List of All Articles with Tag 'erica'

Emirati leaders extended a long-sought invitation to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to attend the U.N climate conference, known as COP28, in November. The United Arab Emirates' President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan and Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum also invited Israel's figurehead President Isaac Herzog and dozens of other leaders including Syrian President Bashar Assad to COP28, in Dubai. The Israelis did not immediately accept the invitation, but Netanyahu thanked the Emiratis for the gesture. The invitation falls short of the high-profile bilateral visit Netanyahu has sought. But a trip to the Gulf Arab country would nonetheless give an important boost to the Israeli leader who has established official ties with the UAE as part of the 2020 Abraham Accords, normalizing relations between the two countries. Netanyahu has repeatedly called for closer ties with Arab countries across the region, but has yet to pay the UAE an official visit since the accords were signed. Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving leader, has sought to return to the world stage. to the world stage. Since returning to office late last year, he has made official visits to Italy, Germany and Britain. He had hoped to visit the UAE shortly after his right-wing government took office, but the plan was postponed after national security minister and ultranationalist Itamar Ben-Gvir last January visited the compound known to Jews as the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The same site is home to the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound to Muslims. Such visits are widely viewed as provocations that could lead to new clashes between the Israelis and Palestinians. The UAE condemned Ben-Gvir's actions at the time. He visited the site again on Sunday, declaring Israel “in charge” and drawing renewed criticism from the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Turkey, Qatar, Jordan, Egypt and the United States. Netanyahu's alliance with far-right figures like Ben-Gvir has drawn repeated criticism from close allies. He remains uninvited to visit U.S. President Joe Biden in Washington, which some interpret as a White House snub. The U.S. administration has criticized Israel's settlement policies in the occupied West Bank, Ben-Gvir's visits to the disputed compound and the government's push to overhaul Israel's judiciary system. The administration has said he's likely to receive an invitation at some point. Syrian President Bashar Assad, who has been internationally ostracized during his country’s civil war, has also been invited after returning to the Arab League following a 12-year suspension. The annual U.N. climate talks are designed to keep countries accountable to their pledges to cut down on carbon emissions. In November, the talks in Dubai will be hosted by Sultan al-Jaber, the chief executive officer of the Emirates’ state oil company. Choosing the oil-rich emirate as well as al-Jaber to host the climate conference has drawn criticism from various environmental groups and activists. Read More Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide

Singer-songwriter Niall Horan is to take his upcoming new album 'The Show' on the road next year after announcing a world tour.

No one will be watching more keenly than Donald Trump this week as Florida governor Ron DeSantis finally makes the long-awaited announcement that he will seek the Republican nomination for the presidency in 2024. During his own tenure in the White House in 2018, Mr Trump loudly cheered Mr DeSantis’s bid for the governor’s mansion, throwing his weight behind the former congressman and appearing at rallies to stump for him, playing an important role in the candidate’s narrow defeat of Democratic rival and Tallahassee mayor Andrew Gillum. Since then, however, a great deal of water has passed beneath the bridge and the two men are now increasingly antagonistic towards each other. Mr Trump has launched a stream of insults and barbed nicknames yelled across the state from Mar-a-Lago, the majority of which Mr DeSantis has wisely allowed to pass without public comment. Here is a timeline of their disintegrating relationship. 17 November 2018 Ron DeSantis is elected governor of Florida, defeating Democrat Andrew Gillum. Then-president Donald Trump, who had campaigned for Mr DeSantis in person and on Twitter, loudly celebrates his victory as the latest demonstration of his own power and influence. 11 March 2020 After a relatively quiet first year in the governor’s mansion, Mr DeSantis faces a major crisis when the US Centers for Disease Control announces that Covid-19 is spreading in his state. Within days, the entire world is going into lockdown to control the spread of the contagious respiratory disease. While Mr Trump bungles the federal response to the crisis, making empty promises as to when society can reopen, openly speculating that injecting bleach might provide a cure and eventually contracting the coronavirus himself one month before Election Day, Mr DeSantis recognises opposition to masks and social restrictions as a culture war flashpoint and uses the mood to his political advantage. “We’re not shutting down, we’re gonna go forward, we’re gonna continue to protect the most vulnerable,” he said in a speech in June. “Particularly when you have a virus that disproportionately impacts one segment of society, to suppress a lot of working-age people at this point I don’t think would likely be very effective.” 