House

ONE Brit has lived out a real life version of The Holiday after swapping homes with a complete stranger she met on TikTok.

After spotting a video by New York native Lohanny Santos – who was looking for someone abroad to exchange homes for a trip – Marie Draxler from London jumped at the idea.

After reaching out, Marie instantly hit it off with Lohanny, with the duo having a number of friendly chats and a Zoom call.

Eventually, the two decided to go for it and booked flights at the same time.

Since her trip, Marie has posted about her real-life The Holiday experience and of course, the clip quickly racked up millions of views.

When Marie visited New York, she visited the city’s main sites, including the parks.

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She also tried out many Big Apple classic eats.

Marie said the swap felt straight out of The Holiday, just without the unexpected romance.

She said: “I just wandered all over Manhattan truly enjoying the best the city had to offer.

“We both created a list of recommendations – from cafés to cute boutiques – and we both checked out those recommendations and truly lived like the other.

“New York always has and always will hold a special place in my heart.

“This city has always inspired and motivated me on a whole new level.

“I’m so grateful I got to experience this trip and truly lived like a local.”

Many viewers also flocked to the comments sharing their thoughts.

One person said: “It’s literally The Holiday in real life.”

Another added: “The Holiday is my favourite movie, can’t believe I’m seeing it in real life!”

Someone even joked: “Make sure she doesn’t have a brother!”, referencing Jude Law’s famous character from the film.

And a number of viewers have even been inspired to try swapping homes for themselves.

One person said: “If anyone wants to switch and stay in San Diego, let me know!”

Marie added in one of her videos: “I’m so happy. I am just in this little bliss bubble and I’m just so grateful for this whole swap and us doing this and me being here and just living this crazy adventure.”

Lohanny, who is from Brooklyn, got to experience London from Marie’s cosy flat in Notting Hill whilst Marie was in New York.

During the time each of the women were in the others’ flat, they stayed in touch as well, sharing recommendations and discovering each other’s adventures.

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Another woman has done similar – swapping her tiny UK flat for holidays in homes all over the world from California to Paris – it has saved her thousands.

Plus, a couple has also shared their experience of saving £150,000 over the last decade on holidays.

Nov. 19 (UPI) — The House voted Tuesday against censuring Delegate Stacey Plaskett and removing her from the Intelligence Committee following revelations she texted with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein during a congressional hearing.

The late night 209-214 vote came hours after the House approved a bill directing the Justice Department to release the files from its investigation into Epstein. Three Republicans joined Democrats voting against the measure. Another three Republicans voted “present.”

Leading up to the vote to release the files, the House Oversight Committee began releasing troves of documents from Epstein’s estate that included his texts and other communications.

Those included copies of texts Epstein had with Plaskett as she was about to question Michael Cohen, the former personal lawyer of President Donald Trump, during a 2019 congressional hearing, The New York Times reported.

Republicans seized on the revelation, and Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., introduced the censure resolution accusing Plaskett of having “inappropriately coordinated” with Epstein, receiving suggested lines of questioning and congratulations from him. The resolution also would have directed the House Ethics Committee to investigate her ties to Epstein.

Plaskett, a Democrat, represents the U.S. Virgin Islands as a delegate. That means that while she may participate in many of the chamber’s functions while representing the territory, she cannot vote on the House floor.

She defended herself in a House floor speech, explaining that Epstein was a constituent she had been in contact with to get information, reported Politico.

“I know how to question individuals. I know how to seek information. I have sought information from confidential informants, from murderers, from other individuals because I want the truth,” she said.

Norman, however, told The Washington Post that it was “beyond comprehension” that Plaskett would work with the disgraced financier on House business.

“The American people expect honesty, the American people expect integrity and judgment from their elected officials,” he said in a floor speech, according to the Post. “They expect members of Congress to conduct themselves with one word — decency — not to seek advice from a predator who exploited minor children.”

WASHINGTON — A federal court has blocked Texas from moving forward with a new congressional map hastily drawn in recent months to net Republicans up to five additional seats in the U.S. House of Representatives in next year’s midterm elections.

The ruling on Tuesday is a major political blow to the Trump administration, which set off a redistricting arms race throughout the country earlier this year by encouraging Texas lawmakers to redraw its congressional district boundaries mid-decade — an extraordinary move bucking traditional practice.

The three-judge federal court panel in El Paso said in a 2-1 decision that “substantial evidence shows that Texas racially gerrymandered the 2025 Map,” ordering the state to revert to the maps it had drawn in 2021.

Texas’ Republican governor, Greg Abbott, who at Trump’s behest directed GOP state lawmakers to proceed with the plan, vowed on Tuesday that the state would appeal the ruling all the way to the Supreme Court.

Californians responded to Texas’ attempted move by voting on Nov. 4 to approve a new, temporary congressional map for the state, giving Democrats the opportunity to pick up five new seats.

Initially, the proposal pushed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, known as Prop. 50, had trigger language that would have conditioned new California maps going into effect based on whether Texas approved its new congressional districts.

But that language was stripped out last minute, raising the possibility that Democrats enter the 2026 midterm election with a distinct advantage. The language was removed because Texas had already passed its redistricting plan, making the trigger no longer needed, said Democratic redistricting expert Paul Mitchell, who drew the maps for Prop. 50.

“Our legislature eliminated the trigger because Texas had already triggered it,” Mitchell said Tuesday.

Newsom celebrated the ruling in a statement to The Times, which he also posted on the social media site X.

“Donald Trump and Greg Abbott played with fire, got burned — and democracy won,” Newsom said. “This ruling is a win for Texas, and for every American who fights for free and fair elections.”

Legal scholars had warned that Texas’ bid would invite accusations and legal challenges of racial gerrymandering that California’s maps would not.

The new Texas redistricting plan appears to have been instigated by a letter from Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon, who threatened Texas with legal action over three “coalition districts” that she argued were unconstitutional.

Coalition districts feature multiple minority communities, none of which comprises the majority. The newly configured districts passed by Texas redrew all three, potentially “cracking” racially diverse communities while preserving white-majority districts, legal scholars said.

While the Supreme Court’s rulings on redistricting have been sporadic, the justices have generally ruled that purely political redistricting is legal, but that racial gerrymandering is not — a more difficult line to draw in southern states where racial and political lines overlap.

In 2023, addressing a redistricting fight in Alabama over Black voter representation, the high court ruled in Allen vs. Milligan that discriminating against minority voters in gerrymandering is unconstitutional, ordering the Southern state to create a second minority-majority district.

The Justice Department is also suing California to attempt to block the use of its new maps in next year’s elections.

Times staff writer Melody Gutierrez contributed to this report.

The US House of Representatives voted 427 to 1 to pass the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which if enacted will require the Department of Justice to release documents related to sexual offender Jeffrey Epstein. It still needs to pass the Senate and be signed by President Trump into law.

