Politics and Current
Control of the US House of Representatives hangs in the balance, with huge implications for Trump’s agenda
WASHINGTON (AP) — Majority in the U.S. House of Representatives was hanging by a thread Wednesday’s balancing act between Republican control, which might usher in a brand new era of unified GOP rule in Washington, and a turn to Democrats as the last line of resistance to Trump’s agenda for the second term of the White House.
A couple of individual seats and even one is enough determine the result. The final rating will take a while, and the decision will likely be postponed until next week – or later.
After the Republicans she made her way into the majority in the U.S. Senate, taking House Speaker seats in West Virginia, Ohio and Montana Mike Johnson he predicted that his chamber could be next.
“Republicans are ready to unite the government in the White House, the Senate and the House,” Johnson said Wednesday.
President-elect Donald TrumpWho he won the Electoral College and the popular vote against the Democratic vp Kamala Harrishe consolidated the growing power around his MAGA movement, supporting the newcomers to Washington and setting the stage for his own return to the White House.
Johnson said Republicans in Congress are preparing “ambitious” 100-day program with Trump, who he said is “thinking big” about his legacy.
Tax cuts, securing the southern border and passing the torch on federal regulation might be top priorities if the GOP takes the White House and Congress. Trump himself has promised mass deportations and revenge on his perceived enemies. Republicans need to push federal agencies out of Washington and retrain the government workforce with outside consultancies, Johnson said, to “get the federal government in order.”
But Johnson has struggled to manipulate the House after only a 12 months in office, and the latest Congress might be no different. Hardliners led by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Rep. Matt Gaetz and others continuously confronted and overthrew their very own GOP leadership in what was one of the most chaotic sessions in modern times.
If Johnson’s slim four-seat majority were to shrink even further, governing could stall.
Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said the House “remains very much in the game.”
After Democrats defeated two Republicans in the House of Representatives in Jeffries’ home state of New York, he said the path to a majority now lies through pick-up opportunities in Arizona, Oregon, Iowa and California, that are still too early to call. .
“We need to count every vote,” Jeffries said.
The House contests remained a fight to the finish, with no dominant path to a majority for either side. Rarely, if ever, have the two houses of Congress turned in opposite directions.
Each party gains and loses several seats, including through the redistricting process, which is the routine redrawing of the boundaries of seats in the House. The reset process applies to North Carolina, Louisiana and Alabama.
The consequence depends largely on the West, especially in California, where several House seats are hotly contested and mailed ballots per week after the election will still be counted. Among those being watched are tight races around the “blue dot” in Omaha, Nebraska and distant Alaska.
Trump will speak early Wednesday morning at his home election night party in Florida, said the results gave Republicans an “unprecedented and powerful mandate.”
He called the Senate defeat “amazing” and praised Johnson, saying he was “doing a great job.”
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From the U.S. Capitol, Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnella pointy Trump critic in private, he called it a “damn good day.”
Senate Republicans marched across the map with Trump, flipping three Democrat-held seats and staying in the race against Democratic challengers who didn’t unseat Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and Sen. Rick Scott of Florida.
In West Virginia Jim Justice, the state’s wealthy governor reversed the position held by retiring senator Joe Manchin. Republicans ousted Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown in Ohio along with GOP luxury automobile dealer and blockchain entrepreneur Bernie Moreno. Republican Tim Sheehy defeated Democratic Sen. Jon Tester in Montana.
Democrats avoided total destruction by saving seats in blue wall states. Rep. Elissa Slotkin won an open Senate seat in Michigan, and Sen. Tammy Baldwin was re-elected in Wisconsin. The Pennsylvania race between Democratic Sen. Bob Casey and GOP challenger Dave McCormick was still undecided.
In other developments, Democrats made history by sending two black women to the Senate, Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware and Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland. There have only been three Black women in the Senate, including Harris, but never two at the same time.
All in all, Senate Republicans have the potential to win their largest majority in years, and that is proof of that McConnellwho has made a profession of charting a path to power, this time allied with Trump, whom he privately called “despicable” in the run-up to the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol.
During Wednesday’s news conference, McConnell declined to reply questions on his previous harsh criticism of Trump and said he viewed the election results as a referendum on the Biden administration.
He told reporters on Capitol Hill that a Republican-controlled Senate would “control the guardrails” and stop changes to the Senate rules that might end the filibuster.
“People just weren’t happy with this administration, and the Democratic nominee was part of it,” McConnell said.
It’s still unclear who will lead the latest Republican Senate as McConnell prepares to step down.
South Dakota Sen. John Thune, the No. 2 Republican, and Texas Sen. John Cornyn, who previously held the position, are the leading candidates to interchange McConnell in a secret ballot election scheduled for when senators arrive in Washington next week.
