Portman among 47 GOP senators to sign letter to Iran WASHINGTON — In a move Democrats denounced as trying to sabotage the Obama administration’s foreign policy, Sen. Rob Portman and 46 other Senate Republicans yesterday warned Iran’s leadership that any agreement to limit Tehran’s apparent efforts to build a nuclear bomb would need Senate approval to stay in effect beyond 2016. More
EPA, other US agencies expand urban waters effort The Environmental Protection Agency, the White House and other federal departments announced Friday that they are expanding a program for restoring and improving urban waterways nationwide. More
Coalition on immigration bill clears first tests The bipartisan coalition behind a contentious overhaul of immigration laws stuck together on a critical early series of test votes Thursday, turning back challenges from conservative critics as the Senate Judiciary Committee refined legislation to secure the nation's borders and offer eventual citizenship to millions living illegally in the United States. More
Republicans to back Obama's student loan plan House Republicans are willing to give President Barack Obama a rare win, the chairman of the Education and Workforce Committee said Thursday in outlining a deal that would let college students avoid a costly hike on their student loans. More
GOP boycotts health care advisory board House and Senate Republican leaders told President Barack Obama Thursday that they will refuse to nominate candidates to serve on an advisory board that is to play a role in holding down Medicare costs under the new health care act. More
How some faculty members are defending student protesters, in actions and in words The protests sweeping college campuses don't just involve students. Professors are increasingly pushing back against university administrations they see as infringing on students' free speech rights. 05/1/2024 - 3:03 am | View Link
Wall Street Journal: Biden says he’ll debate Trump. when? If the 81-year-old President wants to skip the stage this fall, Trump’s refusal to debate his GOP primary opponents has handed Biden an easy excuse. Now Trump, who for the record is 77, is demanding ... 05/1/2024 - 1:15 am | View Link
Violent clashes break out at UCLA as police clear pro-Palestinian protesters from Columbia University Dueling groups of protesters have clashed at the University of California, Los Angeles, grappling in fistfights and shoving, kicking and using sticks to beat one another. Hours earlier, police ... 04/30/2024 - 11:46 pm | View Link
The Columbia Protesters Backed Themselves Into a Corner And rhetoric grew ever angrier. Columbia University, a protester proclaimed during a talk, was “guilty of abetting genocide” and might face its own Nuremberg trials. President Minouche Shafik, another ... 04/30/2024 - 11:00 pm | View Link
Dueling protesters clash at UCLA hours after police clear pro-Palestinian demonstration at Columbia The pro-Palestinian demonstration that paralyzed Columbia University ended in dramatic fashion late Tuesday, with police carrying riot shields swarming the Ivy League campus, bursting into an ... 04/30/2024 - 8:39 pm | View Link
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Several boaters seen on video dumping trash in the ocean identified, Florida wildlife officials say
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As a Jewish alumnus of Columbia University (class of 1981), the latest news has been surreal.
The video scenes of the 116th Street gates do not drip with nostalgia. I now watch only with sadness.
Columbia is no stranger to student protest. However, when I was a student, the protests were against outside actors.
By Jennifer Peltz and Lindsay Whitehurst, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U. S. Drug Enforcement Administration is moving toward reclassifying marijuana as a less dangerous drug. The Justice Department proposal would recognize the medical uses of cannabis, but wouldn’t legalize it for recreational use.
The proposal would move marijuana from the “Schedule I” group to the less tightly regulated “Schedule III.”
So what does that mean, and what are the implications?
WHAT HAS ACTUALLY CHANGED?
By MICHAEL R. SISAK, JAKE OFFENHARTZ, COLLEEN LONG and ALANNA DURKIN RICHER (Associated Press)
NEW YORK (AP) — The first week of testimony in Donald Trump’s hush money trial was the scene-setter for jurors. This week, prosecutors are working on filling in the details of how they say he pulled off a scheme to bury damaging stories to protect his 2016 presidential campaign.
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Prosecutors are setting the stage for crucial testimony from Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen, who arranged hush money payments on Trump’s behalf before going to prison for campaign finance violations and other crimes.
Trump denies any wrongdoing and has pleaded not guilty.
Here’s a look at how things are shaping up so far this week at the historic trial:
JAIL THREAT
Six months before the 2024 presidential election, the presumptive Republican nominee is being threatened with possible jail time — even before jurors decide whether he is guilty in the hush money case.
Judge Juan Merchan raised the specter of time behind bars if Trump continues to violate a gag order barring him from making public statements about witnesses, jurors and others connected with the case.
In a ruling Tuesday fining Trump $9,000 for repeated violations of the gag order, Merchan wrote that as a judge he was “keenly aware of, and protective of” Trump’s First Amendment rights, “particularly given his candidacy for the office of President of the United States.”
Former President Donald Trump and his attorney Todd Blanche return to the courtroom after a break for his trial at Manhattan criminal court in New York, Tuesday, April 30, 2024.
By MATTHEW LEE and SAM MEDNICK (Associated Press)
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — U. S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was meeting with Israeli leaders on Wednesday in his push for a cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas, saying “the time is now” for an agreement that would free hostages and bring a pause in the nearly seven months of war in Gaza.
He said Hamas would bear the blame for any failure to get a deal off the ground.
Blinken is on his seventh visit to the region since the war erupted in October in his bid to secure what’s been an elusive deal between Israel and Hamas that could avert an Israeli incursion into the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are sheltering.
The current round of talks appears to be serious, but the sides remain far apart on one key issue — whether the war should end as part of an emerging deal.
“We are determined to get a cease-fire that brings the hostages home and to get it now, and the only reason that that wouldn’t be achieved is because of Hamas,” Blinken told Israel’s ceremonial President Isaac Herzog at a meeting in Tel Aviv.
“There is a proposal on the table, and as we’ve said, no delays, no excuses.