WASHINGTON — The House is poised to vote overwhelmingly on Tuesday to demand the Justice Department release all documents tied to its investigation of the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

President Trump, who initially worked to thwart the vote before reversing course on Sunday night, has said he will sign the measure if it reaches his desk. For that to happen, the bill will also need to pass the Senate, which could consider the measure as soon as Tuesday night.

Republicans for months pushed back on the release of the Epstein files, joining Trump in claiming the Epstein issue was being brought up by Democrats as a way to distract from Republicans’ legislative successes.

But that all seismically shifted Sunday when Trump had a drastic reversal and urged Republicans to vote to release the documents, saying there was “nothing to hide.”

“It’s time to move on from this Democrat Hoax perpetrated by Radical Left Lunatics in order to deflect from the Great Success of the Republican Party,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

The reversal came days after 20,000 documents from Epstein’s private estate were released by lawmakers in the House Oversight Committee. The files referenced Trump more than 1,000 times.

In private emails, Epstein wrote that Trump had “spent hours” at his house and “knew about the girls,” a revelation that reignited the push in Congress for further disclosures.

Trump has continued to deny wrongdoing in the Epstein saga despite opposing the release of files from the federal probe into the conduct of his former friend, a convicted sex offender and alleged sex trafficker. He died by suicide while in federal custody in 2019.

Many members of Trump’s MAGA base have demanded the files be released, convinced they contain revelations about powerful people involved in Epstein’s abuse of what is believed to be more than 200 women and girls. Tension among his base spiked when Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi said in July that an “Epstein client list” did not exist, after saying in February that the list was sitting on her desk awaiting review. She later said she was referring to the Epstein files more generally.

Trump’s call to release the files now highlights how he is trying to prevent an embarrassing defeat as a growing number of Republicans in the House have joined Democrats to vote for the legislation in recent days.

The Epstein files have been a hugely divisive congressional fight in recent months, with Democrats pushing the release, but Republican congressional leaders largely refusing to take the votes. The issue even led to a rift within the MAGA movement, and Trump to cut ties with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican from Georgia who had long been an ardent support of the president.

“Watching this actually turn into a fight has ripped MAGA apart,” Greene said at a news conference Tuesday in reference to the resistance to release the files.

Democrats have accused Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) of delaying the swearing-in of Rep. Adelita Grijalva, an Arizona Democrat, because she promised to cast the final vote needed to move a so-called discharge petition, which would force a vote on the floor. Johnson has denied those claims.

If the House and Senate do vote to release the files, all eyes will turn to the Department of Justice, and what exactly it will choose to publicly release.

“The fight, the real fight, will happen after that,” Greene said. “The real test will be: Will the Department of Justice release the files? Or will it all remain tied up in an investigation?”

Several Epstein survivors joined lawmakers at the news conference to talk about how important the vote was for them.

Haley Robson, one of the survivors, questioned Trump’s resistance to the vote even now as he supports it.

“While I do understand that your position has changed on the Epstein files, and I’m grateful that you have pledged to sign this bill, I can’t help to be skeptical of what the agenda is,” Robson said.

If signed into law by Trump, the bill would prohibit the attorney general, Bondi, from withholding, delaying or redacting “any record, document, communication, or investigative material on the basis of embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity, including to any government official, public figure, or foreign dignitary.”

But caveats in the bill could provide Trump and Bondi with loopholes to keep records related to the president concealed.

In the spring, FBI Director Kash Patel directed a Freedom of Information Act team to comb through the entire trove of files from the investigation, and ordered it to redact references to Trump, citing his status as a private citizen with privacy protections when the probe first launched in 2006, Bloomberg reported at the time.

Rep. Thomas Massie, a Republican from Kentucky, said the Trump administration will be forced to release the files with an act of Congress.

“They will be breaking the law if they do not release these files,” he said.

Vote on release of Justice Department files on late sex offender is expected to pass in the Republican-controlled House.

US President Donald Trump has called on House Republicans to vote to release the Epstein files, in a reversal from his previous position.

“House Republicans should vote to release the Epstein files, because we have nothing to hide,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Sunday night.

The major shift in Trump’s stance comes as potentially dozens of Republicans signalled they were willing to break ranks, and vote for the release of the documents.

The House is expected to vote this week on legislation that would compel the justice department to publicly release the files. Supporters of the bill appear to have enough votes for it to pass the House, though it is unclear whether it would pass the Senate.

Trump would also have to sign off on the release of the documents if it passes both chambers.

Both Democrats and some Republicans have been backing the legislation. Republican Representative Thomas Massie, a co-sponsor of the bill, said in an interview with ABC News on Sunday that as many as 100 Republicans could vote in favour.

Known as the Epstein Files Transparency Act, the aim of the bill is to make the justice department release all unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials linked to paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein.

Trump posted the statement shortly after landing at Joint Base Andrews following a weekend in Florida.

“The Department of Justice has already turned over tens of thousands of pages to the Public on “Epstein,” are looking at various Democrat operatives (Bill Clinton, Reid Hoffman, Larry Summers, etc.) and their relationship to Epstein, and the House Oversight Committee can have whatever they are legally entitled to, I DON’T CARE!,” Trump wrote, adding that he wanted Republicans to get “BACK ON POINT”.

Trump’s reference to Clinton comes after the US justice department confirmed it will investigate Epstein’s alleged links to major banks and several prominent Democrats, including former US President Bill Clinton.

Trump said he would ask Attorney General Pam Bondi and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “involvement and relationship” with Clinton and others.

Clinton has strongly denied he had any knowledge of Epstein’s crimes.

Trump’s reversal comes after Democrats on the House Oversight Committee last week published three email exchanges, including correspondence between Epstein, who died in 2019 in prison, and his long-time associate Ghislaine Maxwell, who is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence for sex trafficking.

Some of those exchanges make references to Trump. In one email, sent in 2011, Epstein writes to Maxwell: “I want you to realize that that dog that hasn’t barked is Trump.. [VICTIM] spent hours at my house with him.”

Hours after the release of those exchanges, House Republicans released a far larger tranche of 20,000 files to counter what they said was a Democratic effort to “cherry-pick” documents. They also said it was an attempt to “create a fake narrative to slander President Trump”.

The House of Representatives then announced there would be a vote next week on a much wider release of Epstein material.

In his comments on Sunday night, Trump repeated White House dismissals of the Epstein files as a Democrat-led “hoax”. His post came after House Speaker Mike Johnson suggested in comments to Fox News that a vote on releasing the documents would put to rest allegations that Trump had any connection to Epstein’s abuse and trafficking of teenage children.

Trump and Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, traditionally one of his fiercest defenders, have been feuding publicly over the files.

On Friday, Trump called Greene “wacky” in social media posts and said she should be unseated in next year’s elections. On Saturday, he called her a “traitor”.

Greene in turn questioned whether Trump was still putting “America First” and criticised his handling of the Epstein files.

In a letter addressed to Congress, Epstein survivors and the family of Virginia Giuffre – a prominent Epstein accuser – called for US lawmakers to vote in favour of releasing the files.

