Philadelphia local news, sports, jobs, cars, homes

Category: Wires

  • Republicans brace for tough midterms after Tennessee special election

    Republicans brace for tough midterms after Tennessee special election

    Republicans held onto a reliably conservative U.S. House district in Tennessee’s special election, but only after a late burst of national spending and high-profile campaigning helped them secure a margin less than half of last year’s race.

    Even with that victory, the outcome contributed to a gloomy outlook for the party going into the 2026 midterms that will determine control of Congress. Republicans will need to defend much more vulnerable seats if they have any hope of keeping their House majority, while Democrats are capitalizing on President Donald Trump’s unpopularity and the public’s persistent frustration with the economy.

    “The danger signs are there, and we shouldn’t have had to spend that kind of money to hold that kind of seat,” said Jason Roe, a national Republican strategist working on battleground races next year.

    He said that “Democratic enthusiasm is dramatically higher than Republican enthusiasm.”

    Republican Matt Van Epps, a military veteran and former state general services commissioner, defeated Democratic state Rep. Aftyn Behn by 9 percentage points on Tuesday for the seat vacated by Republican Mark Green, who retired over the summer. Green had won reelection in 2024 by 21 percentage points.

    Special elections provide a limited window into the mood of voters and take place under far different conditions than regular campaign cycles. But some Republicans are acknowledging the warning signs, especially after Democrats had convincing victories in New Jersey, Virginia and elsewhere last month.

    Tennessee was the fifth House special election this year, and Democratic candidates have outperformed Kamala Harris’ showing in the 2024 presidential race by an average of 16 percentage points in the same districts.

    “We could have lost this district,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) told Fox News after The Associated Press called the race for Van Epps. Cruz said his party must “set out the alarm bells” because next year is “going to be a turnout election and the left will show up.”

    Trump dismisses affordability concerns

    Although inflation has dropped since Democratic President Joe Biden was in office, Behn focused her campaign on the lingering concerns about prices.

    Trump has played down the affordability issue, saying during a Cabinet meeting Tuesday that it was “a con job” by his political opponents.

    “There’s this fake narrative that the Democrats talk about, affordability,” he said. ”They just say the word. It doesn’t mean anything to anybody, they just say it.”

    Roe viewed things differently. He said the Tennessee race had “better be a wake-up call that we’ve got to address the affordability problem, and the president denying that affordability is a political issue is not helpful.”

    Maintaining House control is crucial for Trump, who fears a repeat of his first term, when Democrats flipped the House and launched an impeachment inquiry. The Republican president has been leaning on GOP-led states to redraw congressional maps to improve the party’s chances.

    Trump campaigned for Van Epps, boosting him during the primary with an endorsement and participating in two tele-rallies during the general election.

    The Republican National Committee also deployed staffers and partnered with state officials to get voters to the polls. MAGA Inc., the super political action committee that had gone dark since supporting Trump in 2024, reemerged to back Van Epps with about $1.7 million.

    House Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) visited the Nashville-area district on Monday.

    “When you’re in a deep red district, sometimes people assume that the Republican, the conservative will win,” he said Tuesday. “And you cannot assume that, because anything can happen.”

    Chip Saltsman, a political strategist and former Tennessee Republican Party chair, said his party had brought in its heaviest hitters simply because there were not other competing contests, not because Republicans feared a loss.

    “It’s the only election going on. Why wouldn’t the speaker come?” he asked. “There was one race, and you would expect everybody to do everything they could.”

    Democrats see promise despite loss

    The House Majority PAC put $1 million behind Behn. After she lost, Democratic national party chair said Behn’s performance was “a flashing warning sign for Republicans heading into the midterms” in 2026.

    Behn said her campaign had “inspired an entire country.”

    “Let’s keep going,” she urged voters after her loss. “We’re not done. Not now, not ever.”

    Although Democrats were optimistic, the result contributed to some murmuring within the party about the best path forward as it grasps for a path back to power in Washington.

    Among special elections this year, the shift in Behn’s direction was the second smallest, providing an opening for some factions that believe more moderate candidates would fare better.

    “Each time we nominate a far-left candidate in a swing district who declares themselves to be radical and alienates the voters in the middle who deliver majorities, we set back that cause,” said a statement from Lanae Erickson, a senior vice president at Third Way, a centrist Democrat think tank.

    Republicans tried to turn Behn’s own words against her in television ads, such as when she described herself as a “radical” or claimed to be “bullying” immigration agents and state police officers. Also cited were comments Behn made about Nashville years ago, when she said, “I hate this city,” and complained about bachelorette parties.

    Several high-profile progressive leaders, including U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) had rallied for Behn in the campaign’s final days.

  • DHS launches new immigration sting in New Orleans

    DHS launches new immigration sting in New Orleans

    The Department of Homeland Security announced the start of a new immigration enforcement operation in New Orleans on Wednesday, the latest in a series of sweeps that have resulted in thousands of arrests, legal challenges and protests.

    DHS said it was launching “Operation Catahoula Crunch” to target “criminal illegal aliens roaming free thanks to sanctuary policies that force local authorities to ignore U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrest detainers.”

    The announcement included a list and photos of 10 undocumented immigrants — from Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Jordan and Vietnam — who the agency said had been arrested for a variety of crimes in New Orleans and later released.

    “Sanctuary policies endanger American communities by releasing illegal criminal aliens and forcing DHS law enforcement to risk their lives to remove criminal illegal aliens that should have never been put back on the streets,” Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. “It is asinine that these monsters were released back onto New Orleans streets to COMMIT MORE CRIMES and create more victims.”