20 January 2021 Joe Biden succeeds Mr Trump as president, the latter leaving Washington two weeks after his two-month campaign to prove the false contention that the 2020 presidential election was rigged had ended with the Capitol riot in which his misled supporters laid siege to the legislative complex baying for blood and threatening to lynch vice president Mike Pence and kidnap House speaker Nancy Pelosi. Disgraced, discredited, twice-impeached and banned from social media, Mr Trump slinks off back to his Palm Beach estate, while the same state’s governor continues to make a name for himself, capitalising on his pandemic popularity among Republicans by eventually taking on LGBT+ rights and the might of the Walt Disney Corporation, cheered on by a movement looking for a less contaminated and compromised alternative to Mr Trump, who can only look on with envy. 29 April 2021 Mr Trump tells Maria Baritromo on Fox Business Network: “He’s a friend of mine. I endorsed Ron, and after I endorsed him, he took off like a rocket ship.” On the suggestion that Mr DeSantis might make a good successor to Mr Pence as a running mate, Mr Trump answers: “A lot of people like that – you know, I’m just saying what I read and what you read – they love that ticket. But certainly, Ron would be considered. He’s a great guy. 4 October 2021 Addressing the prospect of having to square up against Mr DeSantis in a future election race, rather than their joining forces, Mr Trump tells Yahoo! Finance he would beat the governor with ease. “I don’t think I will face him. I think most people would drop out, I think he would drop out,” he says. “If I faced him, I’d beat him like I would beat everyone else. If I do run, I think that I’ll do extremely well.” For his part, Mr DeSantis tells Fox News: “I’m not considering anything beyond doing my job. We got a lot of stuff going on in Florida.” 21 June 2022 Increasingly bothered by Mr DeSantis’ rise, Mr Trump begins to insist that the former owes his success entirely to his support. On the prospect of the governor running for the White House, as discussed at length in The New Yorker, its former occupant tells Newsmax: “I don’t know that he wants to run, you know, I have a good relationship with Ron. But I was very responsible for him getting elected, as you know… We’ll see what happens.” 14 September 2022 Mr DeSantis engages in a distinctly Trumpian stunt by sending approximately 50 Venezuelan asylum seekers by air from San Antonio, Texas, to Crestview airport in Florida and then on to the island of Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts, a Democratic stronghold. A piece of provocative political theatre, Mr Trump gripes that he thought of it first. 24 September 2022 While that episode brought liberal condemnation, including from President Biden, who called it “inhumane”, Mr DeSantis wins praise soon after by declaring a state of emergency when Hurricane Ian strikes his state. He would later be praised for his swift and decisive response to the natural disaster. 8 November 2022 The two men hold competing rallies in Florida in the final days before the midterm elections, with Mr Trump debuting his prized “Ron DeSanctimonious” nickname at his. But the governor goes on to win re-election in commanding fashion, beating Democrat Charlie Crist by a nearly 20-point margin and drawing in previously untapped support from Latinos and suburban voters. By contrast, Mr Trump’s preferred candidates lose races across the country from Pennsylvania to Arizona as the widely predicted “red wave” fails to materialise, causing the GOP to miss out on the Senate and only narrowly win a majority in the House of Representatives and prompting many to question the former president’s continued stranglehold over their party and begin to look elsewhere for alternative leadership. 11 November 2022 The fallout from the midterms really sets the rivalry simmering, with Mr Trump resorting to suggesting he had deployed the FBI to secure Mr DeSantis’ win over Mr Gillum in 2018. Taking to Truth Social, Mr Trump calls his rival an “average Republican governor with great public relations” who was “politically dead” until he helped turn his fortunes around. He writes: “I was all in for Ron, and he beat Gillum, but after the Race, when votes were being stolen by the corrupt Election process in Broward County, and Ron was going down ten thousand votes a day, along with now-Senator Rick Scott, I sent in the FBI and the US attorneys, and the ballot theft immediately ended, just prior to them running out of the votes necessary to win. I stopped his Election from being stolen…” The post, inevitably, invites calls for the matter to be investigated urgently. 16 November 2022 Mr Trump announces his intention to run again for the US presidency in a low-key televised address from Mar-a-Lago that many feel lacks the energy of his earlier political speeches. Doubts remain over whether the myriad civil and criminal investigations into his affairs could yet derail him. 29 January 2023 Continuing to obsessively re-litigate Mr DeSantis’s 2018 gubernatorial win in order to bolster his own role in it, Mr Trump accuses his rival of “trying to rewrite history” over his record in responding to Covid, claiming he had “changed his tune a lot” on the introduction of vaccine mandates. Speaking to reporters while campaigning in New Hampshire and South Carolina, Mr Trump griped: “Ron would have not been governor if it wasn’t for me. When I hear that he might [run] I think it’s very disloyal… There are Republican governors that did not close their states. They’re trying to rewrite history.” 