“Remember that your primary duty is to your constituents. Look into the eyes of your children, your sisters, your mothers, and your aunts,” the letter reads.

“Imagine if they had been preyed upon. Imagine if you yourself were a survivor. What would you want for them? What would you want for yourself? When you vote, we will remember your decision at the ballot box.”

WASHINGTON — Lawmakers seeking to force the release of files related to the sex trafficking investigation into Jeffrey Epstein are predicting a big win in the House this week with a “deluge of Republicans” voting for their bill and bucking the GOP leadership and President Trump, who for months have disparaged their effort.

The bill would force the Justice Department to release all files and communications related to Epstein, as well as any information about the investigation into his death in federal prison. Information about Epstein’s victims or ongoing federal investigations would be allowed to be redacted.

“There could be 100 or more” votes from Republicans, said Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), among the lawmakers discussing the legislation on Sunday news show appearances. “I’m hoping to get a veto-proof majority on this legislation when it comes up for a vote.”

Massie and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont) introduced a discharge petition in July to force a vote on their bill. That is a rarely successful tool that allows a majority of members to bypass House leadership and force a floor vote.

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) had panned the discharge petition effort and sent members home early for their August recess when the GOP’s legislative agenda was upended by the clamoring for an Epstein vote.

Democrats also contend that the seating of Rep. Adelita Grijalva (D-Ariz.) was stalled to delay her becoming the 218th member to sign the petition and gain the threshold needed to force a vote. She became the 218th signature moments after taking the oath of office last week.

Massie said Johnson, Trump and others who have been critical of his efforts would be “taking a big loss this week.”

“I’m not tired of winning yet, but we are winning,” Massie said.

The view from GOP leadership

Johnson seems to expect the House will decisively back the Epstein bill.

“We’ll just get this done and move it on. There’s nothing to hide,” the speaker said. He continued to deride the Massie-Khanna effort, however, asserting that the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has been releasing “far more information than the discharge petition, their little gambit.”

The vote comes at a time when new documents are raising fresh questions about Epstein and his associates, including a 2019 email that Epstein wrote to a journalist that said Trump “knew about the girls.” The White House has accused Democrats of selectively leaking the emails to smear the Republican president, though lawmakers from both parties released emails last week.

Johnson said Trump “has nothing to hide from this.”

“They’re doing this to go after President Trump on this theory that he has something to do with it. He does not,” Johnson said.

Trump’s former friendship and association with Epstein is well-established, and the president’s name was included in records that his Justice Department released in February as part of an effort to satisfy public interest in information from the sex-trafficking investigation.

Trump has never been accused of wrongdoing in connection with Epstein and the mere inclusion of someone’s name in files from the investigation does not imply otherwise. Epstein, who killed himself in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial, also had many prominent acquaintances in political and celebrity circles besides Trump.

Khanna voiced more modest expectations on the vote count than Massie. Still, Khanna said he was hoping for 40 or more Republicans to join the effort.

“I don’t even know how involved Trump was,” Khanna said. “There are a lot of other people involved who have to be held accountable.”

Khanna also asked Trump to meet with some of Epstein’s victims. Some will be at the Capitol on Tuesday for a news conference, he said.

Massie said Republican lawmakers who fear losing Trump’s endorsement because of how they vote will have a mark on their record if they vote “no,” which could hurt their political prospects in the long term.

“The record of this vote will last longer than Donald Trump’s presidency,” Massie said.

A MAGA split

On the Republican side, three Republicans joined with Massie in signing the discharge petition: Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Nancy Mace of South Carolina and Lauren Boebert of Colorado.

Trump publicly broke with Greene last week and said he would endorse a challenger against her in 2026 “if the right person runs.”

Greene, a MAGA stalwart throughout her time in Congress, attributed her fallout with Trump to the Epstein debate. “Unfortunately, it has all come down to the Epstein files,” she said, adding that the country deserves transparency on the issue and that Trump’s criticism of her is confusing because the women she has talked to say he did nothing wrong.

“I have no idea what’s in the files. I can’t even guess. But that is the question everyone is asking: … ‘Why fight this so hard?’” Greene said.

Even if the bill passes the House, there is no guarantee that Senate Republicans will go along. Massie said he just hopes Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) “will do the right thing.”

“The pressure is going to be there if we get a big vote in the House,” said Massie, who thinks “we could have a deluge of Republicans.”

Massie appeared on ABC’s “This Week,” Johnson was on “Fox News Sunday,” Khanna spoke on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” and Greene was interviewed on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Freking writes for the Associated Press.

Nov. 14 (UPI) — The White House announced new “trade framework agreements” with Argentina, Ecuador, El Salvador and Guatemala, all governed by administrations aligned with president Donald Trump, with the goal of reducing certain tariffs, eliminating non-tariff barriers and expanding access for U.S. products in those markets.

According to a statement issued by Washington on Thursday, the agreements establish reciprocal commitments.

The Latin American countries will eliminate or ease requirements and licenses that restrict the entry of U.S. goods — including agricultural products, medical devices, machinery and automobiles — while the U.S. government will reduce or waive tariffs on some key exports from those countries, as long as the products are not produced in sufficient quantities domestically.

“These agreements will help American farmers, ranchers, fishermen, small businesses and manufacturers increase U.S. exports and expand trade opportunities with these partners,” the White House said.

The commitments agreed to range from the acceptance of U.S. standards for vehicles, auto parts, medical devices and pharmaceuticals in El Salvador’s case to preferential access in Argentina for machinery, technology products, chemicals and agricultural goods, along with reforms to its intellectual property regime.

Guatemala agreed to ensure a favorable framework for digital trade, including free data transfers and a pledge not to impose taxes on U.S. digital services, while also strengthening its labor rules to prohibit goods linked to forced labor.

Ecuador assumed stricter environmental obligations, such as improving forest governance and combating illegal logging, as well as fully complying with international rules on fisheries subsidies.

On the trade front, it will eliminate or reduce tariffs on key products — fruits, nuts, legumes, wheat, wine and spirits — and dismantle its variable agricultural tariff system, opening significant access for U.S. exports.

The governments of all four countries welcomed the initiative as an opportunity to boost their exports, attract foreign investment and strengthen their competitiveness.

Argentine Foreign Minister Pablo Quirno said on X that the agreement “creates the conditions to increase U.S. investment in Argentina” and includes tariff reductions for key industries.

In a statement, the government of Javier Milei said that as part of this understanding, the two countries agreed to significantly expand access for Argentine beef in the U.S. market and to work together to eliminate non-tariff barriers to bilateral agrifood trade.

It added that the United States will eliminate tariffs on products it does not produce, while Argentina will grant tariff preferences to facilitate the entry of capital goods and intermediate inputs.

Guatemalan President Bernardo Arévalo and Economy Minister Gabriela García said on social media that more than 70% of the products the country exports to the United States will now enter tariff-free. They added that most remaining products will face a 10% tariff, Prensa Libre reported.

