Month: June 2023

It’s been six months since Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., was elected speaker of the House after a marathon 15 rounds of voting, the most rounds needed since 1923, when nine votes were needed to confirm the position of President of Massachusetts Fredrick Huntington Gillett. a century ago From the beginning, the battle for McCarthy’s presidency raised questions about whether he would be able to negotiate a caucus with members who were willing to openly oppose him in the House. With such a slim majority, McCarthy can only lose five votes at any given time, giving some outspoken members great power….

After days of poor air quality in New York and much of the Northeast, the state’s top health official says monitoring will continue. Acting Health Commissioner James McDonald, in an interview with Spectrum News 1 Friday, said air quality improved in most areas of New York state Friday after two days of cloudy skies milky and sometimes orange due to forest fires in Canada. “We’re going to monitor things and I just encourage you to monitor along with us,” McDonald said. New Yorkers can monitor air quality on their phone, just as they would check the daily weather, McDonald said….

America needs a new centrist, but it doesn’t need a new centrist political party. A new centrist political party that could overcome the widely acknowledged dysfunction of our national politics would be great, but it’s not going to happen. There are too many impediments to the rise of a vibrant third party, including the fundraising hurdle, gerrymandering and the poor track record of third-party candidates. What is needed is an increase in independent politicians who are not part of a weak national third, but who push, directly and indirectly, the political system towards a new central space. Ironically, Democrats and…

MADRID, June 10 (Reuters) – An alliance between Spain’s main far-left parties Sumar and Podemos will be “more than positive” to help win next month’s election, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on Saturday. Podemos, the junior partner in the coalition government with Sánchez’s Socialist Party, announced on Friday that it will join forces with Sumar and a number of small regional parties for the July 23 election. Sánchez called early elections after his Socialist party and Podemos fared worse in last month’s local elections, losing ground to right-wing parties. Analysts said a unified far left is essential to Sánchez’s chances…

This week in Maui, as with so many weeks before, we are grateful to live where acceptance and respect are the default settings of society. Despite our many differences, we live in a harmony that most communities in this world can only dream of. It starts with the host culture. With their aloha spirit and connection to the land, sea, and air, Hawaiians set the state’s baseline for kindness, compassion, and responsibility toward future generations. We are taught that living on a remote island chain is better when we get along. Working together makes things happen. Perhaps this is what…

AP – Theodore “Ted” Kaczynski, known as the Unabomber, has died in federal prison, according to a Bureau of Prisons spokesman. Kaczynski was found dead around 8 a.m. Saturday in a federal prison in North Carolina. He was found unresponsive in his cell. The cause of death was not immediately known. He was 81 years old. Kaczynski was arrested in 1996 after building and shipping bombs for 17 years. He first came to the attention of law enforcement in 1978 when his first bomb exploded in Chicago at a university. Their bombs were impossible to trace, according to the FBI,…

The Supreme Court. (Agenzia Celal Gunes/Anadolu via Getty Images) Black voters who challenged a Republican-drawn congressional district map in Alabama received a major victory Thursday when the U.S. Supreme Court found the state violated a federal civil rights law that prohibits racial discrimination in the vote In an unexpected 5-4 ruling by the conservative majority court, the justices decided not to further dilute the protections of the Voting Rights Act, which the court had done twice in the last decade. The opinion was written by Chief Justice John Roberts, a Republican appointee who has led the Supreme Court in previously…

LONDON — Former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson left chaos in his wake on Saturday after storming out of Parliament with a blast at fellow lawmakers whom he accused of ousting him in a “witch hunt”. As opponents jeered, the Tory government absorbed the shock of another Johnson earthquake, while a band of loyal supporters insisted the divisive former British leader could still return. Two of Johnson’s allies joined him in quitting the House of Commons, putting pressure on Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. Less than a year after he was ousted as prime minister by his own Conservative Party, Johnson…