    Immigration enforcement escalations in Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston and — for a shorter time — Charlotte have generated unrest. Residents have alleged civil rights abuses, and policing experts have questioned the tactics used and the training provided to agents in the rapidly growing U.S. immigration enforcement apparatus.

    While DHS has said the operations are targeted at capturing violent criminals, many undocumented immigrants with no record have also been arrested. In Chicago, the agency said, immigration officers arrested more than 4,000 people in “Operation Midway Blitz,” but officials have publicly identified only about 120 of those arrested as having a criminal arrest or conviction, some for major crimes such as murder and others for nonviolent offenses such as illegally crossing the border.

    In each city, whistleblowing protesters have trailed immigration agents, warning neighborhoods of their presence. In Chicago and Los Angeles especially, immigration agents were limited in their ability to manage large, hostile crowds or protesters as they worked independently of Chicago police officers, who were not permitted to assist in immigration arrests.

    Across New Orleans, residents had anticipated the operation, particularly immigrants. Some businesses had closed while others posted signs saying, “ICE not welcome here.”

    First Grace United Methodist Church posted a sign citing scripture that read, “ICE: Whatsoever you do to the least, you do unto me.”

    “A lot of people are locking their houses because it’s a scary time. We are all anticipating,” said Leticia Casildo, a co-founder of the nonprofit immigrant advocacy group Familias Unidas en Acción who immigrated to the United States from Honduras and who has lived in New Orleans for 20 years.

    New Orleans mutual aid organizations have been watching closely how immigration operations have played out in other cities, and several organizations have collaborated with like-minded entities in Chicago, Los Angeles and Charlotte to learn new strategies to adapt to increased enforcement.

    A spokesperson for the ACLU of Louisiana said the organization had consulted with the ACLU of North Carolina to fine-tune educational materials for individuals eager to document the actions of federal officers.

    Chicago organizers said they believe that a network of “rapid response” civilians who follow Homeland Security agents or respond to arrest scenes with cameras and whistles effectively warned communities of law enforcement’s presence and held agents accountable, to an extent, for violent interactions.

    “What we’ve learned is that even a street witness who is not recording makes these interactions less traumatic and less violent,” said Beth Davis, a press liaison for Indivisible NOLA. “So we need to get eyes on these people.”

    Louisiana residents’ reaction to Homeland Security actions may be complicated by a new state law punishing obstruction of immigration enforcement, said GOP state Sen. John “Jay” Morris, who represents northern Louisiana and wrote the law. While some mutual aid organizations in New Orleans have been directing people to buy whistles similar to those used in other cities, other organizations have not, anticipating immigration agents or local police may class the use of whistles as obstruction.

    “Such a law shouldn’t be necessary, but around the country and even the sheriff in Orleans Parish about a year ago indicated that she would not cooperate with ICE,” Morris said. “I hate that we have to have a law to tell people they have to cooperate with federal officials.”

    The law he wrote makes it a crime to “hinder, delay, prevent, or otherwise interfere with or thwart” federal immigration enforcement, and those in violation could face fines and up to a year in jail. Morris and other state lawmakers also expanded the crime of malfeasance in office, punishable by up to a decade in jail, to include government officials who refuse requests by ICE and prohibited police and judges from releasing anyone who “illegally entered or unlawfully remained” in the U.S. without notifying ICE.

    He said the laws could come into force if New Orleans officials or others attempt to interfere with DHS.

    New Orleans police spokesman Reese Harper said that federal officials had not notified the department about when the operation would start and that police will not be involved.

    “We handle the criminal aspect of the law. Border Patrol and ICE handle civil. So it’s unlawful for us to even touch that,” Harper said. “The only way we would even come in contact with them is if they called for backup, like a life-threatening situation.”

    He said that Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick last month “did meet with both Border Patrol and ICE, but we don’t know much about the operation. We know that they are coming and that’s basically it.”

    New Orleans police have operated under a federal consent decree for the past 13 years that limited their cooperation with federal immigration enforcement, including the city’s jail. The Justice Department accused New Orleans of undermining federal immigration enforcement and included it on a list of 18 immigrant “sanctuary cities.”

    But a federal judge ended the consent decree last month, and Kirkpatrick said she would be a “partner” to the federal agents, although officers will not be conducting immigration arrests or asking people about their immigration status, according to a radio interview with WBOK reported by the Times-Picayune.

    Local and state leaders were split on the prospect of more immigration agents in Louisiana and Mississippi.

    New Orleans Mayor-elect Helena Moreno, who will begin her term in January as the city’s first Latina and Mexican-born mayor, criticized immigration enforcement tactics during surges in other cities in an interview with CNN on Tuesday.

    “It’s one thing if you would have a real strategic approach on going after people … who have criminal felonies or are being accused of some very serious and violent crimes. But that’s not what the public is seeing,” Moreno said. “They’re seeing people who are just trying to survive and do the right thing — and many of them now have American children who are not causing problems in our community — treated like they are violent, violent criminals.”

    The Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office has refused to honor ICE detainers at the jail for more than a decade, but state officials last month challenged that policy under the new state law.

    A spokesman for the sheriff’s office this week referred questions about the operation to New Orleans police.

    Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry (R) told Fox News on Monday that “we don’t talk about specific operations, but we certainly invite [Border Patrol official] Greg Bovino and [ICE Deputy Director] Madison Sheahan and [Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L.] Noem and all of President Trump’s great team that’s trying to make America safe to help make Louisiana safe.”