8 February 2023 Clearly preparing to get nasty, Mr Trump resorts to amplifying a nasty, unfounded claim about Mr DeSantis on Truth Social relating to his short-lived career as a high school teacher in Georgia as a younger man. 18 February 2023 A new nickname, “Meatball Ron”, is reported to have been trialled by Mr Trump, still seeking a way to trash-talk his likely opponent, as he had done so many times before, but this time he unexpectedly denies it is his coinage. “I will never call Ron DeSanctimonious ‘Meatball’ Ron, as the Fake News is insisting I will,” he raves on Truth Social. “Even though FoxNews-killing lightweight Paul Ryan is revered by him, Low Energy Jeb Bush is his hero and always at his side, his beaches and State were closed for long periods of time, his testing, testing, testing for the China Virus didn’t work out too well, and his loyalty skills are really weak, it would be totally inappropriate to use the word ‘meatball’ as a moniker for Ron!” 8 March 2023 Another new nickname, “Tiny D”, is reported by Bloomberg as being workshopped by Mr Trump, this time either a lewd reference to the governor’s manhood or an allegation that he had been spotted wearing heeled cowboy boots in order to increase his height. 30 April 2023 Responding to Mr DeSantis setting out on a global tour, visiting the UK and Japan in the interest of looking statesmanlike on the world stage, Mr Trump tries a new attack line, saying he “couldn’t care less” if the governor runs against him. “I couldn’t care less if Ron DeSanctus [sic] runs, but the problem is the Bill he is about to sign, which allows him to run without resigning from being Governor, totally weakens Election Integrity in Florida,” he posted. 16 May 2023 Still searching for that killer attack line, Mr Trump tells The Messenger his political opponent is a “rank amateur”. “I think the media has said he’s doing a terrible job and he doesn’t know what he’s doing. You know, the media has not been friendly to him. They’re saying that he’s a rank amateur. And you know, he started off fine, but then he hasn’t done very well. You look at the polls.” Returning to the disloyalty argument, Mr Trump manages so sound genuinely wounded as he complains: “He’s very disloyal. He was a dead man walking. He was dead, dead as a doornail. And I revived him. “I’m a loyal person. If that happened to me, I would never run against the guy that did that. He’s got plenty of years left. And I think if he runs, he’s gonna lose MAGA votes forever. That’s my opinion. And the MAGA votes are almost everything in the Republican Party, far bigger than you think.” Mr Trump added that it was “too early” to say if he would endorse Mr DeSantis if he won the GOP primary. “So far, I’m not a fan of the way that he’s running. First of all, he shouldn’t be running right now because he hasn’t filed. The guy’s doing ads. He’s acting as a candidate, but he doesn’t have to play by the rules because he hasn’t filed, which is a total violation. I mean, this guy’s doing interviews as a candidate, but he hasn’t filed, which is really not appropriate.” In the same interview, he said Florida’s new six-week abortion ban was “too harsh” and likely to alienate voters. Unusually, Mr DeSantis did respond to that one by arguing: “Protecting an unborn child when there’s a detectable heartbeat is something that almost 99 per cent of pro-lifers support. As a Florida resident, you know, he didn’t give an answer about, ‘Would you have signed the heartbeat bill that Florida did, that had all the exceptions that people talk about?’” Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung came back with: “Ron DeSantis is flailing in the polls and is closer to the bottom of the pack than he is to President Trump, who is dominating in every single poll.” The feud continues as Mr Trump claims “Ron’s magic is GONE” after two candidates endorsed by Mr DeSantis suffer embarrassing election defeats within a week: Daniel Davis fails to become mayor of Jacksonville and Kelly Craft loses out on the Republican nomination to be the next governor of Kentucky. Read More Ron DeSantis news – live: Florida governor slams NAACP ‘stunt’ travel advisory as 2024 campaign launch nears Trump news – latest: E Jean Carroll targets Trump again after his derogatory CNN town hall smears Who is Tim Scott? 5 things to know about the newest 2024 GOP presidential candidate Ivanka and Jared split over attending Trump 2024 launch – follow live Why was Donald Trump impeached twice during his first term? Four big lies Trump told during his 2024 presidential announcement

Ron DeSantis is expected to officially enter the 2024 presidential race this week following months of speculation. The Florida governor is tipped to file formal paperwork with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) on Thursday 25 May, coinciding with his candidacy declaration after a donor meeting in Miami, Reuters reported last week. This comes just days after the NAACP issued an advisory warning travelers that Florida is “openly hostile” towards Black people, people of colour and LGBT+ people following a series of laws implemented by the governor in recent months. Mr DeSantis, 44, is seen as Donald Trump’s biggest rival for the Republican vote and has been expected to throw his hat into the ring for some time. Following the GOP party’s disappoining midterms – where the “red wave” failed to appear and Mr Trump-endorsed candidates fell flat – several Republican lawmakers and right-wing media have rallied behind Mr DeSantis. However, the latest polls show Mr DeSantis trailing Mr Trump, with the RealClearPolitics polling average giving the former president a 36-point lead. Mr DeSantis will join an already crowded race, with Nikki Haley, Asa Hutchinson, Vivek Ramaswamy, Larry Elder and Tim Scott already announcing bids. Read More College student who tracked Elon Musk’s private jet is now following Ron DeSantis Who is Casey DeSantis? What we know about Florida governor Ron’s wife who could become America’s first lady DeSantis responds to NAACP call for tourists to boycott Florida

