called an exercise in political satire: posting a picture showing President Emmanuel Macron dressed like Adolf Hitler.

Trump tries to defend just say the election was corrupt demand  

• Ex-president claims he was not trying to subvert democracy
• Trump restates election lie that fraud to blame for Biden win
• Giuliani: ‘I committed no crime’ while working for Trump
• What did Jim Jordan know about the insurrection and when?

Donald Trump insisted on Saturday that when he told senior justice department officials to “Just say that the election was corrupt [and] leave the rest to me”, he was not attempting to subvert US democracy, but to “uphold the integrity and honesty of elections and the sanctity of our vote”.

Related: IRS must turn over Trump tax returns to Congress, DoJ says

First group of evacuated Afghan interpreters arrives in US   61%

The first flight evacuating Afghans who worked alongside Americans in Afghanistan brought more than 200 people, including scores of children and babies in arms, to new lives in the United States on Friday, and President Joe Biden said he was proud to welcome them home.

U.S. to Announce Troop Drawdown From Iraq   50%

The deal appears to be the latest effort by the Iraqi prime minister to balance the needs and demands of the country’s two closest allies: the United States and Iran.

Biden nominates Khizr Khan, a Gold Star father and Trump critic, to religious freedom post  

President Joe Biden announced Friday that he was appointing Khizr Khan, a Gold Star father who drew then-candidate Donald Trump's ire when he spoke at the 2016 Democratic National Convention, to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom.

How the Tom Barrack indictment is playing on K Street  

Biden aides-turned-lobbyists saw revenues multiply last quarter — Huawei snaps up Podesta

Republicans Refuse to Reckon With January 6   -2%

All along the hallways of the Capitol complex today, members of the Capitol Police stared at their phones and nearby TV screens. Four of their fellow officers were testifying before Congress for the first time about the treatment they’d endured on January 6. They described being beaten with metal flagpoles, sprayed in the eyes with wasp repellent, and shocked with their own Tasers. One of the men cried while he spoke; a colleague patted his back. Their hands shook as they took careful sips of water.

This morning’s testimony was the first time Americans have heard such a vivid and agonizing account from the front lines of the attack—the officers’ growing panic as the mob surrounded them, how the rioters called them “traitors” and threatened to kill them with their own guns, the realization that they might die right there on the marble steps of the Capitol. But just as striking as the officers’ testimony is Republican lawmakers’ refusal to engage with it. The GOP response has been to minimize or even scoff at what occurred.

Early in the hearing, the officers who testified watched as the select committee chair, Bennie Thompson, played a compilation of footage and police recordings that stitched together the day’s events: the frantic calls between officers; the ominous sound of rioters banging on the glass outside the east entrance of the Capitol; Officer Eugene Goodman urging Senator Mitt Romney to flee the mob. A few minutes into the video, the C-SPAN camera panned away to capture Officer Daniel Hodges looking at himself on the screen, which showed him crushed against a door and struggling for air as a rioter pried off his gas mask. While he watched, Hodges’s face was inscrutable, but his cheeks were flushed.

[Read: How a rising Trump critic lost her nerve]

As Hodges was preparing to relive what was perhaps the most traumatic day of his life, the Republican House conference chair, Elise Stefanik, was outside hosting a rival event: a press conference during which she blamed the January 6 violence on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. “It is a fact that the U.S. Capitol Police raised concerns, and rather than providing them with the support and resources they deserved, she prioritized her partisan political optics over their safety,” Stefanik said. (Pelosi does not oversee the operations of the U.S. Capitol Police.)

Stefanik’s was only one excuse of many. Shortly after January 6, Donald Trump’s allies spun up a story accusing antifa of infiltrating the mob and instigating the assault. In May, the GOP lawmaker Andrew Clyde of Georgia described the riot that threatened the lives of his colleagues as a “normal tourist visit.” Just this morning, a contributor to the far-right American Greatness magazine characterized the testifying officers as “crisis actors,” playing victims for liberal political ends.

Republicans would like nothing more than to stop talking about this day. It’s why they voted to oust Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, a fierce Trump critic, from her leadership position earlier this summer, and it’s the reason so many GOP lawmakers voted against establishing an independent committee to investigate January 6. In a recent interview, the freshman Republican Nancy Mace offered a tidy summation of her party’s broader feelings: “I want to be done with that,” she told me. “I want to move forward.”

