The demeaning spectacle through which Kevin McCarthy, after 14 failed votes, finally convinced 21 radical holdouts to allow him to at last become Speaker of the US House of Representatives appears to be just the beginning of a period of misrule. His committee assignments leave little doubt the worst is yet to come.
During this fiasco, GOP members called each other, with as much plausibility as hyperbole, metaphorical “hostage takers", “Taliban", and “terrorists”. In front of a shocked live TV audience, incoming armed services committee chairman Mike Rogers lunged at holdout Matt Gaetz, but was physically restrained from attacking him.
Mr McCarthy gave into virtually every demand any Republican made of him, because he could afford to lose no votes, including agreeing to allow any member, alone, to make a “motion to vacate” which could remove him from his speakership at any moment. He thereby agreed to become the political prisoner of his “hostage taking” colleagues. The implications for governance are dire.
He reportedly made numerous concessions about committee posts, but nobody forced him to assign apparently compulsive fabulist George Santos to the small business and science committees, appointments so obnoxious they are essentially trolling the entire country.
Mr Santos is wanted in Brazil for stealing a chequebook from a man his mother worked for as a nurse in 2008 and purchasing $1,314 in clothing from… a small business. Brazilian police documents show Mr Santos confessed before disappearing and sending the case into limbo. Now he has suddenly reappeared on the floor of the US Congress, Brazilian authorities have reopened it.
He has yet to explain how, after a lifetime of modest income, he suddenly started reporting huge paydays in the past two years and lent his own campaign $700,000. The answer could well involve his work in 2020-2021 for Harbour City Capital Corp, which US financial authorities have described as “a classic Ponzi scheme” to defraud investors of up to $17.1 million. But at least it wasn't a small business.
Mr Santos should also fit right into the Science Committee, since he claims to have played a significant role in developing carbon capture technology during a non-existent career in finance and boasted about numerous equally non-existent university degrees.
From the preposterous to the disturbing, Mr McCarthy has appointed three of his most extreme members to the crucial Oversight committee, the House's main investigative body.
Marjorie Taylor Greene is known for a litany of bizarre views, including that the 9/11 terrorist attacks were a hoax (she has since somehow been persuaded that they actually occurred), appearing to endorse killing prominent Democrats like Nancy Pelosi, and her recent boast that if she had orchestrated the January 6 insurrection, “we would have won” and “it would've been armed”. Mr McCarthy appears to think all this also made her an ideal addition to the House Homeland Security Committee.
Paul Gosar is another strong supporter of the insurgency, notorious for close ties to the white supremacist movement and strange conspiracy theories about the dangers of fluoridation of water (a paranoid fixation on the American extreme right since the late 1940s). Lauren Boebert was one of the anti-McCarthy holdouts and had been noted for her personal closeness to Ms Greene until they had a notorious shouting match over Mr McCarthy in a Capitol Hill ladies’ room that Ms Boebert called “ugly” and “nasty”.
All three have promoted farcical QAnon conspiracy theories. They also endorse false claims that the 2020 election was somehow “stolen” from Donald Trump and promote the racist “great replacement theory” which posits a conspiracy to overwhelm and displace white populations in the West through nonwhite immigration.
All three were also assigned to the house judiciary committee led by prominent firebrand Jim Jordan. Along with the Oversight Committee, it will likely spearhead a push by Republicans to spend most of their time and energy in the next two years investigating President Joe Biden on a range of issues, most notably the business activities of his son, Hunter.
A 2020 Republican-led Senate investigation found no evidence of wrongdoing by either Mr Biden or his son involving Hunter's service on the board of the Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma Holdings. It did confirm, as is obvious, that Hunter Biden inappropriately sought to “cash in” on his family name and thereby created “the appearance of a conflict of interest” given his father's then-role as US vice president.
These committees are unlikely to reproduce such a level-headed, sober conclusion or evince the least interest in many highly suspect business activities of Mr Trump and his children during his presidency. But Mr Jordan has signalled his interest in interfering in ongoing federal criminal investigations into Mr Trump and his allies, already leading to a rebuke by the Department of Justice of a request for information into several sensitive probes.
Mr Jordan has created a subcommittee to study the purported “weaponisation” of the federal government, precisely including “ongoing criminal investigations”. It could involve efforts to disrupt investigations and potential prosecutions of Mr Trump and his allies, including subcommittee member Scott Perry, whose mobile phone was seized by the FBI in its inquiry into efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Mr Perry has dismissed observations of this obvious conflict of interest by saying he merely faces “an accusation”.
Instead, MrMcCarthy has vowed to block two key democrats – ranking member Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell – from the vital intelligence committee in a gesture of obvious and petty vengeance.