Republican state legislators in Nebraska rammed through a contentious bill restricting abortion and transgender healthcare last week with the help of a sick colleague who had just gotten out of hospital. Julie Slama, a state GOP senator, confirmed on Friday that she had been receiving treatment for hyperemesis gravidarium, a serious complication of pregnancy, but made it to the statehouse in time to cast a decisive vote. Earlier that day, Nebraska Examiner reporter Paul Hammel had posted a picture of her looking “clearly ill” as colleagues from both sides of the debate stood around her to shield her from TV cameras. According to Hammel, Ms Slama cast the crucial 33rd vote that allowed the bill to overcome a months-long filibuster by progressive senators that had brought Nebraska’s unicameral legislature practically to a standstill. The bill, signed into law by governor Jim Pillen on Monday, bans abortion after 12 weeks of pregnancy, starting immediately, and all gender transition healthcare for trans people under the age of 19, starting in October. “I was hospitalised today with hyperemesis gravidarum,” Ms Slama tweeted on Friday evening. “Made it back in time to vote, and on the most divisive bill of the entire session. “Everyone put their differences aside and joined in a wall to keep my illness from the cameras. ‘Gratitude’ doesn’t even begin to cover it,” she said. In another tweet on Saturday morning, she said: “Do I like that [the photo] is out there? No. But sometimes in government, private battles end up public. I shared to address questions about my health, but also to give my colleagues credit for their kindness, especially Machaela Cavanaugh.” That last name was notable because Ms Cavanaugh, along with her progressive colleague Megan Hunt, has been one of the public faces of the 12-week filibuster that had blocked almost all legislation in this session so far. Ms Cavanaugh has described the trans healthcare ban as a stepping stone to “genocide”, telling The Independent earlier this month that it was aimed at “exterminating ‘transgender’ from existence”. Nevertheless, she was among the senators who stood in front of Ms Slama to block her from view, and later tweeted at Hammel to “delete this please”. Another Republican senator, Lou Ann Linehan, had complained that she had to miss her grandson’s preschool graduation ceremony because of the filibuster and the prolonged debate it created. Ms Hunt, who has a trans child, shot back: “If you want to see your grandson graduate from preschool, you should do that. Instead, you are here to drag out this session because you won’t come off this bill that hurts my son. You hate him more than you love your own family.” Hammel defended his decision to tweet the photo, saying: “No more public place than floor of [the] Nebraska legislature.”

Lauren Boebert hit out at unsubstantiated claims that she was in a romantic relationship with a pro-Trump country singer following her divorce from her longtime husband. The hard-right congresswoman told The Daily Beast that there was "absolutely nothing romantic" between her and Christian strummer Sean Feucht, nor had there ever been. "How can I be with a man with better hair than me?" she quipped, referring to Mr Feucht's chest-length mane of blond curls. For his part, Mr Feucht called the claims "false and defamatory", threatening to sue anyone making the accusation. Ms Boebert, a staunch conservative and outspoken Christian who represents Colorado in the US House of Representatives, filed for divorce from her husband Jayson Boebert last week after more than 15 years together. Rumours immediately began circulating on Twitter that she had begun romancing Mr Feucht, but those peddling the claim gave no evidence to support it. Asked for comment on Monday, Ms Boebert said: "“There is absolutely nothing romantic between Sean Feucht and I, nor has there been. "He is a wonderful friend, and he and I have done a lot of events together. His wife is wonderful, and we have had worship in the [US Capitol] rotunda... "I have been very, very transparent with my personal life since I started campaigning. And I think there are a lot of politicians who are not transparent. "They just give the sweet, pretty pieces of their life – and I have been raw in the details of my upbringing and what I have been through, and the challenges my husband and I have faced over the years." Since 2020, Mr Feucht has campaigned vigorously against Covid lockdown measures, leading a protest movement called Let Us Worship and running as a Republican for one of California's seats in the US House. He is a strong supporter of former president Donald Trump, whom he believes has been unfairly persecuted and who once signed an American flag guitar for him. According to the Beast, Ms Boebert also blamed the rumours on "the Left" and said there were no skeletons in her closet. Read More GOP Rep Clay Higgins filmed shoving activist who questioned Lauren Boebert’s divorce Lauren Boebert denies claim husband flew into rage after being served divorce papers E Jean Carroll targets Trump again after his derogatory CNN town hall smears E Jean Carroll targets Trump again after his derogatory CNN town hall smears Nebraska senators shield sick colleague brought from hospital to pass abortion ban Pride events cancelled across Florida due to ‘climate of fear’ after anti-LGBT+ laws

Pride organisers in Florida have called off events that were to take place during the Pride Month in the wake of the latest anti-LGBT+ laws signed by Florida governor Ron DeSantis. Organisers based in the town of St Cloud outside Orlando announced on Thursday that they have cancelled the upcoming 10 June event, saying they are aware that it is “unsafe to hold the event”. “As you know, Florida has recently passed a number of laws that target the LGBTQIA+ community. These laws have created a climate of fear and hostility for LGBTQIA+ people in Florida,” the organisers said. “We believe that holding an LGBTQIA+ event in this environment would put our community at risk.” Officials and organisers in Port St Lucie city announced the cancellation of Pride parades last month and limitation of other activities for those who are 21 years or older. Mr DeSantis, a 2024 presidential hopeful, has signed several bills last week that banned gender-affirming