3 Update: Twitter announced Friday that it had permanently suspended President Trump’s account after a close review of his tweets and how they have been interpreted. The company said the account will be suspended indefinitely “due to the risk of further incitement of violence.” Twitter took the unprecedented step Wednesday of yanking three of President Trump’s tweets and temporarily locking his account, after he gave a speech and inflamed a mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol in a bid to install him in a second term. “As a result of the unprecedented and ongoing violent situation in Washington, D.C., we have required the removal of three @realDonaldTrump Tweets that were posted earlier today for repeated and severe violations of our Civic Integrity policy,” Twitter’s safety-enforcement team said in a tweet . Twitter made the tweets unavailable. The company said if Trump removed them, the account would be locked for 12 hours, and if he … [Read more...]

7 WASHINGTON — There’s an adage here in Washington: Congress moves slowly, except when it wants to move quickly. That’s turning out to be true of a possible second impeachment of President Trump. In the aftermath of the storming of the Capitol by a Trump-encouraged mob that left a police officer and four rioters dead, virtually all Democrats in Congress and a handful of Republicans have called for the president to be removed from office. House Democrats are moving toward impeaching Trump a second time, this time for inciting an insurrection and doing little to stop the riot. That could happen as soon as Monday. But there’s a catch. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said in a memo to colleagues late Friday that under the chamber’s rules, the Senate could not hold a trial on any House impeachment until Jan. 19, the day before the inauguration, unless every member agreed — a virtual impossibility. The memo, … [Read more...]

WASHINGTON — Congress could act quickly now that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has put a second impeachment of President Trump on the table, but that doesn’t mean it’s likely that Democrats will oust him from office before Joe Biden becomes president. The day after pro-Trump rioters who had been egged on by the defeated president stormed the U.S. Capitol, Pelosi said Thursday that Congress could impeach Trump if Vice President Mike Pence and the Cabinet don’t remove him from power by invoking the 25th Amendment. “This is urgent,” the San Francisco Democrat said at a news conference. “This is (an) emergency of the highest magnitude.” But Biden’s inauguration is less than two weeks away, leaving little time for the House to initiate impeachment proceedings and the Senate to hold a trial before Trump will be gone from the White House anyway. Impeaching Trump the first time took more than four months, from the House authorization of an impeachment inquiry to the Senate’s acquittal in … [Read more...]

Democrat Rep. Henry Cuellar (TX) has sent a letter to Vice President Kamala Harris, urging her to visit the southern border as “severe burdens” hamper border patrol agents and American citizens in surrounding communities. “I write to invite you to the U.S. Southern Border to observe the ongoing humanitarian crisis and share the perspective of Americans who live there. I encourage you to join me and other Members of Congress, while we visit with the people on the ground who deal with these issues every day,” Cuellar wrote in the letter, which the Washington Post first obtained. According to Cuellar’s letter, the “rapid rise in the number of migrants arriving at our Southern Border has placed severe burdens on our communities.” In addition, the Texas Democrat noted challenges following the coronavirus pandemic, certain travel restrictions, and economic hardships. Cuellar concluded his letter to Harris by warning her that the border crisis “will only worsen” and suggested … [Read more...]

(CNN) The first 18 astronauts of the Artemis program, NASA's effort to land the first woman and the next man on the moon by 2024, have been selected. The diverse team of astronauts , including those new to NASA and veterans of spaceflight , were announced by US Vice President Mike Pence during the eighth meeting of the National Space Council at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Also present at the meeting to share in the announcement was NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine, who discussed updates for the Artemis program. "My fellow Americans, I give you the heroes of the future that will carry us back to the moon and beyond, the Artemis generation," Pence said after reading the 18 names. Those NASA astronauts are: Read More Joseph Acaba Kayla Barron Raja Chari Matthew Dominick Victor Glover Warren "Woody" Hoburg Jonny Kim Christina Koch Kjell Lindgren Nicole Mann Anne McClain Jessica Meir Jasmin Moghbeli Kate Rubins Frank Rubio … [Read more...]

Allen Nelson IV walked to the front of his small church in central Arkansas, stopped in front of the communion table with three large crosses behind him, and unfurled a giant black flag with a white skull and crossed swords. For several years, the pastor and father of five had felt that too many of his fellow Christians were drifting unmistakably leftward on issues of race, gender and the strict authority of the Bible. The flag was a gift from a friend, energized — like Mr. Nelson — by the idea of heroically reclaiming the faith. It was time, he believed, to “take the ship.” “We’re fighting for the very heart of the Southern Baptist Convention,” Mr. Nelson said in an interview. “For a long time what I thought a good Southern Baptist pastor should do was to send money and trust the system. We can’t do that anymore.” Mr. Nelson is not alone. He is part of an ultraconservative populist uprising of pastors from Louisiana to California threatening to overtake the country’s … [Read more...]

Actress Ellen Page appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert Thursday to sound the alarm about global warming and “environmental racism,” claiming that the world was going to end in just about a decade. “I just want to say, too, people, particularly the most marginalized people and particularly people in the world that have nothing to do with this are the ones suffering the most currently, including in Canada, including the environmental racism that’s happening in Canada, including the province I’m from,” Ellen Page said. “What’s environmental racism?” Stephen Colbert asked. “It disproportionally affects people of color, whether it’s like, the disproportionate amount of landfills that are placed next to communities of people of color in Nova Scotia, or whether it’s about a pulp mill in [Nova Scotia] that’s been there forever and has destroyed the environment and the land of First Nations people, you know, it’s like, this is something that’s happening, and it’s happening … [Read more...]