[Read: Republicans meet their monster]

But the GOP’s sweep-it-away approach will be difficult to sustain. According to Cheney, the select committee plans to investigate “every phone call, every conversation, every meeting leading up to, during, and after the attack,” which will keep the issue in the headlines for the coming weeks or months. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s decision to pull his appointees from the committee after Pelosi refused to seat Representatives Jim Jordan of Ohio and Jim Banks of Indiana seems like it might have been a political miscalculation. Now the GOP has no one on the panel to counter or challenge the investigation. The only two Republicans on the panel are Trump detractors appointed by Pelosi—Cheney and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois—which will underscore that there are still members of the party who hold the former president and many of their colleagues responsible for the insurrection.

During the hearing, the officers took turns recounting the day’s events. Sergeant Aquilino Gonell said he’d been more frightened on January 6 than he was during his entire deployment in Iraq. Officer Harry Dunn said he was called the N-word. Officer Michael Fanone recounted being dragged into the crowd of rioters, beaten, and tased: “I’m sure I was screaming, but I don’t think I could even hear my own voice.” Hodges described how a man had hooked his finger into his right eye and tried to gouge it out.

By late morning, they’d finished making their statements, and the question-and-answer portion of the panel was about to begin. Televisions across the Capitol complex flashed with hearing coverage. A CNN reporter asked Clyde, the Republican who’d described January 6 as a “normal tourist visit,” what he made of their testimony. “I have not heard anything yet today,” he responded.

With reporting from Christian Paz

Tunisias Democracy Verges on Collapse as President Moves to Take Control  

The effort by President Kais Saied threatened the only democracy to emerge from the Arab Spring protests a decade ago, and his opponents called it a coup.

Justice Department Says Russians Hacked U.S. Federal Prosecutors   12%

The U.S. Justice Department says the Russian hackers behind the massive SolarWinds cyberespionage campaign broke into the email accounts of some of the most prominent federal prosecutors' offices in the United States during 2020.

Trump due $1 mln tax refund for Chicago skyscraper, local officials try to block it  

An Illinois tax agency has ruled that former President Donald Trump is due a $1 million refund on the 2011 tax bill for his downtown Chicago skyscraper, but local officials are trying to block the

Tokyo Olympics: Duncan Scott makes history with silver as US win 4x100m medley in swimming finale   -20%

Luke Greenbank, Adam Peaty, James Guy and Scott took silver in the men’s 4x100 metres medley relay final, finishing 0.73 seconds behind the United States

Progressives press Biden to extend eviction ban  

Eight Democrats led by Reps. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Cori Bush of Missouri told Biden in a letter that a looming eviction crisis demanded "an urgent government response.”

Enlist Trump Against Vaccine Hesitancy   25%

Readers urge Donald Trump to persuade the vaccine holdouts. Also: Prosecuting rapists; the appeal of Texas; Republicans and Jan. 6; China crackdown; higher education.

Senate panel backs $25B Pentagon budget boost  

The proposed increase is a bipartisan blow to President Joe Biden’s spending plans.

China is seen as topping the agenda as US secretary of state begins India visit   25%

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in India on Tuesday for meetings with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and India’s top diplomat, the latest sign of Washington’s growing embrace of New Delhi as relations with Beijing continue to spiral downward.Blinken will meet on Wednesday with Modi and External Affairs Minister Dr S Jaishankar to discuss, according to the State Department, “Indo-Pacific engagement” and “shared regional security interests”, among other issues.It comes as US President…

Senate advances infrastructure bill. Can the bipartisanship last?   5%

In a 67-32 vote, the U.S. Senate agreed to begin formal consideration of a nearly $1 trillion infrastructure deal that came after weeks of negotiations between a bipartisan group of senators and the White House.

Tunisias President Kais Saied ousts government. Critics call it a coup  

Tunisia faced its biggest crisis in a decade of democracy on Monday after President Kais Saied ousted the government and froze parliament in a move that was labelled a coup by foes including influential Islamists.It follows months of deadlock and disputes between Saied, a political independent, Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi and a fragmented parliament as Tunisia has descended deeper into an economic crisis exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic.Parliament Speaker Rached Ghannouchi, the head of…

US official presses Tunisias Saied on need for swift return to democratic path  

A senior Biden official told Tunisia’s President Kais Saied in a phone call Saturday that the North African country needed to outline a “swift return” to a democratic path.National Security Advisor

Donald Trump Would Have Made a Great House Republican  

Will the performative confrontation of the former President and his congressional allies overwhelm Joe Biden’s Senate style?