In Ecuador’s case, as Agriculture, Fisheries and Livestock Minister Danilo Palacios had previously indicated, among the products that will no longer pay the 15% tariff imposed by the United States in August are bananas and cacao, two of the main goods in Ecuador’s export basket, the newspaper Primicias reported.

While Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele reposted the White House’s official statement on X with the caption “Friends” alongside both countries’ flags, the Salvadoran Association of Industrialists said the agreement is a “unique opportunity” for exports and for attracting investment.

The Trump administration’s announcement remains at the framework stage, and the agreements are expected to be formalized in the coming weeks.

However, they do not amount to full free trade agreements, but are designed as specific market-access and regulatory commitments, including a guarantee not to impose digital taxes on U.S. companies.

We are being ruled by the “Epstein class,” and voters deserve to know the details of that particular scandal, and to be able to expect better of their leaders in the larger sense.

That’s the message we’ll be hearing a lot in the coming weeks and months now that Democrats have successfully moved forward their effort to release the full investigation into former President Trump buddy Jeffrey Epstein.

“When you take a step back, you have a country where an elite governing class has gotten away with impunity, and shafted the working class in this country, shafted factory towns, shafted rural communities,” Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont) told me Wednesday.

He represents parts of Silicon Valley and is one of the authors of the House push to release the full government investigation into Epstein. But in the Epstein case, he also sees an opportunity to reach voters with a larger promise of change.

“What Epstein is about is saying, ‘we reject the Epstein class governing America today,’” Khanna said.

How appropriately strange for these days would it be if Epstein, who faced sex trafficking charges at the time of his death, provided the uniting message Democrats have been searching for?

“Epstein and economics” sounds like a stretch on the surface, but it is increasingly clear that Americans of all political stripes are tired of the rich getting richer, and bolder. The Epstein files are the bipartisan embodiment of that discontent.

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont), left, and Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Long Beach) have led Democrats’ push for release of the Epstein files.

(Sue Ogrocki and J. Scott Applewhite / Associated Press)

Our collective frustration with what can appear only as a cover-up to benefit the wealthy and powerful is an unexpected bit of glue that binds regular Americans, because the corruption and hubris of our oligarchy is increasingly undeniable and galling.

Whether it’s our president’s obviously wrong contention that grocery prices are down; our vice president being willing to take on the pope about true Catholic doctrine; or our FBI chief flying his girlfriend around on the taxpayer dime, the arrogance is stunning.

But where each of those examples becomes buried and dismissed in partisan politics, sex trafficking girls turns out to be frowned upon by people from all walks of life.

“It’s universal,” said Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Long Beach), the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, and another Californian. “This is clearly a White House and a president that is the most corrupt person we’ve ever had in office serving as a chief executive, and this is just another piece of that corruption.”

Khanna, along with Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, built the unlikely but unstoppable effort that brought together once-loyal Trumpers including Reps. Lauren Boebert, Nancy Mace and Marjorie Taylor Greene with Democrats.

Those staunch right-wingers are tied in to their voters, and probably understood just how unpopular sex trafficking is with a base that grew into maturity on QAnon-inspired fear mongering about kidnapped children.

“It’s the only thing since Trump walked down the escalator that’s been a truly bipartisan effort to expose corruption and where there’s been a break in his coalition,” Khanna said.

And by “exposing rich and powerful people who abuse the system and calling them out clearly, we start to rebuild trust with the American people,” Khanna argues, the trust required to make folks believe Democrats aren’t so terrible.

Long before he was a linchpin in the Epstein saga, Khanna built a name as a force on the progressive left for a positive and inclusive economic platform that resembles the New Deal, which Franklin Delano Roosevelt used to rebuild democracy in another era of hardship and discontent.

It’s all about real payoffs for average Americans — trade schools and affordable child care and jobs that actually pay the bills. That’s the message that he hopes will be the top line as Democrats push forward.

On Wednesday, the buildup of resentment that might make that possible came into full focus in Washington, as Congress opened up to anything but business as usual. Democrats, led by Garcia, released emails raising questions about Trump’s knowledge of Epstein’s crimes.

Trump “spent hours at my house” and “knew about the girls,” Epstein wrote, even as Trump’s press secretary argued this was all a “fake narrative to smear” her boss.

Republicans countered the emails with a massive information dump probably meant to obscure and confuse. But House Speaker Mike Johnson, out of excuses, finally swore in Rep. Adelita Grijalva (D-Ariz.), who promptly provided the final signature on the discharge petition to call a House vote on releasing the entire Epstein files.

That happened just hours after Boebert, one of the key Republican backers of that effort, was called to the White House in a last-minute, heavy-handed bid to pressure her into dropping her name from the demand. She did not.

Enough to make your head spin, honestly. About 10 more dastardly, intriguing and unexpected things happened, but you get the gist: President Trump really, really does not want us to read the Epstein files. House Democrats are ready to fight the long fight.

Garcia said House Democrats aren’t caving, because the cover-up keeps growing.

“There’s a lot of folks now that are obsessed with hiding the truth from the public, and the American public needs to know,” he said. “The Oversight Committee is committed to fighting our way to the truth.”

But it will be a long fight, and one with only a slim chance of winning the release of the files. Any effort would have to clear the Republican-held Senate (and after the shutdown collapse, who knows if Senate Democrats have the stomach for resistance), then be signed by Trump.

Judging from his near-desperate social media posting about the whole thing being a “hoax,” it’s hard to imagine him putting his scrawl on that law.

But unlike the shutdown, the longer this goes, the more Democrats have to gain. People aren’t going to suddenly start liking pedophiles. And the more Trump pushes to hide whatever the truth is, the more Democrats have the high ground, to message on corruption, oligarchs and even a vision for a better way.

“Epstein and economics” — linking the concrete with the esoteric, the problem with the solution.

The bipartisan message Democrats didn’t know they needed, from the strangest of sources.

It’s been created ahead of the 2026 Winter Olympics

An incredible new glass house will let mountaineers shelter from high-altitude perils. Designers have created the camp ahead of the 2026 Winter Olympics, where it will be showcased in Milan before being airlifted to its permanent location in the Alps.

The eye-catching bivouac is the brainchild of Italian design firm CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati, in collaboration with Salone del Mobile.Milano. Designed to harmonise with the Alpine landscape, its creation began with a 3D scan of rock formations in the region.

Carlo Ratti, co-founder of CRA, said: “Unfortunately, today bivouacs often look like airships that have landed on our beautiful alpine landscapes. Here we took the opposite approach: a structure that blends as much as possible with the surroundings.”

CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati say the resulting design minimises visual impact while maximising functionality – incorporating energy production, storage, and water harvesting through air condensation.

Maria Porro, president of Salone del Mobile.Milano, said: “It is a gesture that turns research into a form of harmony with the natural world and that, in its journey from our Milan to the Alps, expresses the principles we share: a circular, responsible design.”