care for minors, restricted pronoun use in schools and forced individuals to use restrooms corresponding with their biological sex – an expansion of the “Don’t Say Gay” bill enacted into law last year. The laws have been dubbed as a “slate of hate” by activists and opponents. The new laws will target drag shows in the state, limit the use of preferred pronouns for pupils in schools, and ban trans people from using public bathrooms that do not match with their gender assigned at birth. NAACP, a civil rights group, issued a formal travel advisory for Florida, stating that the state has become “openly hostile toward African Americans, people of colour and LGBTQ+ individuals”. It denounced the state’s "aggressive attempts to erase Black history and to restrict diversity, equity, and inclusion programmes in Florida schools”. LGBT+ advocacy group Equality Florida also issued a similar advisory after Mr DeSantis signed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill into law. "That law, along with additional proposals being considered, has turned the state’s classrooms into political battlefields and is telegraphing to LGBTQ families and students that they are not welcome in Florida," the group said. Florida’s Lake County Pride, however, pushed back against the laws, saying: “No unconstitutional law will keep us from celebrating our PRIDE event”. “Lake County Pride will never back down, and we stood firm and united in fighting against the "Drag Ban,” it said. Read More E Jean Carroll targets Trump again after his derogatory CNN town hall smears MLK’s daughter backs call for tourists to boycott ‘racist’ Florida and blasts Cruz Founder of student aid startup Frank pleads not guilty to fraud Haley vs. Scott: From South Carolina allies to 2024 rivals Who is Tim Scott? 5 things to know about the newest 2024 GOP presidential candidate Two fishermen bitten by sharks just hours apart in the Florida Keys

Joe Biden has again been criticised for saying that his late son Beau “lost his life in Iraq” – a reference to the president’s long-held belief that toxic burn pits led to the younger Biden passing away from brain cancer at the age of 46. The president made his latest remarks to US troops stationed in Japan during his trip to the country, after making similar remarks at least twice last year. “My son was a major in the US Army. We lost him in Iraq,” said Mr Biden during an informal visit with troops at Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni last Thursday in a video obtained by The New York Post. Right-wing media outlets have attempted to use Mr Biden’s comments on Beau’s death as a sign that the 80-year-old Democrat has memory issues ahead of the 2024 presidential election. Mr Biden’s son died of brain cancer in 2015 at the Walter Reed military hospital in Bethesda, Maryland. Last October Mr Biden made similar comments while speaking close to Vail, Colorado, as he designated Camp Hail as a national monument. The area, covering 436 square miles, was the training site of the 10th Mountain Division during the Second World War. Mr Biden spoke of the bravery of the division as they fought in Italy, before stating that he lost his son in Iraq. “Just imagine, I mean it sincerely, I say this as a father of a man who won the Bronze Star, the conspicuous service medal, and lost his life in Iraq. Imagine the courage, the daring, and the genuine sacrifice they all made,” the president said. A clip of the moment shared by the conservative Washington Examiner on Twitter has been viewed more than a million times. Beau Biden served in Iraq between 2008 and 2009 as a member of the Delaware Army National Guard. He was the Delaware Attorney General between 2007 and 2015. Just months after leaving the post, he passed away at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland on 30 May 2015. After his passing, he was given the Delaware Conspicuous Service Cross for “heroism, meritorious service and outstanding achievement”. “Beau Biden died of brain cancer in 2015, more than five years after he returned from a year serving in Iraq. Joe Biden has attributed the cancer to Beau Biden’s proximity to burn pits in Iraq, though sometimes conceded he isn’t sure,” CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale tweeted. In 2016, then-Vice President Biden said his son’s cancer could have been caused by the toxic burn pits that he was exposed to during his service in the Middle East. The New York Times reported that Mr Biden said he was “stunned” when he read a chapter concerning the death of his son in the book The Burn Pits: The Poisoning of America’s Soldiers by Joseph Hickman. “Guys, I’m going to be the biggest pain in your neck as long as I live, until we figure out about these burn pits,” he said in a conference room in the congressional complex. Burn pits were used to get rid of waste, such as plastics, rubber, and batteries, in both Afghanistan and Iraq. The smoke from the pits could be toxic, Newsweek noted. The Department of Defence has stated that almost 3.5 million service members could have been exposed to toxins at harmful levels because of the practice. “I’ve always believed that we have a sacred obligation to equip those we send to war, and care for those and their families when they come home,” Mr Biden said during his State of the Union speech earlier this year. “And they come home, many of the world’s fittest and best-trained warriors in the world, never the same. Headaches. Numbness. Dizziness. A cancer that would put them in a flag-draped coffin.” While Mr Biden said he couldn’t be entirely sure that his son’s cancer was caused by the burn pits, he said his administration would be “finding out everything we can”. The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) states on its website that it “understands that many Veterans are especially concerned about exposure to the smoke and fumes generated by