So what can we do to minimize the chances? The Bush administration is placing a lot of its money on missile defense. Let’s set aside the passionate debate for a moment and stipulate, for the sake of argument, that Bush is right about this–that a rogue nation may eventually seek to blackmail us with its nuclear missiles, and we should start preparing for it now. How else can we counter the threat of WMD?...
Empire star Smollett, 39, was on Wednesday released from Chicago’s Cook County Jail, pending his appeal, less than a week after a judge had sentenced him to 150 days behind bars. The actor was in December found guilty of lying to police about being the victim of an alleged racist and homophobic attack on the streets of Chicago in 2019. In the hours before Smollett’s release, Lawson spoke out against the sentence he had been given, stating that the punishment was disproportionate to the crime....
Royal families are found all over the world, including in: Spain, Monaco, Dubai, Thailand, Saudi Arabia, Norway, Sweden and Holland. Their lives are just as dramatic… sometimes more so. 1. Prince Albert of Monaco Prince Albert of Monaco was once notable among global royalty for his reluctance to marry. He is father to U.S. actress Jazmin Grace Grimaldi, born in 1992, after a brief relationship with Tamara Rotolo, who was at the time holidaying in the Cote D’Azur....
Musharraf, however, is unlikely to be in a compromising mood. Having been sworn in for a new five-year term last week after resigning from his powerful position as army chief, and perhaps losing some political clout as a result, he knows he would be undermining the foundation of his well-mapped-out strategy to keep himself and his political allies in power if he were to cave in to Bhutto and Sharif’s demands....
Last weekend, Israeli security forces cracked down on Palestinian worshippers and demonstrators at the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, drawing swift condemnation from prominent progressive Democrats. That crackdown came as Palestinians demonstrated against an attempt to evict several Palestinian families from homes in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem. Israeli officials describe the issue as a private real estate dispute between Jewish owners and Palestinians that is being resolved in Israel’s courts....
Biden pushed for the increase in police funding during a White House press conference with Attorney General Merrick Garland on Wednesday. The president stressed that money already included in the legislation that he signed into law on March 11 could be used to help reduce gun violence amid the nation’s recent surge in violent crimes. “We’re now providing more guidance on how [state and local governments] can use the $350 billion nationally that the American Rescue Plan has available to help reduce crime and address the root causes,” Biden said....
First reported by the New York Times, average benefits for food stamps, part of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program program, will grow more than 25 percent, higher than levels from before the pandemic. The increase will take effect on October 1 and apply to all 42 million current food stamp recipients. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, headed by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, officially announced the increase in a press release Monday....
The agreement, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), was reached in 2015 by the U.S. and Iran, alongside China, France, Germany, Russia and the United Kingdom. Former President Donald Trump left the accord in 2018. Facing severe U.S. sanctions, Iran has begun enriching uranium beyond designated caps, something the Biden administration says is blocking a U.S. return to the deal. “If Iran comes back into full compliance with its obligations under the JCPOA, the United States would do the same,” State Department spokesperson Ned Price told reporters at his first press conference Tuesday, “and then we would then use that as a platform to build a longer and a stronger agreement that also addresses other areas of concern....
But seemingly overnight, in an unexpected turn of events, Biden has regained some momentum following what has been the most productive period of his presidency. In a rare flurry of bipartisan activity over the past six weeks, Congress passed the most significant gun control regulation in three decades and made a major investment in U.S. manufacturing to counter competition from China. And on Sunday, Senate Democrats approved an energy, tax and health care package on a party-line vote, delivering on a number of longtime Democratic priorities....
The ad, released online Monday, features a nearly three-minute long timeline of Trump’s response to the coronavirus. After presenting various clips of the president and members of his administration repeatedly downplaying the growing threat of the virus, the ad concludes that Trump is responsible for an unprecedented economic downturn. “Donald Trump doesn’t understand. We have an economic crisis because we have a public health crisis. And we have a public health crisis because he refused to act,” the video’s narrator says....