Carlo Ratti added: “Great 20th-century Italian architect Gio Ponti once said that architecture is ‘like a crystal’. We took that literally in this design, using digital fabrication to design a bivouac as if it were part of the natural rock formations that shape the Alps.”

Nov. 12 (UPI) — President Donald Trump late Wednesday signed legislation to reopen the federal government, resuming programs and again paying millions of workers, blaming Democrats for the longest shutdown in history at 43 days.

The new stopgap bill will fund the government through Jan. 30, and provide a full year of funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and veterans programs. Furloughed employees are expected to return to report on Thursday.

The U.S. House, convening for the first time in two months, approved legislation sent two days earlier by the Senate. Most Democrats and Republicans have been on opposite sides on enhanced health insurance subsidies through the Affordable Care Act.

At 8:21 p.m., the House voted 222-209 to send the stopgap funding bill to the president. The outcome wasn’t strictly along party lines with six Democrats voting yes and two Republicans voting no. There were two not voting and two vacancies.

Two hours later, Trump appeared in the Oval Office with U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, Senate Majority Leader John Thune — both Republicans — as well as other House members. Also, financial industry leaders, whom he dined with earlier at the White House, watched the signing.

“I just want to tell the American people, you should not forget this when we come up to midterms and other things,” Trump said about elections in 2026 for the House and Senate. “Don’t forget what they’ve done to our country.”

In the public ceremony, Trump blasted the Affordable Care Act as “Obama madness,” bragged about the record-high stock market and spoke about gas prices around $2.50 a gallon. He didn’t take any questions from reporters.

Trump wants Obamacare to be scrapped.

“We’ll work on something having to do with healthcare,” said Trump, who hasn’t been able to find a replacement since first being president in 2017. “We can do a lot better.”

He has proposed bypassing providers with direct payment to users, who then could purchase their own plans.

“I’m calling today for insurance companies not to be paid,” Trump said, “but for this massive amount of money to be given directly to the people.” Basic Medicare is administered by the government rather than companies.

The House had been out of session since Sept. 19, when it passed the first version of a continuing resolution to temporarily fund the government. The Senate held 14 votes on the same legislation, but failed to reach the 60-vote supermajority needed to pass it.

The House originally approved the spending bill on a majority vote, but the Senate needed 60 votes and approval was held up in finding enough Democrats to agree to legislation that doesn’t guarantee enhanced health insurance subsidies starting Jan. 1.

The GOP holds a 53-47 edge.

Trump again on Wednesday night called for an end to the filibuster, saying “if we had the filibuster terminated, this would never happen again.”

Most Republicans have opposed this “nuclear option,” because Democrats could use it when they are in power.

After the House Rules Committee advanced the Senate bill Tuesday night, the full chamber convened at 4:08 p.m., and began debate for one hour at 4:36 p.m. The bill advanced 213-209.

The GOP has a 219-214 advantage, with Democrat Adelita Grijalvi having been sworn in when the House convened. She was elected Sept. 23. There are two vacancies.

Government reopens

At least 670,000 federal employees furloughed will return to work and roughly 730,000 essential workers, including air traffic control workers, will be paid, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center.

The White House’s Office of Management and Budget furloughed workers will return on Thursday.

“Agencies should take all necessary steps to ensure that offices open in a prompt and orderly manner on November 13, 2025,” the memorandum released Wednesday night reads.

Essential workers had to work without pay, including air traffic control personnel. This resulted in several thousand flights being canceled.

Government programs also will resume, including 42 million people receiving monthly payments from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. For the first time in history, November money wasn’t sent electronically.

“For 40 days, hardworking Americans have endured flight cancellations, missed paychecks and empty dinner tables – all because Democrats closed the government,” Johnson posted on X with a video before the vote.

“It was foolish, pointless, cruel and entirely avoidable. Republicans have been working every day to get the government reopened for the American people, and today we should finally be able to overcome the Democrats and accomplish our mission.”

Divided on insurance subsidies

The program, which became known as Obamacare, was approved in 2010 during Barack Obama’s presidency. A record 25 million were enrolled this year.

The credits were enhanced in 2021 by the American Rescue Plan Act during the pandemic and extended one year later through 2015. They increased the amount of financial assistance, expanded eligibility and capped the percentage of household income for the benchmark silver plan.

Eight senators who caucus with the Democrats voted Monday in favor of the new bill on Tuesday night, allowing the chamber to pass it with a vote of 60-40.

The Senate broke the impasse over the weekend after Republicans agreed to hold a separate vote on ACA tax credits in December.

On Wednesday night, Johnson told reporters that Republicans are “pulling together the best ideas that we think can, in the quickest fashion, bring premiums down.”

And that includes working with Democrats.

“I sent a note to Hakeem Jeffries and I said, ‘Look, we would love to do this in a bipartisan fashion,’ you know, and he and I exchanged texts yesterday about that.”

Democrats focus on healthcare

Jeffries unsuccessfully attempted a three-year extension of Obamacare by a discharge petition. There would be a vote if the minority party can secure support for a majority of the chamber — a total of 218 signatures. But there are only 214 Democrats and there wasn’t sufficient GOP backing.

“Affordable Care Act tax credits were extended by three years in the Inflation Reduction Act,” Jeffries said outside the Capitol before the House convened. “The legislation that we will introduce in the context of the discharge petition will provide that level of certainty to working-class Americans who are on the verge of seeing their premiums, copays and deductibles skyrocket in some cases, experiencing increases of $1,000 or $2,000 per year.”

Jeffries said Democrats will continue to fight on healthcae.

“We’ll continue to fight for the principle that in this great country, the wealthiest country in the history of the world, healthcare can’t simply be a privilege available only to the well-off, the wealthy and the well-connected.

“Healthcare must be a right available to every single American. And that’s the fight that House Democrats will continue to wage for the American people.”

Colorado Rep. Jeff Hurd said he wanted to extend the enhanced premium tax credits for time to work on “the underlying drivers that are pushing up those health care costs to begin with.”

Workers union wants healthcare addresses

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, with 1.4 million members, called on Congress to help Americans afford health insurance.

“AFSCME members have been clear from the start of this shutdown: we need to lower health care costs and fund public services,” AFSCME President Lee Saunders said in a statement to UPI.

“Unfortunately, this administration and the Project 2025 ideologues in Congress refused to come to the table to address the healthcare crisis gripping families across the country. We applaud all of the leaders in Congress who stood up and sounded the alarm about the massive insurance premium hikes affecting millions of Americans.

“The fight to protect families from these increases is far from over. Now that the government is reopening, we’re calling on members of Congress to keep their promise and hold a vote to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits. Working families cannot afford to wait any longer to lower health care costs.”

Provision on suing DOJ

The legislation includes funds for eight senators to sue the Department of Justice for obtaining their phone records during an investigation when Joe Biden was president.

Rather than removing the provision and returning it to the Senate, Johnson said he plans to have separate legislation next week.

