US politics

US politics

Minneapolis has shown me that even in the middle of grief and fear, people still show up for each other. For that, I want to say thank you. Thank you to this incredible community for showing up again and again - organizing food and rides, making sure our kids get to school, checking in on neighbors, and standing together in the cold. I am so proud to call Minneapolis my home.

Also, as it has for a year, it did so awaiting the latest shock from U.S. President Donald Trump. This time, the Republican magnate had asked his party to strip the states of their constitutional right to organize elections in time for the November midterms, in which a third of the Senate, the entire House of Representatives, and the viability of the second half of Trump's second term are at stake.

Following presidential custom, Trump issued a National Black History Month proclamation on Feb. 3 that maintained "black history is not distinct from American history - rather, the history of Black Americans is an indispensable chapter in our grand American story." Yes, but: Its rhetoric, critics say, stands in tension with the Trump administration's recent actions, raising questions about whether commemoration without context ultimately obscures more than it honors.

For now, and maybe for a long time, the public won't know what it contains. It could be about Bigfoot. It could be about aliens. It could be about long-term campaigns of manipulation and malign influence waged against our community by local and foreign corrupt actors. Or maybe it is a special popcorn recipe. Or perhaps it discusses the extent of infiltration and influence foreign and corrupt actors have objectively achieved in Oregon and elsewhere.

Enter Frank Bisignano. The Jamie Dimon protegee had a storied career in banking, and was appointed to lead SSA last spring (he has since added the job of IRS CEO to his resume, which you can read about here.) But the changes he has quickly enacted at SSA-drawing heavily on his time in the private sector-are real, and they're impressing even the Administration's fiercest critics.

When past generations imagined the best version of the future, it was one of leisure. Advertisements, cartoonists, and pulp novelists dared us to dream of a world where the spoils of industrial development were shared with all: robot butlers, transit by pneumatic tube, and more familiar tropes. These developments, it seemed, would make our lives more convenient, more secure, and - dare we say - more abundant.

She has dismissed allegations around her finances as "misleading" and based on conspiracy theories.

People gather for National Day of Truth & Freedom at Union Square on January 23, 2026, in New York City. 1199SEIU frontline healthcare workers, faith leaders, students and community members stood in solidarity with Minnesota, after community groups, faith-based organizations, and unions in the state came together to call for an "economic blackout," as part of National Day of Truth & Freedom to stand against corporations profiteering from Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) actions.

FBI agents arrested Lemon last week in L.A. while he was covering the Grammy Awards. The administration targeted Lemon for covering an anti-ICE protest at a church in Minneapolis. Protesters gathered at the church because one of the pastors leads a local ICE field office. In total, nine people, including another journalist, were indicted on charges for interrupting a church service. The cases are all flimsy.

I think it's bad,

Screenshot Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) had a microphone snatched right out of his hand Friday night as he spoke at the Oldham County, KY, Republican Party's Lincoln Day Dinner. Massie was in the midst of saying, If you are a congressman, you work not for the Speaker of the House, I work for you! pointing to the audience, when event emcee and state House Speaker David Osborne (R) decided he'd heard enough.

I had to set fire to my scorecard, and to the column I had just drafted, which touched on all the expected big-name challengers who had bowed out of the mayoral race in the past several days: L.A. County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, billionaire businessman Rick Caruso (who forced a runoff with Bass the last time around), and former L.A. Unified schools chief Austin Beutner.

The State Department is removing all posts on its public accounts on the social media platform X made before President Trump returned to office on Jan. 20, 2025. The posts will be internally archived but will no longer be on public view, the State Department confirmed to NPR. Staff members were told that anyone wanting to see older posts will have to file a Freedom of Information Act request, according to a State Department employee who asked to remain anonymous

Honestly, I don't see any way we can safely present this show in the current climate, I'm not sure any amount of security or preplanning would mitigate the liability I'd face if something happened.

I cannot wait for the Democrats to take the House, they subpoena and investigate Kristi Noem and Corey Lewandowski and they find so much corruption. It's going to make the impeachments during Trump 1 look like a joke. All that stuff about Paul Manafort and the business documents and the Ukrainian phone call. The corruption that they will discover when the Democrats are in the House, it's going to make all that stuff look like a joke, and they're just going to keep stacking it

An Ohio man has been charged with threatening to kill Vice President JD Vance while he was visiting his home state last month. But the man's lawyer said his health makes it unlikely he would have been able to carry out the threat. In addition to the charge for threatening Vance, prosecutors also charged Shannon Mathre with possessing digital files depicting child sexual abuse that were discovered during the investigation. That second charge carries a much stiffer potential penalty of up to 20 years

Scott Graves, budget director with the California Budget and Policy Center, said Proposition 36 is what is called a "ballot box budgeting measure". "The authors of the measure did not provide, as a part of Prop 36, any way to pay for these new services," Graves said. "As a result, they ended up putting state and local policy makers in a pretty tough position."

Former US president Bill Clinton and his wife Hillary are calling for their congressional testimony on ties to convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein to be held publicly, to prevent Republicans from politicising the issue. Both Clintons had been ordered to give closed-door depositions before the House of Representatives' oversight committee, which is investigating the deceased financier's connections to powerful figures and how information about his crimes was handled.

A lot of times, athletes are hesitant to talk about political views and how we feel about things. I feel heartbroken about what's happening in the United States, Lillis said. I'm pretty sure you're referencing ICE and some of the protests and things like that. I think that as a country, we need to focus on respecting everybody's rights and making sure that we're treating our citizens as well as anybody, with love and respect.

Rock band Shinedown is the latest act to pull out of Robert James Ritchie's MAGA-adjacent "Rock the Country" music festival. "We know this decision will create differences of opinion. But we do not want to participate in something we believe will create further division," the band wrote on Instagram February 6. "And to our fans, thank you for supporting and believing in us. We love and appreciate you always."

In some ways yes and in some ways no, referencing the recent bombshell Wall Street Journal story about investments from Abu Dhabi into the Trump family business just before he became president for a second time. If the name were Biden instead of Trump, people would be screaming bloody murder, Shapiro said, before adding that he's confident that the president will likely pardon himself and his children in the same way that [former President] Joe Biden did on his way out.