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Republicans will try to elect Trump ally Rep. Jim Jordan as House speaker but GOP holdouts remain

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:59:41 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans will try to elect a firebrand Rep. Jim Jordan as the new House speaker, elevating a chief ally of Donald Trump to a center-seat of U.S. power and showing just how far the hard-right flank has moved into the GOP mainstream.On Tuesday, the House is scheduled to start voting at noon in what could become a showdown for the gavel. At least a handful of holdout Republicans are refusing to give Jordan their votes, viewing the Ohio Republican as too extreme for the powerful position of House speaker, second in line to the presidency.But with public pressure bearing down on lawmakers from Trump’s allies including Fox News’ Sean Hannity, it’s not clear how long the holdouts can last. Jordan swiftly flipped dozens of detractors in a matter of days, shoring up reluctant Republicans who have few options left two weeks after Kevin McCarthy’s ouster. “The American people deserve to have their Congress and House of Representatives working, and y...

PG&E’s plan to bury power lines and prevent wildfires faces opposition because of high rates

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:59:41 GMT

VACAVILLE, Calif. (AP) — Pacific Gas & Electric — one of the nation’s largest utilities whose equipment has sparked some of California’s deadliest wildfires — wants to bury power lines in some of its most at-risk areas to prevent destructive blazes like the 2018 Paradise fire that killed 85 people.But state regulators are balking at the utility’s plan because it would take too long and cost $5.9 billion. The company’s customers — who already have some of the highest rates in the country — would have to pay for it. Regulators want PG&E to put a protective cover over many of its overhead power lines instead of burying them. The cover approach is cheaper, but riskier. PG&E says burying a power line reduces the chance it will start a wildfire by 99% because it can’t be blown down by wind storms. The protective cover, which would better insulate the power line should it fall to the ground, would reduce that chance by 62%.“We’re not going to live ...

Trump scheduled to be questioned in lawsuits from ex-FBI employees who sent negative texts about him

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:59:41 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump is scheduled to be questioned under oath Tuesday as part of lawsuits from two former FBI employees who provoked the former president’s outrage after sending each other pejorative text messages about him.Peter Strzok, who was a lead agent in the FBI’s investigation into ties between Russia and the 2016 Trump campaign, has alleged in a lawsuit against the Justice Department that he was wrongfully fired for exercising his First Amendment rights when he and a colleague traded anti-Trump text messages in the weeks before he became president.Lisa Page, the FBI lawyer who texted with Strzok and had also been assigned to the Russia investigation, has sued as well, alleging that the Justice Department violated her privacy by disclosing copies of her messages with Strzok to members of the news media. She voluntarily resigned from the FBI in May 2018, and Strzok was fired several months after that.Both allege that the Justice Department acted under un...

Donald Trump is returning to his civil fraud trial, but star witness Michael Cohen won’t be there

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:59:41 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Former President Donald Trump returns to a New York City courthouse Tuesday to be a spectator at the civil fraud trial threatening to disrupt his real estate empire.Trump voluntarily attended the first three days of the trial, Oct. 2-4. He turned his appearance into a campaign stop by complaining about the case at every opportunity to TV cameras in the hallway outside the courtroom.Now he will be back, according to his lawyer, accompanied by bolstered security inside and outside the Manhattan courthouse. His appearance was initially supposed to coincide with testimony by Michael Cohen, his former attorney turned foe. But Cohen’s planned appearance on the witness stand was delayed until at least next week, due to a health problem.Cohen said on X, formerly known as Twitter, that he isn’t dodging Trump. On Monday, he said he expects his estranged ex-boss to be in the courtroom when he does testify. “I am thankful the medical condition, while incredibly painful, do...

Lawyers, Trump and money: Ex-president spends millions in donor cash on attorneys as legal woes grow

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:59:41 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump’s political fundraising machine is raking in donations at a prodigious pace, but he’s spending tens of millions of dollars he’s bringing in to pay attorneys to deal with the escalating costs of the various criminal cases he is contending with as he moves further into the 2024 presidential campaign.Campaign finance experts say using the money to pay for lawyers in cases not related to the campaign or officeholder duties appears to conflict with a federal ban on the personal use of donor dollars, even though the Federal Election Commission has ruled the prohibition doesn’t apply to so-called leadership political action committees. The massive amount of money going to lawyers also amplifies the urgency Trump is feeling to raise money both for the campaign and his legal defense, which is unfolding on multiple fronts.Trump’s Save America political action committee has paid nearly $37 million to more than 60 law firms and individual attorneys since January 2...