“I was very angry about it,” Johnson said. “I was, and a lot of my members called me and said, ‘Did you know about it?’ We had no idea. That was dropped in at the last minute. And I did not appreciate that, nor did most of the House members. Many of them were very – are very angry about that.”

Democrats also opposed the provision.

“What makes this corruption so staggering is that the payout is specifically designed to go to eight senators whose phone records were lawfully subpoenaed under due process by the Department of Justice,” Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations panel, wrote in a statement.

She accused the senators of voting “to shove taxpayer dollars into their own pockets — $500,000 for each time their records were inspected.”

Daniel Haynes contributed to this report.

Nov. 12 (UPI) — The U.S. House, convening for the first time in two months on Wednesday, approved legislation sent two days earlier by the Senate to reopen the federal government, resuming programs and paying millions of workers.

President Donald Trump plans to sign the legislation, ending the longest shutdown in history at 43 days.

The House originally approved a spending bill in September on a majority vote, but the Senate needed 60 days and approval was held up in finding enough Democrats to agree to legislation that doesn’t guarantee enhanced health insurance subsidies starting Jan. 1.

At 8:21 p.m., the House voted 222-209 to send the stopgap funding bill to the president. The outcome wasn’t strictly along party lines with six Democrats voting yes and two Republicans voting no. There were two not voting and two vacancies.

The White House said Trump would sign the legislation on camera at 9:45 p.m. from the Oval Office. He earlier attended a private dinner at the White House with financial industry leaders.

“I’ll abide by the deal,” he said earlier Monday. “The deal is very good.”

His signature means at least 670,000 federal employees furloughed will return to work and roughly 730,000 essential workers, including air traffic control workers, will be paid, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center.

Government programs will resume, including 42 million people receiving monthly payments from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. For the first time in history, November money wasn’t sent electronically.

After the House Rules Committee advanced the Senate bill Tuesday night, the full chamber convened at 4:08 p.m., and began debate for one hour at 4:36 p.m.

The bill advanced 213-209.

The GOP has a 219-214 advantage, with Democrat Adelita Grijalvi having been sworn in when the House convened. She was elected Sept. 23.

“For 40 days, hardworking Americans have endured flight cancellations, missed paychecks and empty dinner tables – all because Democrats closed the government,” Johnson posted on X with a video before the vote.

“It was foolish, pointless, cruel and entirely avoidable. Republicans have been working every day to get the government reopened for the American people, and today we should finally be able to overcome the Democrats and accomplish our mission.”

A provision was stripped from the House version regarding funds for eight senators to sue the Department of Justice for obtaining their phone records during an investigation when Joe Biden was president.

“House Republicans are introducing standalone legislation to repeal this provision that was included by the Senate in the government funding bill,” Johnson posted on X on Wednesday afternoon. “We are putting this legislation on the fast-track suspension calendar in the House for next week.”

Democrats have opposed the provision.

“What makes this corruption so staggering is that the payout is specifically designed to go to eight senators whose phone records were lawfully subpoenaed under due process by the Department of Justice,” Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations panel, wrote in a statement.
She accused the senators of voting “to shove taxpayer dollars into their own pockets — $500,000 for each time their records were inspected.”

The House had been out of session since Sept. 19, when it passed the first version of a continuing resolution to temporarily fund the government. The Senate held 14 votes on the same legislation, but failed to reach the 60-vote supermajority needed to pass it.

A majority of Democrats in the Senate voted against the legislation, seeking to tie the funding bill to a renewal of enhanced Affordable Care Act tax subsidies set to expire in the new year.

The Senate broke the impasse over the weekend after Republicans agreed to hold a separate vote on ACA tax credits. Unnamed sources told ABC News that Republicans promised to hold a vote on the issue in December, though House Speaker Mike Johnson has yet to commit to voting on any ACA measure passed by the Senate.

The credits were enhanced in 2021 by the American Rescue Plan Act during the pandemic and extended one year later through 2015. They increased the amount of financial assistance, expanded eligibility and capped the percentage of household income for the benchmark silver plan.

Eight senators who caucus with the Democrats voted Monday in favor of the new bill on Tuesday night, allowing the chamber to pass it with a vote of 60-40.

The new stopgap bill will fund the government through Jan. 30, provide a full year of funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and veterans programs.

Democrats criticized the bill.

“As Democrats, we’re committed to addressing this affordability crisis. That’s what this fight has been all about,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said outside the Capitol before the House convened. “We’ll continue this fight to fix our broken healthcare system.

“We’ll continue to fight for the principle that in this great country, the wealthiest country in the history of the world, healthcare can’t simply be a privilege available only to the well-off, the wealthy and the well-connected.

“Healthcare must be a right available to every single American. And that’s the fight that House Democrats will continue to wage for the American people.”

Jeffries unsuccessfully attempted a three-year extension of Obamacare by a discharge petition. There would be a vote if the minority party can secure support for a majority of the chamber — a total of 218 signatures. But there are only 214 Democrats and there wasn’t sufficient GOP backing.

“Affordable Care Act tax credits were extended by three years in the Inflation Reduction Act,” Jeffries said. “The legislation that we will introduce in the context of the discharge petition will provide that level of certainty to working-class Americans who are on the verge of seeing their premiums, copays and deductibles skyrocket in some cases, experiencing increases of $1,000 or $2,000 per year.”

Colorado Rep. Jeff Hurd said he wanted to extend the enhanced premium tax credits for time to work on “the underlying drivers that are pushing up those health care costs to begin with.”

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, with 1.4 million members, called on Congress to help Americans afford health insurance.

“AFSCME members have been clear from the start of this shutdown: we need to lower health care costs and fund public services,” AFSCME President Lee Saunders said in a statement to UPI.

“Unfortunately, this administration and the Project 2025 ideologues in Congress refused to come to the table to address the healthcare crisis gripping families across the country. We applaud all of the leaders in Congress who stood up and sounded the alarm about the massive insurance premium hikes affecting millions of Americans.

“The fight to protect families from these increases is far from over. Now that the government is reopening, we’re calling on members of Congress to keep their promise and hold a vote to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits. Working families cannot afford to wait any longer to lower health care costs.”

BREAKINGBREAKING,

The successful vote means the long-delayed bill will now be passed on to President Trump to sign into law.

The House of Representatives has passed a federal government spending package, clearing the final hurdle and bringing an end to the longest government shutdown in United States history – at least for now.

In a vote held late on Wednesday evening in the Republican-held House, the bill was backed by 222 lawmakers – including six Democrats – while 209 voted against it, including two Republicans.

The long-delayed bill will now be passed on to President Donald Trump to sign into law.

On Monday night, the upper chamber of Congress had approved the spending package by a vote of 60 to 40 to fund the US government through January 30, reinstating pay to hundreds of thousands of federal workers after six gruelling weeks.

All but essential government services had ground to a halt amid the shutdown.

The breakthrough came following negotiations last weekend that saw seven Democrats and one independent agree to back the updated spending package and end the shutdown, which entered its 42nd day on Tuesday.

