A top aide to House Speaker Mike Johnson and other congressional staffers planned to jet off on a luxurious tour through Italy and France two weeks before the midterms, a new report alleges. The official trip promised a visit to a Ferrari factory near Bologna, day trips to France's Champagne region, and stops at luxury brands in Milan or Florence, NBC News reports, citing a memo including a draft itinerary. Given Johnson's role in cheerleading Trump's agenda, the memo offered a striking rationale for the weeklong trip: engaging with European countries on matters related to the impact of the president's tariffs.
After NBC News asked about the trip, Johnson's office said Wednesday that it had been called off because of a conflict.
Embattled Senator John Fetterman was the only Democrat to vote against a resolution that would require the State Department to report when Americans are murdered by Israeli settlers in the West Bank. The Tuesday night motion failed 47"53, with Senator Rand Paul being the only Republican to join the rest of the Democrats. This is a low point, even for someone as rabidly and irrationally pro-Israel as Fetterman. The resolution, introduced by Senators Chris Van Hollen, Tim Kaine, and Bernie Sanders, would have been largely symbolic"requiring a State Department report to Congress on fatal settler violence against American citizens in the West Bank within 30 days of their murders, nothing more. Nine American citizens have been killed by Israeli settlers in the West Bank since 2022, with little to no justice from either the U.S. or Israeli government.
U.S. Senate candidate Ken Paxton, who currently serves as Texas Attorney General, is fighting accusations that his office extended a generous plea deal to Waco attorney Adam Hoffman, who was charged with repeatedly sexually abusing a young boy. However, the Current's examination of cases handled by the Texas Attorney General's Office during Republican candidate's time at the top shows that Hoffman's case wasn't the only time it offered light sentences to people accused of sexual abuse. Indeed, there are at least three other instances over the past decade in which defendants accused of sexual assault or trafficking were offered plea deals by Paxton's office that allowed them to avoid both jail time and placement on the state's sex offender registry.
Journalists, analysts and politicians were left floored Wednesday after Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general and GOP Senate nominee, became the latest prominent Republican to criticize President Donald Trump or his midterm strategies. read more
If some prediction-market traders and prominent admirers are right, the Canadian prime minister could end the year with the Nobel Peace Prize and Time magazine's Person of the Year. read more
U.S. Senate candidate Ken Paxton, who currently serves as Texas Attorney General, is fighting accusations that his office extended a generous plea deal to Waco attorney Adam Hoffman, who was charged with repeatedly sexually abusing a young boy. However, the Current's examination of cases handled by the Texas Attorney General's Office during Republican candidate's time at the top shows that Hoffman's case wasn't the only time it offered light sentences to people accused of sexual abuse. Indeed, there are at least three other instances over the past decade in which defendants accused of sexual assault or trafficking were offered plea deals by Paxton's office that allowed them to avoid both jail time and placement on the state's sex offender registry.
No wonder the------------------- endorsed Paxton.