open burn pits”. “In Iraq, Afghanistan, and other areas of the Southwest Asia theater of military operations, open-air combustion of trash and other waste in burn pits was a common practice. The Department of Defense has now closed out most burn pits and is planning to close the remainder,” the agency adds. “Researchers, including experts at VA, are actively studying airborne hazards like burn pits and other military environmental exposures. Ongoing research will help us better understand potential long-term health effects and provide you with better care and services,” the site states. Read More DeSantis eases voting rules in counties devastated by Ian Trump supporter pleads guilty in staged ’Biden 2020’ arson attack he blamed on Antifa ‘The goose is cooked’: Why legal experts are now saying there’s enough evidence to charge Trump over Mar-a-Lago docs Biden ‘optimistic’ about McCarthy talks; AOC slams ‘dysfunctional’ debt ceiling E Jean Caroll targets Trump again after his derogatory CNN town hall smears Marjorie Taylor Greene’s boyfriend caught in drag video

Texas Senator Ted Cruz found himself denounced by the daughter of late civil rights champion Dr Martin Luther King Jr on Sunday after he attempted to invoke Dr King’s legacy in order to attack the modern incarnation of the anti-racism movement. Mr Cruz used Dr King’s name in his own tweet attacking the NAACP, one of America’s oldest and best known anti-racist institutions. The Texas Republican took issue with the organisation after it issued a “travel advisory” warning about Florida’s far-right turn under Governor Ron DeSantis, in particular efforts to ban what he calls “woke” lessons in schools which most experts on the issue say is really about erasing teachings about the struggle for civil rights and racial equality in America. The advisory came as a result of a unanimous vote by the NAACP’s board. "Florida is openly hostile toward African Americans, people of color and LGBTQ+ individuals. Before traveling to Florida, please understand that the state of Florida devalues and marginalizes the contributions of, and the challenges faced by African Americans and other communities of color," the advisory states. Mr Cruz responded on Twitter to a conservative publication’s writeup of the issue and wrote angrily: “This is bizarre. And utterly dishonest. In the 1950s & 1960s, the NAACP did extraordinary good helping lead the civil rights movement. Today, Dr. King would be ashamed of how profoundly they’ve lost their way.” But Dr King’s daughter, author and activist Bernice King, retorted that her father would be strongly opposed to conservative efforts to whitewash American history as well as the campaign against LGBT+ Americans currently consuming the far-right. “What my father would be deeply concerned about is the harmful, discriminatory legislation in Florida,” she wrote. She wasn’t the only person to take issue with the senator’s tweet. A Democratic former member of New York’s congressional delegation, Mondaire Jones, was less subtle in his response as he opined that Mr Cruz would have fought desegregation efforts in the 50s and 60s. “We know exactly which side you would’ve been on in the 1950s and 60s, Ted,” wrote the congressman-turned-CNN-contributor. The NAACP’s president, Derrick Johnson, further explained the organisation’s decision in a statement. "Under the leadership of Governor DeSantis, the state of Florida has become hostile to Black Americans and in direct conflict with the democratic ideals that our union was founded upon. He should know that democracy will prevail because its defenders are prepared to stand up and fight. We're not backing down, and we encourage our allies to join us in the battle for the soul of our nation,” said Mr Johnson. Mr DeSantis’ team, meanwhile, issued a response calling the advisory a “stunt” for attention. Read More Back in hoodies and gym shorts, Fetterman tackles Senate life after depression treatment DeSantis super PAC tackles tricky task of organizing support for him in Iowa without the candidate Ted Cruz wants Congress to investigate Bud Light for working with Dylan Mulvaney Wounded man who invaded Senate with knife sentenced to prison for Capitol riot Kentucky Republicans pick nominee to challenge Democratic Gov. Beshear With Feinstein back in Senate, 3 of Biden's judicial nominees move forward

President Joe Biden on Monday said he was “optimistic” about the chances of finding an agreement with the Republican-led House of Representatives that would avoid a catastrophic default on America’s sovereign debt. Speaking at the outset of a crucial meeting with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Mr Biden said the source of his optimism was a shared agreement between the two men that a debt default is “off the table”. Mr Biden also said the consequences that would arise should the US fail to meet its’ outstanding debt obligations would be “a kick in the ... economic well-being” for the American people. The negotiating session between the president and House speaker comes with just ten days remaining before the US Treasury is set to lose the ability to pay its’ bills by issuing new bonds. In a letter to Congress, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on Monday that “it is highly likely” that the Treasury would run out of operating funds in the event that Congress does not raise the department’s statutory debt limit. A default on America’s sovereign debt would be a financial catastrophe both for Americans and people around the world who rely on US financial stability. Mr Biden said he and Mr McCarthy “talked about the need for bipartisan agreement” and stressed that he was “optimistic” that he and Mr McCarthy were “going to make some progress” during the Monday evening session. For his part, the House Speaker said he and Mr Biden had a “very productive” conversation during a phone call held on Sunday while Mr Biden was returning to Washington from the G7 summit aboard Air Force One. Earlier in the day, Mr McCarthy told reporters at the Capitol that “decisions have to start being made” on spending for the next fiscal year since “we’re 10 days out” from the debt ceiling deadline. “We have to spend less next year than we spent this year,” he said before pointing to the House’s proposal for spending cuts as the “framework” for a deal. “I’m hopeful,” he added. Read More Watch live: Biden and McCarthy meet to discuss US debt ceiling Who is Tim Scott? 5 things to know about the newest 2024 GOP presidential candidate A timeline of Donald Trump’s rivalry with Ron DeSantis