Biden Has Said Pot Prisoners Should Be Free. Now Hes Poised to Send Some Back to Prison.   20%

Reports that the Biden administration will end home confinement for people released during the pandemic have spurred a flurry of activism.

The post Biden Has Said Pot Prisoners Should Be Free. Now He’s Poised to Send Some Back to Prison. appeared first on The Intercept.

The Guardian view on investigating 6 January: the truth about the storming of the Capitol   8%

The attitude of Republican politicians to the committee shows exactly why it is needed

The investigation into the deadly insurrection of 6 January is not one but two processes. The first is an attempt to discover the truth about those events: not only what happened, but who, beyond the members of the mob, was responsible and in what ways. The second is the task of getting people to accept that truth – knowing that many will not.

Senior Republicans initially acknowledged the horror of the events and the culpability of Donald Trump, whose big lie of a stolen election triggered the assault upon the Capitol to stop the peaceful transfer of power. Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader – who is said to have telephoned the president urging him to call the rioters off as they tried to break through his office window – said that Mr Trump bore responsibility. He and others called for a 9/11-style independent commission.

What did Jim Jordan know about the insurrection and when did he know it? | Sidney Blumenthal   -60%

I have some questions for the Republican congressman about events at the US Capitol on 6 January

• From the archive: The martyrdom of Mike Pence

“That fucking guy Jim Jordan. That son of a bitch,” Liz Cheney, a Republican congresswoman from Wyoming, told the chairman of the joint chiefs, Gen Mark Milley, about the Republican congressman from Ohio, according to I Alone Can Fix It, by Washington Post reporters Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker.

Related: House begins Capitol attack inquiry as Republicans set to boycott proceedings

Senate votes to move ahead on trillion-dollar bipartisan infrastructure deal   -5%

The Senate took the next step on Friday to bring up a roughly $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure deal that will fulfill key priorities in President Joe Biden's agenda.

How Philippine leaders U-turn over US forces helps keep up the pressure on China   -5%

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s decision to keep a key military agreement with the United States will boost America’s goal of keeping China under pressure over the South China Sea and Taiwan, according to observers.Duterte had threatened to end the Visiting Forces Agreement last year after the US cancelled the visa of one of his political allies, Senator Ronald Dela Rosa, a former police chief, over his role in the country’s bloody war on drugs.The agreement, which came into effect in…

Houses Resolve to Curb Surveillance State Faces Biggest Test Since Trump Presidency  

The House is set to vote this week on a measure to rein in extrajudicial searches of Americans’ private communications under Section 702 of FISA.

The post House’s Resolve to Curb Surveillance State Faces Biggest Test Since Trump Presidency appeared first on The Intercept.

Rome Declaration announced after first G20 Culture Ministers meeting   10%

The Rome Declaration was announced after the first G20 Culture Ministers’ Meeting in Rome in a major two-day event held under the Italian G20 presidency.

Behind the scenes of Laurent Gbagbo's return to Ivory Coast   -5%

After a decade-long absence, former Ivorian president Laurent Gbagbo returned to Ivory Coast on June 17, 2021. FRANCE 24's team was on board the flight carrying the former president. In this exclusive documentary, Gbagbo reflects on his political career and his acquittal by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity. Charles Emptaz and Olivier Jobard report.

Trump urged U.S. Justice Department officials to 'say the election was corrupt'  

Former U.S. president Donald Trump urged senior U.S. Justice Department officials to declare the 2020 election results "corrupt" in a December phone call, according to handwritten notes from one of the participants in the conversation.

Britain sanctions Equatorial Guinea leaders son who splurged millions on luxury cars, Michael Jackson glove   -5%

Britain on Thursday sanctioned the son of Equatorial Guinea’s president for misappropriating millions of dollars which London said was spent on luxury mansions, private jets and a US$275,000 glove worn by Michael Jackson.Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said Teodoro Obiang Mangue, who is also vice-president of Equatorial Guinea, had participated in “corrupt contracting arrangements and soliciting bribes, to fund a lavish lifestyle inconsistent with his official salary as a government minister”…