    “New Orleans is a crime-ridden city that we’ve been trying to keep people safe and something we’ve been working on since I became governor of Louisiana,” he said. “I’m welcoming them to come in. We’re going to take these dangerous criminals off the streets in Louisiana.”

    Asked what he thought of Kirkpatrick saying she can’t enforce immigration law, Landry conceded that “she can’t” and blamed the recently lifted federal consent decree that “decimated the New Orleans police department” and led him to create a French Quarter-based team of state police called “Troop Nola” “to get crime under control in New Orleans.”

    In September, Landry requested a National Guard deployment to New Orleans, citing an alleged increase in violent crime, even though police and city leaders say crime has decreased and federal support isn’t needed.

    Louisiana is a key hub in “Detention Alley,” a region that includes Texas and Mississippi that’s home to most of the country’s largest federal immigration detention centers. Louisiana’s centers house up to 6,000 detainees. The state opened the new “Louisiana Lockup” in September within the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola to hold immigrants whom federal officials consider dangerous. In a news conference, Noem said the prison’s “notorious” reputation — which includes a long, documented history of civil rights abuses — was a factor in choosing the facility to house undocumented immigrants.

    The New Orleans immigration enforcement operation, previously dubbed “Operation Swamp Sweep” in media reports anticipating the action, instead references Catahoula leopard dogs, trained by early Louisiana settlers to hunt wild boar.

  • Trump pardons Texas Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar in bribery and conspiracy case

    Trump pardons Texas Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar in bribery and conspiracy case

    President Donald Trump pardoned Texas Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar and his wife in a federal bribery and conspiracy case on Wednesday, citing what he called a “weaponized” justice system.

    Trump, who has argued that his own legal troubles were a partisan witch hunt, said on social media without presenting evidence that Cuellar and his wife, Imelda Cuellar, were prosecuted because the congressman had been critical of President Joe Biden’s immigration policies.

    Trump, a Republican, said in a social media post that Cuellar “bravely spoke out against Open Borders” and accused Biden, a Democrat, of going after the congressman and his wife “for speaking the TRUTH.”

    Federal authorities had charged Cuellar and his wife with accepting thousands of dollars in exchange for the congressman advancing the interests of an Azerbaijan-controlled energy company and a bank in Mexico. Cuellar is accused of agreeing to influence legislation favorable to Azerbaijan and deliver a pro-Azerbaijan speech on the floor of the U.S. House.

    Cuellar has said he and his wife are innocent. The couple’s trial had been set to begin next April.

    “Henry, I don’t know you, but you can sleep well tonight,” Trump wrote in his social media post announcing the pardon. “Your nightmare is finally over!”

    Cuellar thanks Trump for the pardon

    Cuellar, who spoke to reporters outside his congressional office on Wednesday, thanked Trump in a brief statement.

    “I think the facts have been clear about this, but I would also say I want to thank God for standing during this very difficult time with my family and I,” he said. ”Now we can get back to work. Nothing has changed. We will continue working hard.”

    Cuellar was asked if he was changing parties and said, “No, like I said, nothing has changed.”

    A spokesperson for Biden did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment.

    The Constitution gives the president broad power to grand pardons for federal crimes. The pardons don’t erase a recipient’s criminal record but can be seen as act of mercy or justice, often in cases that further public welfare.

    Trump’s pardons this year have included a string of unlikely beneficiaries who are boldfaced names and frequently politically aligned with the president. He pardoned dozens of Republicans accused of participating in his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Biden. He gave clemency to all of 1,500-plus people charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. He’s also pardoned a former Republican governor of Connecticut, an ex-GOP congressman and reality TV stars who had been convicted of cheating banks and evading taxes.

    Cuellar’s daughters sought a pardon for him

    In Trump’s social media post, he included a copy of a letter that Cuellar’s two daughters, Christina and Catherine, had sent to him on Nov. 12 asking that he pardon their parents.

    “When you and your family faced your own challenges, we understood that pain in a very human way,” Cuellar’s daughters wrote in their letter. ”We watched from afar through the eyes of daughters who knew what it felt like to see parents under fire.”

    One of Henry Cuellar’s lawyers, Eric Reed, said Wednesday that his legal team made a “pretty substantive presentation” to the Justice Department several months ago seeking dismissal of the charges. He declined to comment on what specifically Cuellar’s legal team discussed with the department but said the arguments made were not political in nature.

    In a statement, Imelda Cuellar’s lawyers said Wednesday they were gratified by Trump’s pardon of their client.

    “She has always maintained her innocence,” the statement said.

    Henry Cuellar still faces an Ethics Committee investigation in the House. It began in May 2024 shortly after his indictment and was reauthorized in July. The committee said it was in contact with the Justice Department about mitigating the risks associated with dual investigations while still meeting its obligations to safeguard the integrity of the House.

    Cuellar, who has served in Congress for more than 20 years, is a moderate Democrat who represents an area on the Texas-Mexico border and has a history of breaking with his party when it comes to immigration and firearms.

    He was among the most vocal critics of the Biden administration’s response to a record number of migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. He also is one of the last Democrats in Congress who opposes abortion rights.

    Cuellar is not the only Democrat Trump has pardoned this year. In February, he pardoned former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, five years after he had commuted his sentence in a political corruption case.

    Like in Cuellar’s case, Trump suggested that New York City Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat, faced federal corruption charges because he made comments critical of Biden’s immigration policies.

    Trump did not pardon Adams, but after Trump took office, the Justice Department moved to drop the case against the mayor, who had begun working with the Republican administration on immigration issues.