As he launches his presidential campaign on Monday, Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina is officially wading into a GOP primary battle already largely dominated by two commanding figures: former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Scott, the only Black Republican senator, will make his campaign announcement in his hometown of North Charleston after making it official last week with the Federal Election Commission. The late morning event is taking place at Charleston Southern University, Scott’s alma mater and a private school affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention. Then he'll spend Tuesday with donors in Charleston before a whirlwind, two-day campaign swing to Iowa and New Hampshire. Like others in the GOP race, including former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson and “Woke, Inc.” author Vivek Ramaswamy, Scott will have to find a way to stand out in a field led by Trump and DeSantis, the latter of whom could announce his own bid as early as this week. But Scott's senior advisers note that political environments can shift over the course of a primary campaign, pointing to early in the 2016 race when Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush were seen as the top GOP candidates before Trump became the party's nominee. One way Scott, 57, hopes to make his mark is by leaning into more optimistic rhetoric than his conservative rivals. With his Christian faith an integral part of his political and personal story, Scott often quotes Scripture at his campaign events, weaving his reliance on spiritual guidance into his stump speech and even bestowing the name “Faith in America” on his pre-launch listening tour. In terms of Scott's political strength, his team points to his most recent Senate reelection in November, when Scott defeated his Democratic opponent by more than 20 percentage points. Such overwhelming support in a state that votes early in the GOP's presidential nominating calendar bodes well for Scott's electability on a larger scale, his advisers say. There's also the matter of money. He will enter the 2024 race with more cash on hand than any other presidential candidate in U.S. history. He had $22 million left in his campaign bank account at the end of his 2022 campaign and plans to immediately transfer that to his presidential coffers. It's enough money, his team says, to keep Scott on the air with continuous TV ads in early voting states until the first round of votes next year. On many issues, Scott aligns with mainstream GOP positions. He wants to reduce government spending and restrict abortion, saying he would sign a federal law to prohibit abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy if elected president. But Scott has pushed the party on some policing overhaul measures since the killing of George Floyd, and he has occasionally criticized Trump’s response to racial tensions. Throughout their disagreements, though, Scott has maintained a generally cordial relationship with Trump, saying in his book that the former president “listened intently” to his viewpoints on race-related issues. When he was appointed to the Senate by then-Gov. Nikki Haley in 2012, Scott became the first Black senator from the South since just after the Civil War. Winning a 2014 special election to serve out the remainder of his term made him the first Black candidate to win a statewide race in South Carolina since the Reconstruction era. He has long said his current term, which runs through 2029, would be his last. Scott rejects the notion that the country is inherently racist and has repudiated the teaching of critical race theory, an academic framework that presents the idea that the nation’s institutions maintain the dominance of white people. “Hear me clearly: America is not a racist country,” Scott has said. “It’s backwards to fight discrimination with different types of discrimination. And it’s wrong to try to use our painful past to dishonestly shut down debates in the present.” If Scott is successful, he would be the first Black person to win the Republican presidential nomination and the second elected to the presidency, following Barack Obama in 2008. In a video announcing his exploratory committee earlier this year, Scott positioned himself as the antidote to the “radical left: a self-made success story as the son of a single mother who overcame poverty. He also bemoaned Democratic leaders as needlessly dividing the country by fostering a “culture of grievance.” Other Republicans are still deciding whether to wade into the presidential race, including former Vice President Mike Pence, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Miami Mayor Francis Suarez. President Joe Biden is seeking reelection, a decision that has largely cleared the Democratic field. ___ Meg Kinnard can be reached at http://twitter.com/MegKinnardAP Read More Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Haley vs. Scott: From South Carolina allies to 2024 rivals Who is Tim Scott? 5 things to know about the newest 2024 GOP presidential candidate Trump slams DeSantis as he welcomes Tim Scott to presidential race