Crucially, however, the deal has not resolved one of the shutdown’s most central issues – healthcare subsidies for 24 million Americans under the Affordable Care Act, which the Trump administration planned to cut.

For weeks, Democrats repeatedly blocked the bill’s passage in Congress, saying the measure was necessary to force the government to address escalating healthcare costs for low-income Americans.

Shortly before Wednesday’s vote, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson accused his Democratic colleagues of using American citizens as “leverage” in their “political game”, as he denounced them for preventing the resolution’s passage in September.

“Since that time, Senate Democrats have voted 14 times to close the government. Republicans have voted a collective 15 times to open the government for the people, and the Democrats voted that many times to close it,” he said.

As part of the deal breaking the impasse, Senate Republicans agreed to hold a vote on the issue by December, raising fears there could be another shutdown in January.

The agreement had also provoked anger among Democrats, who preferred to keep holding out, including Illinois Governor JB Pritzker – considered a contender for the 2028 presidential election – who called it an “empty promise” earlier this week.

David Smith, an associate professor at the University of Sydney’s United States Studies Centre, also described the agreement as “just a stopgap arrangement”.

“The deal that they’ve reached means most of the government will shut down again in January if they can’t come to another agreement,” he told Al Jazeera earlier this week.

Democrats who supported the deal were Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin from Illinois, John Fetterman from Pennsylvania, Catherine Cortez Masto and Jackie Rosen from Nevada, Maggie Hassan and Jeanne Shaheen from New Hampshire, and Tim Kaine from Virginia.

Angus King, an independent from Maine, also backed the deal.

This is a breaking news story. More to follow shortly.

Nov. 12 (UPI) — Adelita Grijalva was sworn in Wednesday afternoon on the floor of the House of Representatives by Speaker Mike Johnson after the Democrat was elected two months ago in Arizona.

Immediately after the ceremony, she became the 218th House member to sign the discharge petition, the bare minimum to approve a floor vote on legislation compelling the federal government to release the case files of Jeffrey Epstein.

Grijalva, 55, won a special election Sept. 23 to fill the vacant 7th Congressional District seat after Rep. Raul Grijalva, her father and fellow Democrat, died March 13. Six days later, Democrat Gov. Katie Hobbs ordered dates for the primary and general election.

Democrats now hold 214 House seats to the Republicans’ 2019, with two still vacant.

Wednesday’s ceremony occurred before the scheduled House vote on the Senate-approved measure to fund the federal government so that it can reopen after being shut down for a record 43 days.

Johnson didn’t swear her in while the House was on an extended recess that started Sept. 19 and lasted until Wednesday amid the federal government shutdown.

“What is most concerning is not what this administration has done, but what the majority in this body has failed to do: Hold Trump accountable as a coequal branch of government that we are,” Grijalva told House members.

Grijalva said the delay deprived 813,000 people in southern Arizona of her support while the shutdown endured.

Grijalva didn’t have a working office phone, an office budget or the ability to use government systems. She also couldn’t open office in her southern Arizona district.

“This is an abuse of power,” she said. “One individual should not be able to unilaterally obstruct the swearing in of a duly elected member of Congress for political reasons.”

Johnson earlier said he would swear in Grijalva when the House reconvened, which spurred federal lawsuits accusing the House speaker of delaying the matter.

John was accused of delaying the swearing in so the petition wouldn’t have enough votes to look at the Department of Justice investigation of the financier and convicted sex offender involving minors who committed suicide while jailed in New York City and was awaiting a federal trial on other charges.

Johnson told reporters Wednesday night that the House will vote next week on whether to force the release of documents. He said he would bypass the seven-day waiting period and instead “we’re going to put that on the floor for a full vote next week, as soon as we get back.”

The petition has signatures from all Democrats and four Republicans.

Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna of California told reporters Wednesday night: “I believe we’re going to get 40, 50 Republicans voting with us on the release. And if we get that kind of overwhelming vote, that’s going to push the Senate and it’s going to push for a release of the files from the Justice Department.”

Khanna and Republican Thomas Massie of Kentucky introduced the Epstein Files Transparency Act in July.

Grijalva signed it with two Epstein survivors watching in the gallery.

“Just this morning, House Democrats released more emails showing that Trump knew more about Epstein’s abuses than he previously acknowledged,” she said. “It’s about time for Congress to restore its role as a check and balance on this administration and fight for we, the American people.

She added: “Justice cannot wait another day.”

The House earlier released more than 33,000 pages of files from the Epstein case that were redacted only to protect the names of witnesses and block information related to child abuse.

The petition must pass the Republican-controlled Senate before making it to President Donald Trump‘s desk.

Johnson has said the delay in swearing in Grijalva had nothing to do with the Epstein files, which the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has been investigating.

House Democrats said Johnson could have called a pro forma session of the House to swear in Grijalva and said he had done so earlier this year to swear in two Republican representatives, The Hill reported.

One vacant seat in Tennessee leans Republican and will be filled by a special election in December, according to CNN.

Another vacancy in Texas has two Democrats as the final two candidates in a runoff election that will be held in January.

United States President Donald Trump is committed to providing Americans with $2,000 cheques using money that has come into government coffers from Trump’s tariffs.

On Wednesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that Trump’s staff is exploring how to go about making the plan a reality.

The president proposed the idea on his Truth Social media platform on Sunday, five days after his Republican Party lost elections in Virginia, New Jersey and elsewhere largely because of voter discontent with his economic stewardship — specifically, the high cost of living.

A new AP-NORC poll finds that 67 percent of Americans disapprove of Trump’s handling of the economy, while 33 percent approve.

The tariffs are bringing in so much money, the president posted, that “a dividend of at least $2000 a person (not including high income people!) will be paid to everyone.’’

“Trump has taken to his favorite policymaking forum, Truth Social, to make yet another guarantee that Americans are going to receive dividend [cheques] from the revenues collected by tariffs,” Alex Jacquez, who served on the National Economic Council under former US President Joe Biden, said in a statement provided to Al Jazeera.

“It’s interesting that Trump’s arguments—which he has been pushing forward for several months now on Truth Social—do not match the arguments that his lawyers are making in court. It seems he is trying to pressure the Justices by implying that this will be some massive economic disaster if they rule against the tariffs.”

Budget experts have scoffed at Trump’s tariff dividend plan, which conjured memories of the Trump administration’s short-lived plan for Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) dividend cheques financed by billionaire Elon Musk’s federal budget cuts.

“The numbers just don’t check out,″ Erica York, vice president of federal tax policy at the nonpartisan Tax Foundation, told the Associated Press.

Details are scarce, including what the income limits would be and whether payments would go to children.

Even Trump’s US Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, sounded a bit blindsided by the audacious dividend plan.

Appearing on Sunday on the ABC News programme This Week, Bessent said he hadn’t discussed the dividend with the president and suggested that it might not mean that Americans would get a cheque from the government. Instead, Bessent said, the rebate might take the form of tax cuts.