    A top Justice Department official, who was also Trump’s defense lawyer in several of his cases, stepped in to seek dismissal in the case.

  • Even a 15-minute walk may help boost your longevity

    Even a 15-minute walk may help boost your longevity

    Walking for at least 10 or 15 minutes at a time might do more for your health and longevity than spreading your steps out into shorter walks throughout the day, a large-scale study suggests.

    The study, published in October, looked at the effects of how people gather their steps each day, as well as how many steps they take and the associations that these patterns of daily activity might have with risks for heart disease and premature death.

    The data showed that middle-aged and older people in the study who grouped some of their steps into walks lasting 15 continuous minutes or more were about half as likely to develop heart disease in the near term as those who rarely walked for that long at one time. The people taking longer walks were also less likely to die during the yearslong study from any cause.

    “With physical activity, we know that the more the better,” said Emmanuel Stamatakis, a professor of physical activity, lifestyle and population health at the University of Sydney in Australia and lead author of the study. “But we haven’t had a very good understanding of the role of the pattern” of that activity.

    The study builds on earlier research, including from Stamatakis’s lab, exploring how to intensify the health benefits of even a little physical activity. But it also raises questions about whether it’s possible to overthink the simple walk.

    Most of us aren’t moving enough

    “This study is about identifying ways to maximize what people get out of their walking,” Stamatakis said.

    Walking may be the most common physical activity for almost everyone. But many of us do little of it. Current physical activity guidelines recommend 150 minutes a week of moderate activity, which would include brisk walking.

    But “75 to 80% of people are insufficiently active,” Stamatakis said, meaning they don’t meet those guidelines. Quite a few rarely exercise at all.

    It should be possible, though, to make even the briefest amounts of movement better for us, Stamatakis and his colleagues have speculated. In past studies, they have shown that picking up the pace of brief daily activities, such as housework, is associated with lower risks for heart disease and early death. The extra intensity seemed to make everyday chores and actions more potent for people’s health.

    But not everyone can or wishes to up the vigor of their vacuuming. Were there other ways to get more health bang from just being in motion, Stamatakis and his colleagues wondered? What about if people’s activities simply lasted a little longer?

    15-minute walks are best

    To find out, the scientists drew records for 33,560 men and women, most of them in their 60s, from the UK Biobank, a massive databank of British health records. All Biobank participants provide extensive medical information when they join, and many wear an activity tracker for a week.

    The scientists looked for participants who said they don’t formally exercise and whose activity trackers showed they typically accumulated fewer than 8,000 steps a day, most of them far fewer. They also had to be free of diagnosed heart disease.

    Using activity tracker data, the scientists divided people into groups, based on whether their longest daily walk lasted five or fewer minutes, 10 minutes, or 15 minutes or more. They also checked death and hospital records for up to about a decade after people wore the trackers. Then the researchers cross-referenced to see who seemed to have had the longest and healthiest lives.

    The results were consistent and clear. The men and women who’d walked for 15 continuous minutes or more had the lowest risks of heart attacks and other cardiovascular problems and were more likely than the other groups to still be alive. Similarly, those walking for 10 uninterrupted minutes tended to live longer and with less heart disease than those whose longest walk lasted only five minutes.

    These effects held true even if people were taking about the same number of total steps each day.

    Why? It’s likely that the longer walking bouts “meaningfully activated” and altered people’s cardiovascular and metabolic systems in ways the briefer walks couldn’t, the researchers speculate in the study.

    “This is a very insightful and important epidemiological paper that sheds further light into the importance of being physically active,” said Darren Warburton, an exercise scientist at the University of British Columbia, who has studied the health effects of physical activity. He wasn’t involved in the new study.

    Any activity is better than none

    But the study shows association, not cause and effect, so it can’t prove longer walks necessarily lead to better health outcomes. People who walk longer might also be more interested in healthy eating and other good habits that influence their longevity as much as — or more than — their stepping behavior.

    The effects were most pronounced, too, in people walking the least. The people who took fewer than 5,000 steps most days but grouped some of those steps into longer 10- or 15-minute walks showed relatively larger reductions in their risks for heart disease and early death than people taking closer to 8,000 steps a day who likewise strolled for a quarter hour. In other words, if people rarely walked but sometimes walked longer, they got more out of those longer walks than people who generally walked more.

    So, the true lesson of the study could be, just walk more. But if you can’t or really want to amplify the potential benefits of your daily steps, walk a bit longer sometimes.

    That’s a message the study’s authors embrace. “We have a lot of data from other studies showing that any amount of physical activity is good,” said I-Min Lee, a professor of epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and a study co-author. So, sure, “if you have a choice and are able to, try to walk for more than 10 minutes at a time,” she said. “But the total amount of activity is what matters more than the pattern in which it’s accumulated.”

  • Europeans accuse Putin of feigning interest in peace after talks with U.S. envoys

    Europeans accuse Putin of feigning interest in peace after talks with U.S. envoys

    KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine and its European allies accused Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday of feigning interest in peace efforts after five hours of talks with U.S. envoys at the Kremlin produced no breakthrough.

    The Russian leader “should end the bluster and the bloodshed and be ready to come to the table and to support a just and lasting peace,” said U.K. Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha urged Putin to “stop wasting the world’s time.”

    The remarks reflect the high tensions and gaping gulf between Russia on one side and Ukraine and its European allies on the other over how to end a war that Moscow started when it invaded its neighbor nearly four years ago.

    U.S.-Russia talks on Ukraine were productive but work remains, Putin adviser says

    A day earlier, Putin accused the Europeans of sabotaging the U.S.-led peace efforts — and warned that, if provoked, Russia would be ready for war with Europe.