Politics and Current
FEMA limits emergency training before the hurricane season
In the Hurricane season for lower than two weeks, the Federal US FEMA FEMA disaster limited training for state and native rescue managers.
Sources acquainted with this case informed Reuters that a reduction or Cutting training can leave communities vulnerable to a storm less prepared to handle the consequences of hurricanes.
The forecasts predict the intensive season of hurricanes in 2025 and claim that the forecasts already indicate the amazing similarities to the destructive season 2024. One of the key indicators of this 12 months’s forecast are warm waters in the Persian Gulf and the Caribbean, which drive the development of the storm.
reports that AccuWeather provides 13-18 named storms in 2025.including seven to 10 hurricanes, three to five fundamental hurricanes and three to six direct effects on the United States.
Another disturbing AccuWeather forecast is that the season is to start out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out quickly. Forecasts predict that the season, which could start on June 1, will then have a stake, after which pickup from September to November, like last 12 months’s pattern.
“Don’t get my way,” warns the acting director of FEMA
FEM’s decision to limit training couldn’t is vulnerable to be present in a worse time.
Season 2024 was one amongst the costliest record -breaking. AccuWeather estimates it Storms in 2024 caused about $ 500 billion in total compensation and economic losses.
President Donald Trump was recently released by the head of FEM, Cameron Hamilton, the day after Hamilton told the legislators that the agency must be preserved. His sentiments appear amongst unprecedented dismissals in federal agencies, because the administration prioritizes the federal workforce.
Hamilton’s successor, David Richardson, reportedly told FEMA employees that he would “escape”, every staff against his implementation of Trump’s vision for a smaller agency. On the phone, tHee Associated Press reportsHe warned that 20% of the employees he estimated may resist the changes.
“Don’t bother me if you are 20% of people,” said Richardson, in accordance with AP. “I know all the tricks. I am just as inclined to achieve the President’s intention as I made sure that I performed my duties when I took maritime infantry to Iraq.”
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Politics and Current
People are gathering to protest to arrest the mayor of Barak from Newark by ICE
The mayor of Newark Ras Barak was arrested on Friday Federal Immigration Center Where he protested this week, said the federal prosecutor.
Alina Habba, a transient USA lawyer in New Jersey, said on the Social Platform X that Baraka committed Trespass and ignored the warnings from internal security staff to leave Delaney Hall, a detention facility run by a non-public prison operator Geo Group.
Habba said that Barak “decided to ignore the law” and added that he was arrested.
Barak, a democrat who applied for the success of the governor limited by Phil Murphy, accepted the fight with the Trump’s administration for illegal immigration.
He aggressively pushed himself against the construction and opening of a 1000-person jail, arguing that it mustn’t be opened due to problems with constructing permits.
Witnesses said that the arrest occurred after the barrack tried to join three members of the Congress delegation in New Jersey, representatives of Robert Menendez, Lamonica Mciver and Bonnie Watson Coleman, trying to enter the object.
When federal officials blocked his entry, according to Viri Martinez a hot argument broke out, an activist from New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice. It lasted even after Barak returned to the public side of the gates.
“There was screaming and pushing,” said Martinez. “Then the officers roiled the barrack. They threw one of the organizers to the ground. They put the barrack into the shackles and put it in an unmarked car.”
In a press release, the Internal Security Department said that the legislators didn’t ask to visit the facility. The department further said that as a bus transporting detainees: “A group of protesters, including two members of the US representatives, attacked the gate and broke into security.”
Internal security didn’t answer the questions why only the mayor was arrested.
Watson Coleman spokesman, Ned Cooper, said Lamakers went to the object early in the afternoon, because their plan was to check it and never go on a planned trip.
“They came, explained to the guards and officials in the facility that they were there to perform their supervision authorities,” he said, adding that they were allowed to enter and check the center between 15.00 and 16.00
DHS, in his statement issued after the arrest of the barracks, said that Menendez, Watson Coleman and much of protesters were now “trapped in a guard’s cabinet” in the facility.
“Congress members are not above the law and cannot break into the custody’s branches illegally. If these members asked for a trip, we would make a trip easier,” said McLaughlin.
Watson Coleman, who left and was at the Investigation Department on internal security, wherein the barrack was reportedly taken, said that the DHS statement inaccurately characterised the visit.
“In contrast to the press statement issued by DHS, we did not” storm “the custody,” she wrote. “The author of this press message was so unknown with facts on the basis that they would not even count the number of current representatives. We performed our function of legal supervision, just like in the center of Elizabeth’s arrest without incidents.”
