40 h. ago Texas attorney general seeks jail for O’Rourke as senate passes Republican

Ken Paxton asks judge to fine and jail ex-congressman for defying order to halt political fundraisingThe Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, has asked a local judge to consider jailing Beto O’Rourke, saying the former congressman was openly defying a judicial order blocking him and his political group from fundraising and paying the costs of Democrats who left the state to stop Republicans from passing a new congressional map.Tarrant county district judge Megan Fahey granted a request from Paxton last week halting O’Rourke and a group aligned with him, Powered by People, from fundraising. The order bars the group from using funds to pay the costs of Texas lawmakers during the special session or paying the $500 daily fines the lawmakers face for each time they are absent. Continue reading...

Politics

3 d. ago Reform UK's DOGE efforts 'save more than £100m in council spending in 100 days' since local elections as Nigel Farage's party 'rolls back Net Zero'

Nigel Farage 's party won more than 650 council seats and took control of 10 local authorities in contests across England in May.

Economics

5 d. ago Why Texas’s redistricting fight is mostly about next year’s Republican Senate slugfest

The nastiest little primary in the Lone Star state has added another layer to the redistricting fight. Eric Garcia examines the feud between the last Bush Republican and the MAGA wing of the GOP

Politics

6 d. ago Democrats condemn Texas senator over alleged FBI role in locating lawmakers

John Cornyn claims FBI agreed to help return Democrats to state, sparking backlash amid GOP map pushUS politics live – latest updatesDemocrats harshly criticized Donald Trump and Republicans on Thursday after a US senator said the FBI had agreed to assist in locating Texas Democratic lawmakers who left the state to block Republicans from enacting a gerrymandered congressional map that would likely add five more Republican seats before next year’s midterm elections.Senator John Cornyn’s claim that the FBI would assist Republicans’ effort could not be independently confirmed. The FBI declined to comment. An administration official told NBC News this week the government did not plan on using federal agents to arrest Texas lawmakers and a federal law enforcement official told the outlet that as of Thursday morning, the agency had not assisted with trying to locate the lawmakers. None of the lawmakers have been charged with a crime. Continue reading...

Politics

6 d. ago Democrats slam Texas senator Cornyn over alleged FBI role in locating fleeing lawmakers

Cornyn claims the FBI agreed to help return Texas Democrats, sparking legal and political backlash amid GOP map pushUS politics live – latest updatesDemocrats harshly criticized Donald Trump and fellow Republicans on Thursday after a US senator said the FBI had agreed to assist in returning Texas Democratic lawmakers who fled the state to stop a Republican effort to redistrict.US senator John Cornyn’s claim that the FBI will assist Republicans’ effort could not be independently confirmed. The FBI declined to comment. An administration official told NBC News this week the government did not plan on using federal agents to arrest Texas lawmakers and a federal law enforcement official told the outlet that as of Thursday morning, the agency had not assisted with trying to locate the lawmakers. Continue reading...

Politics

6 d. ago Democrats slam Texas senator over alleged FBI role in locating lawmakers

John Cornyn claims FBI agreed to help return Democrats to state, sparking backlash amid GOP map pushUS politics live – latest updatesDemocrats harshly criticized Donald Trump and fellow Republicans on Thursday after a US senator said the FBI had agreed to assist in returning Texas Democratic lawmakers who left the state to stop a Republican effort to redistrict.Senator John Cornyn’s claim that the FBI would assist Republicans’ effort could not be independently confirmed. The FBI declined to comment. An administration official told NBC News this week the government did not plan on using federal agents to arrest Texas lawmakers and a federal law enforcement official told the outlet that as of Thursday morning, the agency had not assisted with trying to locate the lawmakers. Continue reading...

Politics

8 d. ago ‘Give me a break’: Trump says he hired Fed chair Powell as a ‘favor’ after CNBC host presses him on labor bureau firing

Trump defended his recent decision to fire head of BLS while distancing himself from his past decision to hire Fed chair Jerome Powell

Politics

1 week ago ‘There’s an appetite for this brand of politics’: the independent politician making a bid for US Senate

Dan Osborn is challenging Republican incumbent Pete Ricketts in Nebraska to become a rare independent senatorDan Osborn is a man who does not like to lose, and if you had asked him on election night last year whether he would run again as an independent for a US Senate seat representing the very Republican state of Nebraska, Osborn would have told you to, in his words, “pound sand”.Yet the results of his first bid for elected office were alluring, so much so that he has decided take another stab at becoming only the third current member of the US Senate who is not in either of the two parties. While he did not beat Republican senator Deb Fischer last November, he did narrow her margin of victory to the single digits in a state that Donald Trump won by 20 points. Next year, Osborn will challenge the state’s other Republican senator, Pete Ricketts, in a contest he characterizes as a struggle between the working class and the wealthy. Continue reading...

Politics

3 w. ago Trump says 10 Israeli hostages to be released from Gaza ‘very shortly’

US president, who is pushing for ceasefire deal in Gaza, praises Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff as ‘fantastic’Ten more hostages will be released from Gaza “very shortly”, Donald Trump said at the White House Friday. The news comes as the president continues to push for a 60-day ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.“We got most of the hostages back. We’re going to have another 10 coming very shortly, and we hope to have that finished quickly,” Trump said during a dinner with Republican senators. He also praised his Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff as “fantastic”. Continue reading...

Politics

4 w. ago Will Nigel Farage’s attempt to copy and paste Trump’s policies work in the UK? | Samuel Earle

The Reform leader is trying to import Doge’s cuts to spending and ‘DEI’. It’s clear what he gets out of it – not so much the British voterA popular maxim on the American right is that politics is downstream from culture. In the UK, it increasingly feels like politics is simply downstream from the US. With Reform UK ascendant in the polls, Nigel Farage – officially MP for Clacton, unofficially Donald Trump’s emissary to the UK – is setting the terms of the national conversation, and he is importing them directly from across the pond.Over the past few months, Reform has sought to launch “Doge” initiatives (referencing Elon Musk’s department of government efficiency), waged war on DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) employment schemes, and called for the UK government to embrace crypto and create a bitcoin digital reserve at the Bank of England, following Trump’s lead. It seems the Brexiteers were right: Britain doesn’t make anything any more – not even its own bogeymen.Samuel Earle ...

Politics

4 w. ago Ghislaine Maxwell's family break silence blasting Trump's decision to close Epstein case

The siblings of the convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell launched a blistering attack on the Trump administration’s decision to end the investigation into Jeffrey Epstein

Politics

4 w. ago Three Republican senators break with Trump to vote against codifying DOGE spending cuts

Senators Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and Mitch McConnell criticized the White House for a lack of transparency surrounding the proposed cuts

Politics

4 w. ago Speaker Mike Johnson and other Republicans break with Trump on Epstein as Joe Rogan delivers scathing rant

‘They’ve got videotape and all a sudden they don’t,’ Rogan said about the Justice Department’s files on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein

Politics