    Since the 2022 invasion, European governments, along with the U.S., have spent billions of dollars to support Kyiv financially and militarily. Under President Donald Trump, however, the U.S. has tempered its support — and instead made a push to end the war.

    Putin’s foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov said Tuesday’s talks at the Kremlin between Putin and U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner were “positive” but wouldn’t release any details.

    Follow the money to understand Trump’s plan for peace in Ukraine | Trudy Rubin

    Unclear where peace talks go now

    Where the peace talks go from here depends largely on whether the Trump administration decides to increase the pressure on Russia or on Ukraine to make concessions.

    A U.S. peace proposal that became public last month was criticized for being tilted heavily toward Moscow because it granted some of the Kremlin’s core demands that Kyiv has rejected as nonstarters.

    Many European leaders worry that if Putin gets what he wants in Ukraine, he will have free rein to threaten their countries, which already have faced incursions from Russian drones and fighter jets, and an alleged widespread sabotage campaign.

    Trump’s push to end the Russia-Ukraine war raises fears of an ‘ugly deal’ for Europe

    The Russian and American sides agreed Tuesday not to disclose the substance of their Kremlin talks, but at least one major hurdle to a settlement remains — the fate of four Ukrainian regions Russia partially seized and occupies and claims as its own.

    After the talks, Ushakov told reporters that “so far, a compromise hasn’t been found” on the issue of territory, without which the Kremlin sees “no resolution to the crisis.”

    Ukraine has ruled out giving up territory that Russia has captured.

    Asked whether peace was closer or further away after the talks, Ushakov said: “Not further, that’s for sure.”

    “But there’s still a lot of work to be done, both in Washington and in Moscow,” he said.

    Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday it was “not correct” to say that Putin had rejected the U.S. peace plan. He declined to elaborate on the talks.

    “We’re deliberately not going to add anything,” he said. “It’s understood that the quieter these negotiations are conducted, the more productive they will be.”

    Europeans step up assistance for Ukraine

    Foreign ministers from European NATO countries, meeting in Brussels on Wednesday, showed little patience with Moscow.

    “What we see is that Putin has not changed any course. He’s pushing more aggressively on the battlefield,” Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna said. “It’s pretty obvious that he doesn’t want to have any kind of peace.”

    Finnish Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen struck the same note. “So far we haven’t seen any concessions from the side of the aggressor, which is Russia, and I think the best confidence-building measure would be to start with a full ceasefire,” she said.

    NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said Ukraine’s partners will keep supplying military aid to ensure pressure is maintained on Moscow.

    “The peace talks are ongoing. That’s good,” Rutte said.

    “But at the same time, we have to make sure that whilst they take place and we are not sure when they will end, that Ukraine is in the strongest possible position to keep the fight going, to fight back against the Russians,” he said.

    Canada, Germany, Poland and the Netherlands announced they will spend hundreds of millions of dollars more together to buy U.S. weapons to donate to Ukraine.

    This year, European countries in NATO and Canada began buying U.S. weapons for Ukraine under a financial arrangement known as the Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List, or PURL.

    The war claims more lives

    Russia and Ukraine are engaged in a grim war of attrition on the battlefield and are using drones and missiles for long-range strikes behind the front line. Many analysts have noted that the slow slog favors Russia’s larger military, especially if disagreements between Europe and the U.S. or among Europeans hampers weapons delivery to Ukraine.

    Russian drones hit the town of Ternivka in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region, killing two people and injuring three more, according to the head of the regional military administration, Vladyslav Haivanenko. Two people were in critical condition, he said, after the attack destroyed a house and damaged six more.

    Overall, Russia fired 111 strike and decoy drones overnight, Ukraine’s air force said.

    Meanwhile, Russia’s Defense Ministry said it destroyed 102 Ukrainian drones overnight.

    Falling drone debris sparked a fire at an oil depot in the Tambov region, about 200 kilometers (120 miles) south of Moscow, Gov. Yegveniy Pervyshov said.

  • Pete Hegseth faces deepening scrutiny from Congress over boat strikes

    Pete Hegseth faces deepening scrutiny from Congress over boat strikes

    WASHINGTON — Pete Hegseth barely squeaked through a grueling Senate confirmation process to become secretary of defense earlier this year, facing lawmakers wary of the Fox News Channel host and skeptical of his capacity, temperament and fitness for the job.

    Just three months later, he quickly became embroiled in Signalgate as he and other top U.S. officials used the popular Signal messaging application to discuss pending military strikes in Yemen.

    And now, in what may be his most career-defining moment yet, Hegseth is confronting questions about the use of military force after a special operations team reportedly attacked survivors of a strike on an alleged drug boat off the coast of Venezuela. Some lawmakers and legal experts say the second strike would have violated the laws of armed conflict.

    Hegseth cites ‘fog of war’ in defending follow-on strike on alleged drug boat

    “These are serious charges, and that’s the reason we’re going to have special oversight,” said Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi, the Republican chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

    The scrutiny surrounding Hegseth’s brash leadership style is surfacing what has been long-building discontent in Congress over President Donald Trump’s choice to helm the U.S. military. And it’s posing a potentially existential moment for Hegseth as the congressional committees overseeing the military launch an investigation amid mounting calls from Democratic senators for his resignation.

    Killing of suspected traffickers at sea was already abhorrent. Hegseth may have made it a war crime. | Editorial

    Hegseth vowed a ‘warrior culture,’ but lawmakers take issue

    Since working to become defense secretary, Hegseth has vowed to bring a “warrior culture” to the U.S. government’s most powerful and expensive department, from rebranding it as the Department of War to essentially discarding the rules that govern how soldiers conduct themselves when lives are on the line.