According to a video demonstration published today by experts from Norwegian mobile security company Promon, the software is open to attack via a bug called StrandHogg, which can be abused by malicious hackers to put fake overlay screens over apps and steal sensitive information, including usernames and passwords. In a test showing how such an attack could appear in the real world, the team was able to exploit the bug and insert a picture overlay on the Biden campaign app....
“Is Representative Jackie here? Where’s Jackie?” Biden asked. “I think she was going to be here.” Walorski was killed in a car crash along with two of her staffers and the driver of another vehicle in August. The Elkhart County Sheriff’s Office in Indiana determined Walorski’s staffer, Zachery Potts, was driving the vehicle left of center with excessive speed, which contributed to the crash. During her time in office, Walorski co-sponsored bipartisan legislation with various other lawmakers to convene the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition and Health that took place Wednesday morning....
Rove, a former senior advisor to George W. Bush, told Fox News host Brian Kilmeade that he believed Biden should not have waded into the FBI’s seizure of documents last year in Mar-a-Lago, Florida. The pair discussed the growing political crisis swirling around the White House amid revelations that classified government documents had been found in the former offices of Biden’s think tank and his home in Wilmington, Delaware....
The Biden administration has played down this idea—having vacillated previously on its desire for a “reset”—while China has indicated that it welcomes bilateral relations, on its terms. But the truth of the matter is that by dint of having any such meeting, Team Biden is signaling that a reset is already well underway. That the administration seeks to engage China without preconditions—and, further, from a position of relative weakness when it has professed it will only do so from strength—validates the view that the executive branch is reverting from a posture of hostility to one of accommodation....
Biden told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday, without being specific, that air defense systems would be part of such assistance. The U.S. in the past has provided High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) and stingers, and is slated to send National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS). Gabriela Iveliz Rosa Hernández, a research associate at the Arms Control Association, told Newsweek that the U.S. government has pursued a policy based on giving Ukraine the weapons that “are relevant for the current fight....
The renewed rebukes come amid heightened tension in the Middle East, where over the weekend U.S. forces conducted airstrikes in retaliation for an Iranian-backed militia attack in Iraq that killed an American contractor and wounded several soldiers. Rhetoric from U.S., Iraqi and Iranian officials has also escalated. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned that the administration “will not stand” for actions by foreign countries that put Americans at risk. Meanwhile, Iraq warned there will be “dangerous consequences” for the U....
But the total amount of oil Biden plans to provide amounts to about nine days’ worth of U.S. usage. According to U.S. Energy Information Administration, the U.S. consumed an average of 19.78 barrels of petroleum per day in 2021. The world’s average consumption of petroleum and liquid fuels is just over 100 million barrels per day. The barrels that the Biden administration plans to release won’t all be deployed in the coming days, however....
The new administration undid the policies of its predecessor with gusto. MS-13 members, among numerous other criminals, allegedly entered the country illegally during the ensuing chaos. The backfire was so swift that Biden reverted to the very “Remain in Mexico” policies he previously condemned. Despite having to retract some of his original rhetoric on illegal entry into the U.S., Biden has done little to dampen the aftershocks of the crisis he helped create....
Biden told The Breakfast Club host Charlamagne Tha God on Friday morning, “If you have a problem figuring out if you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black.” When the radio show’s host responded it wasn’t about him or Trump, it was about “wanting something for my community,” the vice president encouraged him to “take a look at my record.” That record is “second to none,” according to Biden, and includes endorsements from the NAACP, reducing prison populations when he was Barack Obama’s vice president and creating a sentencing system that’s fairer to people of color....
His comments came during an exchange with Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders about the progressive candidate’s support of the 2005 Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, which protects the gun manufacture and distribution industry against civil liability actions brought over the misuse of the weapons by others. “I have a D-minus voting record from the NRA,” Sanders said. “Thirty years ago, I likely lost a race for the one seat in Congress in Vermont because 30 years ago I supported a ban on assault weapons....