On a video from a quarrel made available from The Associated Press, a federal clerk in a jacket with an internal security logo, possibilities are you most definitely can hear that he cannot join a tour of the facility because “you are not a member of the Congress.”
Then the barrack left the protected area, joining the protesters on the public side of the gate. The film showed that he speaks through the gate to an individual in a suit who said: “They talk about returning to arrest you.”
“I’m not on their property. They can’t go out into the street and arrest me,” answered Barak.

Just a number of minutes later a pair of ice agents, some wear facial covers, surrounded him and others on the public side. When the protesters cried, “shame”, the barrack was dragged back through the handcuffs safety gate.
“Ice staff came out aggressively to arrest and catch him,” said Julie Moreno, the captain of the state at New Jersey State of American Families United. “It didn’t make sense why they chose this moment to catch him when he was out of the gate.”
E -mail and telephone with the mayor’s communication office weren’t immediately received on Friday afternoon. Kabir Moss, spokesman for the Governor’s Government campaign, said: “We actively monitor and give more details when they are available.”
The two -story constructing next to the prison of the County previously acted as a house in half of the road.
In February, ICE awarded a 15-year Geo Group Inc. contract. to conduct a custody in Newark. GEO valued a contract at $ 1 billion, in a extremely long and massive agreement on ICE.
The announcement was part of President Donald Trump’s plans with a sharp increase in detention beds throughout the country from the budget of about 41,000 beds this yr.
The barrack sued the Geo Group shortly after the contract was announced.
GEO advertised a contract with Delaney Hall while merging with earnings with shareholders on Wednesday, and the general director of David Donahue said that he was to generate over $ 60 million in revenues a yr. He said that the object began the process of consumption on May 1.
Hall said that the activation of the object and one other in Michigan will increase the total capability under an agreement with ICE from about 20,000 beds to about 23,000.
DHS said in his statement that the object has appropriate permits and inspections were cleaned.
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The creator of Associated Press Rebecca Santana in Washington contributed.

(Tagstranslate) Immigration policy
Politics and Current
Biden commutes 37 death sentences, attracting praise and criticism in the last weeks of the presidency – essence
(*37*)
Andrew Harnik / Staff / Getty Images
In a serious move, a pair of weeks before leaving the office, President Joe Biden announced on Monday that a judgment of 37 of 40 people in federal deaths of death without conditional release arrives. The decision leaves only three people in a federal order of death, whose crimes include acts of terrorism or mass murders.
“Today I commute to judgments 37 out of 40 people in a federal death sentence with nutrition without the possibility of conditional dismissal,” Biden he said in an announcement Published by the White House.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Boston Marathon Boston 2013 bomber couldn’t be included in the commuting; Dylann Roof, a white nationalist who murdered nine black church in 2015; and Robert Bowers, who in 2018 killed 11 people at the synagogue of Tree of Life in Pittsburgh.
“These commutes are consistent with the moratorium, which my administration imposed on federal executions, in cases other than terrorism and mass hate murder,” Biden explained, referring to the detention of the Department of Justice in federal executions under his administration.
Biden was honest with the seriousness of his decision. “Do not make a mistake: I condemn these murderers, sadden myself with the victims of their vile deeds and painful for all families who suffered from an unimaginable and irreversible loss,” he said in an announcement.
“But guided by my conscience and my experience as a public defender, chairman of the judicial Senate, vice president, and now the president, I am more than ever convinced that I have to stop the death penalty at a federal level. In a good conscience I cannot withdraw and let the new administration resume executions.”
American Civil Liberties Union Executive director Anthony D. Romero He praised the decision of President Bidencalling this “a historical and bold step in dealing with a failed death penalty in the United States” and a movement that brings the country “much closer to the ban on barbaric practice.”
“President Biden took the most consistent step in our history to take care of the immoral and unconstitutional damage to the death penalty,” said Romero, adding: “It will undoubtedly be one of the groundbreaking achievements of Biden presidency.”
The time of announcement comes when the nation provides for a change of a federal approach to the death penalty. President Elek Donald Trump has already signaled plans to resume federal executions and potentially expanding the death penalty with crimes, corresponding to drug trafficking, CNN reports.
Trump’s transitional team didn’t stop the criticism of Biden. “This disgusting decision brings benefits among the worst killers in the world,” said Steven Cheung, spokesman for Trump Transition. President Trump means the rule of law that returns when he returns to the White House after he was elected an infinite mandate from the American people. “
Biden is announced a month of loud actions in thickness. At the starting of this month, he pardoned his son, Hunter Biden, for federal beliefs related to taxes and weapons, and granted a pardon to about 1,500 people-the largest one-day act of pardon in modern history.