    Hegseth on Tuesday cited the “fog of war” in defending the follow-up strike, saying that there were explosions and fire and that he did not see survivors in the water when the second strike was ordered and launched. He chided those second-guessing his actions as being part of the problem.

    Yet the approach to the operation was in line with the direction of the military under Hegseth, a former infantry officer with the Army National Guard, part of the post-Sept. 11 generation, who was deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan and earned Bronze Stars.

    Pete Hegseth, in a 2016 talk, cited the same military law as the lawmakers he’s now calling seditious

    During a speech in September, he told an unusual gathering of top military brass whom he had summoned from all corners of the globe to the Quantico Marine Corps Base in Virginia that they should not “fight with stupid rules of engagement.”

    “We untie the hands of our warfighters to intimidate, demoralize, hunt and kill the enemies of our country,” he said. “No more politically correct and overbearing rules of engagement, just common sense, maximum lethality and authority for warfighters.”

    But now lawmakers and military and legal experts say the Sept. 2 attack borders on illegal military action.

    “Somebody made a horrible decision. Somebody needs to be held accountable,” said Sen. Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican who in January held out support for Hegseth until only moments before casting a crucial vote for his confirmation.

    “Secretary Talk Show Host may have been experiencing the ‘fog of war,’ but that doesn’t change the fact that this was an extrajudicial killing amounting to murder or a war crime,” said Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md. “He must resign.”

    Rep. Don Bacon, a Republican who served 30 years active duty in the Air Force, finishing his career at the rank of brigadier general, said he hasn’t been a fan of Hegseth’s leadership. “I don’t think he was up to the task,” Bacon said.

    ‘Baghdad Pete’ tries to prevent fact-based press from covering dire changes to U.S. security doctrine | Trudy Rubin

    Will Hegseth keep Trump’s support?

    Trump, a Republican, has largely stood by his defense secretary, among the most important Cabinet-level positions. But the decisions by Wicker, alongside House Armed Services Chair Mike Rogers of Alabama and the top Democrats on the committees, to open investigations provide a rare moment of Congress asserting itself and its authority to conduct oversight of the Trump administration.

    Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., who shepherded the defense secretary’s nomination to confirmation, has said the boat strikes are within Trump’s authority as commander in chief — and he noted that Hegseth serves at the pleasure of the president.

    “I don’t have, at this point, an evaluation of the secretary,” Thune said at the start of the week. “Others can make those evaluations.”

    But Hegseth also has strong allies on Capitol Hill, and it remains unclear how much Republicans would actually be willing to push back on the president, especially when they have spent the first year in his administration yielding to his various demands.

    Vice President JD Vance, who cast a rare tiebreaking vote to confirm Hegseth, has vigorously defended him in the attack. And Sen. Eric Schmitt, another close ally to Trump, dismissed criticism of Hegseth as “nonsense” and part of an effort to undermine Trump’s focus on Central and South America.

    “He’s not part of the Washington elite,” said Schmitt, R-Mo. “He’s not a think tanker that people thought Trump was going to pick. … And so, for that reason and others, they just, they don’t like him.”

    Signalgate leak reveals a worse intelligence disaster than most Americans realize | Trudy Rubin

    Tension between some Republican lawmakers and the Pentagon has been rising for months. Capitol Hill has been angered by recent moves to restrict how defense officials communicate with lawmakers and the slow pace of information on Trump’s campaign to destroy boats carrying drugs off the coast of Venezuela.

    As he defends his job, Hegseth has spoken to both Wicker and Rogers, the top lawmakers overseeing the military. Rogers said he was “satisfied” with Hegseth after that conversation, while Wicker said that he told Hegseth that he would like him to testify to Congress.

    Hegseth at first tried to brush aside the initial report about the strike by posting a photo of the cartoon character Franklin the Turtle firing on a boat from a helicopter, but that only inflamed criticism of him and angered lawmakers who felt he was not taking the allegations seriously.

    Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York called Hegseth a “national embarrassment,” adding the defense secretary’s social media post of the cartoon turtle is “something no serious leader would ever think of doing.”

    What information will Congress get?

    Later this week, the chairs of the armed services committees, along with the top Democrats on the committees, will hear private testimony from Navy Vice Adm. Frank “Mitch” Bradley, who the White House has said ordered the second strike on the survivors.

    Republicans have been careful to withhold judgment on the strike until they complete their investigation, but Democrats say that these problems with Hegseth were a long time coming.

    Sen. Tim Kaine, a Virginia Democrat, pointed back to Hegseth’s tumultuous confirmation hearing, at which issues were raised with his management of nonprofits, as well as allegations of a sexual assault and abuse, and drinking on the job. Hegseth had vowed not to consume alcohol if confirmed.

    “You don’t suddenly change your judgment level or change your character when you get confirmed to be secretary of defense,” Kaine said. “Instead, the things that have been part of your character just become much more dire and existential.”

  • A raccoon went on a drunken rampage in a Virginia liquor store and passed out on the bathroom floor

    A raccoon went on a drunken rampage in a Virginia liquor store and passed out on the bathroom floor

    ASHLAND, Va. — The masked burglar broke into the closed Virginia liquor store early on Saturday and hit the bottom shelf, where the scotch and whisky were stored. The bandit was something of a nocturnal menace: bottles were smashed, a ceiling tile collapsed and alcohol pooled on the floor.