A Nebraska Republican state senator who voted for a combined anti-trans and anti-abortion bill that passed by one vote in the legislature has admitted that she didn’t pay attention to the issue. State Senator Christy Armendariz represents the 18th District in the state. Writing for New York magazine, journalist Lila Shapiro said that the senator “led me to a bench in an empty hallway” to say that she “found it puzzling that a reporter from New York would come all the way to Nebraska to cover this affair”. “I don’t watch the news or get the newspaper,” she told the magazine. “Is there anything going on I should be aware of?” The writer told Ms Armendariz that other states have passed other similar bills restricting trans and women’s reproductive rights and that an appeals court on the federal level in the Nebraska circuit had ruled that one of them was unconstitutional. “So is it a big widespread thing?” she asked the writer, adding that regular Nebraska residents were unaware of the issue. “I knocked doors for a year, and nobody brought this up,” the senator said, adding that she wished that the legislation had never been brought to the floor. For three months, a group of lawmakers in the state has ground nearly all legislative business in the state to a halt, grabbing the nation’s attention with a remarkable filibuster to stifle a bill that would end gender-affirming care for young transgender people. Late Tuesday 16 May, Republican lawmakers broke through, advancing a bill that not only bans gender-affirming care for trans people under 19 years old but also tacks on an amendment to outlaw abortion after 10 weeks of pregnancy and hands the state’s GOP-appointed medical officer the authority to set the rules for affirming care for trans youth. Hundreds of protesters filled the capital in Lincoln, standing outside the doors and in the gallery above lawmakers while chanting “one more vote to save our lives”; only one senator would have had to defect from supporters of the bill to kill the legislation. The vote – on the 78th day of a 90-day session – followed a series of manoeuvres that opponents argued were bending and breaking the rules of the state legislature to hammer through the legislation and avert the filibuster, which would allow opponents to occupy their allotted time to speak the bill to death. “What you are attempting to do today is the lowest of the absolute lows,” state Senator Machaela Cavanaugh, who spearheaded the filibuster, told Republican lawmakers. “You literally have to cheat at every moment of this debate in every possible way … You are allowing it to happen,” she added. “You do literally have blood on your hands, and if you vote for it, you will have buckets.” State Senator Megan Hunt, the first openly LGBT+ member of the state legislature and the mother of a trans child, lambasted lawmakers for their “escape routes” from the capitol to avoid facing protesters. “If you can’t go out and face them, you are not worthy,” she said. “Your legacy is filth.” Protesters surrounded the state capitol chambers in Lincoln on 19 May chanting “keep your bans off our bodies” and “save our lives” as lawmakers made their final round of votes on the bill, which passed 33-15, according to Reuters. The bill reached the exact number of votes needed to pass. Republican Governor Jim Pillen signed it into law on Monday. Before signing the bill, Mr Pillen said, “We are working to inspire Nebraskans to get in the game so that abortion is simply unthinkable in the state of Nebraska,” according to WOWT. He added that it was “an extremely historic day for Nebraska. It’s a day where it’s really simple: We’re standing up to protect our kids so our state has a bigger and brighter future. LB574 is the most significant win for [the] social conservative agenda that over a generation has seen in Nebraska. I think that’s something we need to clap and shout about”. At a show in Nebraska hours after the vote on Friday night, the artist Lizzo lambasted the legislation from the stage. “It really breaks my heart that there are young people growing up in a world that doesn’t protect them,” she said. “Don’t let anyone tell you who you are. ... These laws are not real. You are what’s real, and you deserve to be protected.” Ari Kohen, a political science professor at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, tweeted: “Hat tip to Senator Armendariz, who says she doesn’t know anything about the issue, doesn’t pay attention to current events, and wishes the bill she voted for hadn’t been introduced. It passed by 1 vote.” “These are the people who devoted an entire legislative session to taking away people’s rights in the face of massive opposition from experts and ordinary citizens. They openly admit that none of their constituents mentioned this issue to them and they don’t know much about it,” he added. “We have a handful of legislators who care enough to listen and learn. And then we have the majority, who seem not to know or care what they’re doing as long as it feels right to them and they have the votes to do it. Awful.” Journalist and author Charles Jaco tweeted that a similar assessment could be made regarding the Missouri legislature. “You have a handful of lawmakers who are serious, substantial people. The rest are various shades of know-nothing religious fanatics, grifters, and bigoted buffoons,” he tweeted. The Independent has reached out to Ms Armendariz for comment. Read More Nebraska governor to sign 12-week abortion ban, limits on gender-affirming care for minors Lizzo blasts Nebraska bill banning abortion access and gender-affirming care: ‘You deserve to be protected’ Here are the restrictions on transgender people that are moving forward in US states Nebraska governor to sign 12-week abortion ban, limits on gender-affirming care for minors Lizzo blasts Nebraska bill banning abortion access and gender-affirming care Nebraska expected to pass 12-week abortion ban, restrictions on gender-affirming care