Yet all this is unlikely to go beyond political kabuki designed to get these politicians on television and raise money. The Department of Justice is not going to allow a subcommittee to acquire sensitive details of ongoing criminal probes. And it seems unlikely the House will discover any evidence of corruption by Mr Biden.
Mr Santos can provide slapstick comic relief as these committees indulge in film noir theatrics. Yet the dysfunctionality and extremism of the new House threatens all-to-real consequences regarding the “debt ceiling”.
The “hostage takers” are vowing to hold the “full faith and credit” of the US to ransom for major spending cuts. The White House correctly says it won't negotiate over Congress refusing to pay its existing bills. But a default would probably precipitate a US and global financial meltdown. Even for Republicans, that would not be fun and games.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
match info
Chelsea 2
Willian (13'), Ross Barkley (64')
Liverpool 0
Director: Laxman Utekar
Cast: Vicky Kaushal, Akshaye Khanna, Diana Penty, Vineet Kumar Singh, Rashmika Mandanna
Rating: 1/5
The specs
Engine: 2.0-litre 4cyl turbo
Power: 261hp at 5,500rpm
Torque: 405Nm at 1,750-3,500rpm
Transmission: 9-speed auto
Fuel consumption: 6.9L/100km
On sale: Now
Price: From Dh117,059
The%20Woman%20King%20
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EDirector%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Gina%20Prince-Bythewood%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EStars%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Viola%20Davis%2C%20Thuso%20Mbedu%2C%20Sheila%20Atim%2C%20Lashana%20Lynch%2C%20John%20Boyega%C2%A0%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ERating%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%203%2F5%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Mica
Director: Ismael Ferroukhi
Stars: Zakaria Inan, Sabrina Ouazani
3 stars
RESULTS
Catchweight 82kg
Piotr Kuberski (POL) beat Ahmed Saeb (IRQ) by decision.
Women’s bantamweight
Corinne Laframboise (CAN) beat Cornelia Holm (SWE) by unanimous decision.
Welterweight
Omar Hussein (PAL) beat Vitalii Stoian (UKR) by unanimous decision.
Welterweight
Josh Togo (LEB) beat Ali Dyusenov (UZB) by unanimous decision.
Flyweight
Isaac Pimentel (BRA) beat Delfin Nawen (PHI) TKO round-3.
Catchweight 80kg
Seb Eubank (GBR) beat Emad Hanbali (SYR) KO round 1.
Lightweight
Mohammad Yahya (UAE) beat Ramadan Noaman (EGY) TKO round 2.
Lightweight
Alan Omer (GER) beat Reydon Romero (PHI) submission 1.
Welterweight
Juho Valamaa (FIN) beat Ahmed Labban (LEB) by unanimous decision.
Featherweight
Elias Boudegzdame (ALG) beat Austin Arnett (USA) by unanimous decision.
Super heavyweight
Maciej Sosnowski (POL) beat Ibrahim El Sawi (EGY) by submission round 1.
What are the main cyber security threats?
Cyber crime - This includes fraud, impersonation, scams and deepfake technology, tactics that are increasingly targeting infrastructure and exploiting human vulnerabilities.
Cyber terrorism - Social media platforms are used to spread radical ideologies, misinformation and disinformation, often with the aim of disrupting critical infrastructure such as power grids.
Cyber warfare - Shaped by geopolitical tension, hostile actors seek to infiltrate and compromise national infrastructure, using one country’s systems as a springboard to launch attacks on others.
ELIO
Starring: Yonas Kibreab, Zoe Saldana, Brad Garrett
Directors: Madeline Sharafian, Domee Shi, Adrian Molina
Rating: 4/5
Company%20Profile
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Specs
Engine: Duel electric motors
Power: 659hp
Torque: 1075Nm
On sale: Available for pre-order now
Price: On request
Jetour T1 specs
Engine: 2-litre turbocharged
Power: 254hp
Torque: 390Nm
Price: From Dh126,000
Available: Now
Ireland v Denmark: The last two years
Denmark 1-1 Ireland
7/06/19, Euro 2020 qualifier
Denmark 0-0 Ireland
19/11/2018, Nations League
Ireland 0-0 Denmark
13/10/2018, Nations League
Ireland 1 Denmark 5
14/11/2017, World Cup qualifier
Denmark 0-0 Ireland
11/11/2017, World Cup qualifier
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
KEY%20DATES%20IN%20AMAZON'S%20HISTORY
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more from Janine di Giovanni
What is a black hole?
1. Black holes are objects whose gravity is so strong not even light can escape their pull
2. They can be created when massive stars collapse under their own weight
3. Large black holes can also be formed when smaller ones collide and merge
4. The biggest black holes lurk at the centre of many galaxies, including our own
5. Astronomers believe that when the universe was very young, black holes affected how galaxies formed
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MATCH DETAILS
Manchester United 3
Greenwood (21), Martial (33), Rashford (49)
Partizan Belgrade 0