    The suspect acted like an animal because, in fact, he’s a raccoon.

    On Saturday morning, an employee at the Ashland, Virginia-area liquor store found the trash panda passed out on the bathroom floor at the end of his drunken escapade.

    Broken bottles are seen after a raccoon ransacked a liquor store in Ashland, Va., on Nov. 29.

    “I personally like raccoons,” said Samantha Martin, an officer who works at the local animal control. “They are funny little critters. He fell through one of the ceiling tiles and went on a full-blown rampage, drinking everything.”

    Martin said she took the raccoon back to the animal shelter, though she had her fair share of giggles along the way.

    “Another day in the life of an animal control officer, I guess,” she said.

    The Hanover County Animal Protection and Shelter commended Martin for handling the break-in, and confirmed the raccoon had sobered up.

    “After a few hours of sleep and zero signs of injury (other than maybe a hangover and poor life choices), he was safely released back to the wild, hopefully having learned that breaking and entering is not the answer,” the agency said.

  • Buy now, pay later boom shows shoppers are swapping impulse buys for strategy

    Buy now, pay later boom shows shoppers are swapping impulse buys for strategy

    From spreading out payments to dodging impulse purchases, holiday shoppers this year took a more judicious approach to spending over the Black Friday-Cyber Monday sales weekend, recent data shows.

    Underscoring this trend, “buy now pay later” services such as Klarna, Affirm, Afterpay, and PayPal Pay Later are increasingly popular among consumers of all income levels — whether shoppers are looking for convenience or seeking to spread out their budget, according to David Tinsley, a senior economist at the Bank of America Institute. Most customers are “light users,” he said, meaning they have about one to four transactions in their account, he added.

    So far this holiday season — beginning in November — the services have driven $10.1 billion in spending, a 9% jump from last year, according to Adobe Analytics. Cyber Monday was the single largest day for BNPL, accounting for a record $1.03 billion, a more than 4% increase over last year. That’s about 7% of what Americans spent online that day.

    Meanwhile, PayPal reported its BNPL transactions increased 23% year over year in the days leading up to Black Friday.

    “Consumers are planning ahead, prioritizing value, and making the most of how they spend their money,” Michelle Gill, the general manager of small business and financial services at PayPal, wrote in a news release on the rise of BNPL.

    Another factor is that these services are becoming more widely available each year at checkout. “BNPL could also just be going up because e-commerce is going up,” said Sucharita Kodali, an analyst at Forrester.

    There are also risks that come with these flexible payment methods. Some services charge interest on missed payments, and experts warn it could lead to overspending, especially for financially vulnerable consumers.

    Preholiday caution

    More broadly, the rising cost of groceries, housing, and energy — as well as tariff-induced price increases on core gifting categories including apparel, toys, and electronics — has forced consumers to be savvier when their dollar isn’t going as far, analysts said.

    “People are being cautious,” Kodali said. “The other shoe is going to drop any day now — the economy from a retail standpoint has been really positive … and this can’t go on forever.”

    While the National Retail Federation forecasts spending in November and December will break a record $1 trillion — an increase of between 3.7% and 4.2% over the same period last year — that doesn’t mean people are buying more, rather that things are costing more, analysts say.

    Still, there were signs of strength. Online sales on Cyber Monday reached $14.5 billion, while Black Friday hit $11.8 billion, according to Adobe Analytics. That’s a 7.1% and 9.1% surge over last year, respectively, and both surpassed Adobe’s forecasts.

    But in-store shopping slumped. Visits to malls and downtown areas on Black Friday fell a respective 2.5% and 2.6% compared to last Black Friday, according to MRI Software, which tracks pedestrian traffic. Small Business Saturday mall visits fell 4.3% while downtown traffic dropped 6%.

    RetailNext, which tracks in-store traffic for more than 560 brands, recorded a steeper decline. Visits fell 3.6% on Friday and 8.6% on Saturday.

    The slowdown doesn’t mean consumers weren’t spending, said Joe Shasteen, global head of advanced analytics at RetailNext, but a shift in how they intended to spend.

    “Shoppers showed they’re done with the impulse-driven, one-day frenzy,” he said in a news release. “Prices, tariffs, and tighter budgets pushed people to shop with discipline, not adrenaline, and they responded by turning Black Friday into a value calculation.”

    Consumers also took advantage of markdowns on everyday essentials. Among the top product categories from Shopify sellers were vitamins and supplements, followed by skin care and activewear. Adobe Analytics projects online grocery sales will drive $23.5 billion in revenue, a 9.3% year-over-year increase.

    “We’re seeing promotions on essentials and the things that consumers feel they need first,” said Marshal Cohen, chief retail adviser at market research firm Circana. “When they have the opportunity to buy grocery and pharmaceutical products at a discount, they’re going to do so.”

    But that doesn’t mean all shoppers are avoiding more exciting gifts.

    “Santa Claus is going to show up — and is he going to show up with vitamins? Yeah. But he’s also going to show up with a toy here and there,” he said.

  • Tyrese Maxey’s big third quarter fuels Sixers’ 121-102 win vs. the Wizards

    Tyrese Maxey’s big third quarter fuels Sixers’ 121-102 win vs. the Wizards

    Tyrese Maxey scored 20 of his 35 points in the third quarter, Andre Drummond had 12 points and 10 rebounds, and the 76ers beat the Washington Wizards 121-102 on Tuesday night.

    Maxey, who was coming off a 44-point performance, was 13 of 26 from the field to score 20-plus for the 20th straight game this season. He also had six assists and four steals in 29 minutes.