Math disabilities hold many students back. Schools often don’t screen for them

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:59:41 GMT

Laura Jackson became seriously concerned about her daughter and math when the girl was in third grade. While many of her classmates flew through multiplication tests, Jackson’s daughter relied on her fingers to count, had difficulty reading clocks and burst into tears when asked at home to practice math flashcards. At school, the 9-year-old had been receiving help from a math specialist for two years, with little improvement. “We hit a point where she was asking me, ‘Mom, am I stupid?’” Jackson recalled. One day, when having lunch with a friend, Jackson heard about a disorder known as dyscalculia. She later looked up a description of the learning disability that impacts a child’s ability to process numbers and retain math knowledge. “I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is my kid,’” Jackson said.___The Education Reporting Collaborative, a coalition of eight newsrooms, is documenting the math crisis facing schools and highlighting progress. Join our live expert panel for families, “Solving ...

Biden didn’t make Israeli-Palestinian talks a priority. Arab leaders say region now paying the price

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:59:41 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — From its first months in office, the Biden administration made a distinctive decision on its Middle East policy: It would deprioritize a half-century of high-profile efforts by past U.S. presidents, particularly Democratic ones, to broker a broad and lasting peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians. Since Richard Nixon, successive U.S. administrations have tried their hands at Camp David summits, shuttle diplomacy and other big-picture tries at coaxing Israeli and Palestinian leaders into talks to settle the disputes that underlie 75 years of Middle East tensions. More than other recent presidents, Joe Biden notably has not.Instead, administration officials early on sketched out what they called Biden’s policy of quiet diplomacy. They advocated for more modest improvements in Palestinian freedoms and living conditions under Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hardline government, which has encouraged settlement in the Israeli-occupied West...

Israeli video compilation shows the savagery and ease of Hamas’ attack

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:59:41 GMT

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A grisly montage of video and photographs of Hamas’s massacre of hundreds of civilians across southern Israel last week highlights the savagery of the attack and the ease with which the militant group appeared to operate inside Israel. The footage that the Israeli military showed foreign correspondents Monday included a photo of a burnt baby. It showed gunmen shooting the dead bodies of civilians in cars, militants in the process of beheading a body with a hoe, burnt corpses thrown in a dumpster.The briefing with reporters came as Israel cut off vital supplies to the Gaza Strip and pounded the territory with airstrikes. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers massed outside the territory ready to invade in response to the Hamas assault in which more than 1,400 people were killed. In Gaza, meanwhile, the death toll rose to more than 2,700 people, many of them civilians, according to health authorities there. On Monday, an Israeli military spokesman, Rear Adm. ...

The House is set to vote on a new speaker. Here’s what to know

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:59:41 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans are heading to the House Tuesday for the second time this Congress to try and elect a speaker, marking what they hope will be a unifying moment for a party that has been in turmoil for weeks.GOP lawmakers are expected to rally their votes behind Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, to be the next speaker despite reluctance from some who are wary of his hardline approach. Conservatives have been mounting an intense pressure campaign to persuade the final holdouts to support him.Jordan, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, won the GOP’s nomination for speaker in a secret ballot on Friday. But a second round of voting showed that more than 50 Republicans would oppose Jordan on the floor, leaving him well short of the 217 votes needed to win the gavel. Since then, with the help of former President Donald Trump and some in conservative media, Jordan has managed to flip a substantial number of detractors in his favor. But he’ll need the backing of n...

Defeated New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins will remain leader of his Labour Party

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:59:41 GMT

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — Defeated New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins said Tuesday he will continue to lead his liberal Labour Party — for now, at least — despite its big election loss over the weekend.“I’ve still got a bit of fight left in me,” Hipkins told reporters.Hipkins made the comments after a meeting with his party’s caucus, during which there was no immediate move to oust him. Still, Hipkins acknowledged that he and others in the party would be reflecting on their futures over the coming months and figuring out what would be best for the party going forward.“Obviously the election result was one that was very disappointing to us as a team,” Hipkins said.Former businessman Christopher Luxon will be the nation’s next prime minister after his conservative National Party won 39% of the vote during the election, by far the largest share of any single party. Under New Zealand’s proportional system, National plans to form a coalition with the li...