The US House of Representatives passed a mammoth US$858 billion military spending bill, putting the US budget for weapons and war-making higher than the next nine countries combined. Also attached to the bill was unprecedented US taxpayer funding for Taiwan’s military.
Environmentalists celebrated after Democratic New York Governor Kathy Hochul approved this week a two-year moratorium on permits for fossil fuel plants that power cryptocurrency mining operations.
The family of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh expressed hope that the FBI’s newly announced investigation into her death will bring them “closer to justice,” as Israeli officials declared that they will not cooperate, and even condemned the United States for opening a probe at all.
Republican lawmakers in the US House of Representatives are calling for increased confrontation with China, and should this party take power in next week’s midterm elections, they may exercise significant influence on US foreign policy in the Asia-Pacific region.
US lawmakers led by Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal reversed course under heavy criticism and withdrew in a matter of hours their letter which called on US President Joe Biden to initiate a “proactive diplomatic push” for a ceasefire in the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
Noting the pain and suffering of the Ukrainian people and the risk of nuclear war that threatens the entire world, progressive lawmakers have called on US President Joe Biden to make a decisive shift in his approach to the conflict by initiating a “proactive diplomatic push” seeking “a realistic framework for a ceasefire” through direct negotiations with Russia.
New US government figures have revealed that the wealthiest 1% of Americans now own over one-third of the country’s wealth, prompting renewed calls from progressives for systemic reforms to tackle the highest economic inequality of any major developed nation in the world.
US Representative Ilhan Omar narrowly fended off a Democratic Party primary challenger whose campaign was bankrolled in part by a Republican Party operative, corporate lobbyists, and prominent Minnesota businessmen.
Ahead of Donald Trump’s second visit to Japan in 2019, a Japanese hotelier invited the US president’s former chief strategist and senior advisor Steve Bannon to give a “special lecture” in Tokyo. That hotelier’s name is Toshio Motoya.
Joe Biden was elected president of the United States on a platform of unifying the country through bipartisanship, but political divisions over the US policy on Cuba have revealed a major challenge to his message of national unity.