    The Sixers (11-9) had their 66-54 halftime lead trimmed to five after Washington scored the first seven points of the third quarter. But the Sixers scored 11 of the next 13 points to rebuild a double-digit lead at 77-63 with 6 minutes, 30 seconds left in the frame.

    Jabari Walker had 10 points and 12 rebounds off the bench for the Sixers in their 121-102 win over Washington.

    Maxey scored 20 points in the third quarter, while the Wizards had just 23 after going 7 of 22 from the floor. Maxey did not play in the fourth quarter.

    Philadelphia hit 100 points with 32.1 seconds left in the third on a free throw by Maxey. The 76ers extended the lead to 115-79 after starting the fourth on a 14-2 run.

    Washington (3-17) dropped to 1-11 on the road this season.

    Jared McCain added 14 points for the Sixers and fellow reserve Jabari Walker had 10 points and 12 rebounds. Paul George scored 11.

    Joel Embiid, Tyrese Maxey, and Paul George finally shared the floor. And the Sixers have a lot of work to do.

    Washington had seven players score in double figures, led by Tristan Vukcevic with 16 points. Marvin Bagley III, Justin Champagnie, and Will Riley each had 13 points.

    Maxey scored 15 points in the first half, McCain added 11 and the Sixers went 9 of 21 behind the arc, while the Wizards shot 38% overall by halftime.

    Philadelphia was without Quentin Grimes, who is third on the team with 17 points per game, for the first time this season.

    The Sixers will host the Golden State Warriors on Thursday (7 p.m., NBCSP).

  • Chances dwindling for renewal of healthcare subsidies, risking premium spikes for millions

    Chances dwindling for renewal of healthcare subsidies, risking premium spikes for millions

    WASHINGTON — Hopes for an extension of healthcare subsidies were diminishing in Congress this week as Republicans and Democrats largely abandoned the idea of bipartisan talks on the issue, increasing the odds that millions of Americans could see sharp premium spikes starting Jan. 1.

    Democrats who agreed earlier this month to reopen the government in exchange for a December healthcare vote were hoping they could work with Republicans to extend the COVID-era Affordable Care Act tax credits that help many Americans pay for their health coverage. But lawmakers in both parties have spent most of the time since talking among themselves instead, while rehashing longstanding partisan arguments over the law in public.

    “I don’t think at this point we have a clear path forward, I don’t think the Democrats have a clear path forward,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Tuesday after Republicans met and discussed different proposals to overhaul the law.

    The impasse means the Senate vote, expected next week, could be a party-line messaging exercise with no real chance of passage. Under the deal struck to end the shutdown, Democrats can determine the legislation that comes up for a vote. But Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer has indicated they are leaning toward a vote on a straight extension of the subsidies with no new limits or tweaks to the law, which Republicans have already rejected.

    “So far the Republicans are in total disarray and have no plan,” Schumer said Tuesday. “We have a plan.”

    Democrats say they are willing to negotiate on the issue, and some have said they would be open to new limits on the subsidies. But they argue that two main issues are holding up talks: the lack of input from President Donald Trump, and Republicans’ insistence that abortion funding be part of the discussion.

    “Our Republican colleagues aren’t going to engage with us” unless Trump weighs in, Sen. Peter Welch (D., Vt.) said. “That’s the paralysis here.”

    Abortion issue holds up compromise

    Maine Sen. Angus King, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats, was part of the group that struck a deal to end the shutdown. He says there have been some informal bipartisan discussions since then, but says they stalled as Republicans insisted on stricter abortion restrictions on Affordable Care Act plans.

    “They have set up a red line that is also a red line for the Democrats,” King said of Republicans. “So they’re going to own these increases.”

    Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, who has said he wants to see the tax credits extended, said the issue “should not be a deal-killer” since a ban on federal funding for abortions is already in the law.

    Democrats say current law should be sufficient. While many states ban abortion coverage from all plans in the ACA marketplaces, others allow or require abortion coverage that isn’t paid for with federal funding.

    Republicans weigh different plans

    Beyond the abortion issue, many Republicans have said for years that they want to see the ACA scrapped or overhauled. But there is still little consensus in the GOP about whether to do that or how.

    Republican senators have discussed several competing proposals in recent weeks. Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy and Florida Sen. Rick Scott have suggested creating different types of health savings accounts that would change the way people buy insurance — an idea that Trump has endorsed in social media posts without much detail. Other senators have suggested extending the subsidies with new limits on income.

    Thune said Tuesday that “we will see where the Republicans come down, but that conversation continues.”

    Republicans want to work on a constructive solution, he said, “but that hasn’t landed yet.”

    In the House lawmakers were also discussing different ideas. But there was no indication that any of them could be ready by the end of the year or generate enough bipartisan support.

    “Healthcare is a very complicated issue,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) said Tuesday, while insisting that Republicans were still “pulling ideas together.”

    Trump gives little guidance

    Lawmakers in both parties have said it will be hard to move forward without Trump’s support for a plan. But the president has yet to formally endorse any legislation.

    Last week, the White House circulated a proposal to extend the subsidies with some limits, like new income caps and a requirement that all recipients pay some sort of premium. The proposal would also have allowed those in lower-tier plans, such as the bronze-level or catastrophic plans, to put money into health savings accounts.

    But the proposal was never released.

    Asked last week whether he wants to extend the subsidies, Trump appeared to refer to the leaked plan, saying that “somebody said I wanted to extend it for two years. … I’d rather not extend them at all.”

    Still, he acknowledged that some sort of extension may be “necessary.”