The tariffs are certainly raising money — $195bn in the budget year that ended September 30, up 153 percent from $77bn in fiscal 2024. But they still account for less than four percent of federal revenue, and have done little to dent the federal budget deficit, a staggering $1.8 trillion in fiscal 2025.

Budget wonks say Trump’s dividend math doesn’t work.

John Ricco, an analyst with the Budget Lab at Yale University, reckons that Trump’s tariffs will bring in $200bn to $300bn a year in revenue. But a $2,000 dividend — if it went to all Americans, including children — would cost $600bn. “It’s clear that the revenue coming in would not be adequate,” Ricco said.

The analyst also noted that Trump couldn’t just pay the dividends on his own. That would require legislation from Congress.

Legal challenges

Moreover, the centrepiece of Trump’s protectionist trade policies — double-digit taxes on imports from almost every country in the world — may not survive a legal challenge that has reached the US Supreme Court.

In a hearing last week, the court’s justices sounded sceptical about the Trump administration’s assertion of sweeping power to declare national emergencies to justify the tariffs. Trump has bypassed Congress, which has authority under the US Constitution to levy taxes, including tariffs.

If the court strikes down the tariffs, the Trump administration may be refunding money to the importers who paid them, not sending dividend cheques to American families. Trump could find other ways to impose tariffs, even if he loses at the Supreme Court, but it could be cumbersome and time-consuming.

Mainstream economists and budget analysts note that tariffs are paid by US importers who then generally try to pass along the cost to their customers through higher prices.

The dividend plan “misses the mark,” the Tax Foundation’s York said. “If the goal is relief for Americans, just get rid of the tariffs.”

PORTLAND, Maine — The Democratic primary to take on Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine was shaken up Wednesday by the decision of one candidate to drop out and join a different race with similarly high stakes.

In a move that could have implications for the closely divided U.S. House as well as the Senate, Jordan Wood, a onetime chief of staff to former Rep. Katie Porter, withdrew from the Senate race to instead seek the congressional seat representing Maine’s 2nd District, where incumbent Democratic Rep. Jared Golden recently announced he will not seek another term.

That leaves Gov. Janet Mills, a party mainstay, and Graham Platner, an oyster farmer who has gained attention for his progressive views and provocative online posts, as the top Democratic challengers to Collins.

Wood’s announcement sets up a potential Democratic congressional primary in the key 2nd District with former Secretary of State Matt Dunlap. The leading Republican candidate for the House seat is former Gov. Paul LePage.

“After many conversations with my family and voters in Maine’s 2nd Congressional District, I’ve decided to step up and to be the fighter for the district where I was born and raised,” Wood said in a statement Wednesday.

Maine’s upcoming 2nd District and Senate races are both highly competitive and could help shape the balance of power in Congress. Collins is the sole Republican senator in New England, and toppling her has long been a goal of the Democratic Party. Republicans, meanwhile, have prioritized winning back the 2nd District, where President Trump is popular.

Dunlap announced his bid for the 2nd District weeks before Golden’s announcement that he is vacating. Dunlap said in a statement Wednesday that Wood entering the race “doesn’t change our campaign or our commitment” and that he’s “in this to fight for the people of Maine.”

LePage served as governor from 2011 to 2019. He announced his bid for Congress months ago. Brent Littlefield, a LePage spokesperson, said in a statement that Wood is too liberal for the 2nd District.

“Mainers will pick a job creator, Paul LePage, who will grow the economy and push back on high prices,” Littlefield said.

Two other one-time Democratic candidates for the Senate seat, brewery owner Dan Kleban and former Air Force civilian contractor Daira Smith-Rodriguez, recently dropped out and endorsed Mills. A handful of other Democratic hopefuls remain, though only Mills and Platner are campaigning aggressively.

Whittle writes for the Associated Press.

NEW YORK — John F. Kennedy’s grandson Jack Schlossberg is running for the U.S. House next year, announcing Tuesday that he’s seeking a congressional seat in New York City that will be vacated by longtime Democratic Rep. Jerry Nadler.

Schlossberg, 32, is a sardonic social media personality with a large following and storied political roots. In a video, he said the district covering a core chunk of Manhattan “should have a representative who can harness the creativity, energy and drive of this district and translate that into political power in Washington.”

Nadler, who is serving his 17th term in Congress, announced in September that he will not run for reelection next year after decades in office, suggesting to The New York Times that a younger Democratic lawmaker in his seat “can maybe do better, can maybe help us more.”

Several possible successors have emerged for the solidly Democratic district, including Micah Lasher, a former aide to Nadler and current New York state lawmaker with deep experience in government. The district stretches from Union Square to the top of Central Park, including the wealthy Upper East Side and Upper West Side neighborhoods.

In his campaign video, Schlossberg took aim at President Trump and Republican governance in Washington, saying “It’s a crisis at every level.”

“We deserve better, and we can do better, and it starts with the Democratic Party winning back control of the House of Representatives,” he said.

Schlossberg has cultivated his online presence with frequent posts weighing in on national political issues, including taking aim at his cousin Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Trump administration’s health and human services secretary who’s been a vocal vaccine skeptic.

Last month, Schlossberg posted on Instagram an image of a Halloween costume for “MAHA Man,” in reference to Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again message and described it as including such things as measles.

WASHINGTON — The House is scheduled to be back in session Wednesday with a vote expected in the evening on a spending package that, if approved and signed by President Trump, will end the longest government shutdown in U.S. history.

The legislation, which the Senate passed Monday night, is expected to narrowly pass the House, where Republicans hold a slim majority. House Democrats are largely anticipated to oppose the deal, which does not include a core demand: an extension to Affordable Care Act healthcare tax credits that are set to expire at the end of the year.

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said he believes the deal is poised to pass by the end of the day.

“We believe the long national nightmare will be over tonight,” Johnson told reporters in Washington. “It was completely and utterly foolish and pointless.”

House Democrats were scheduled to meet ahead of the floor vote to discuss their vote. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Tuesday night that there is a “strong expectation” that Democrats will be “strongly opposed” to the shutdown deal when it comes to final vote.

If the tax credits lapse, premiums will more than double on average for more than 20 million Americans who use the healthcare marketplace, according to independent analysts at the research firm KFF.

The spending bill, if approved, will fund the government through Jan. 30 and reinstate federal workers who were laid off during the shutdown. It will also guarantee back pay for federal employees who were furloughed or who were working without pay during the budget impasse.

Passage of the bill would mark a crucial moment on the 43rd day of the shutdown, which left thousands of federal workers without pay, millions of Americans uncertain on whether they would receive food assistance and travelers facing delays at airports across the country.

A vote is expected to begin after 4 p.m. EST — after Johnson swears in Adelita Grijalva (D-Ariz.), who was elected seven weeks ago. Once sworn in, Grijalva is set to become the final vote needed to force a floor vote on a petition demanding the Trump administration release files connected to Jeffrey Epstein.

The swearing-in ceremony will soon lay the groundwork for a House vote that Trump has long tried to avoid. It would come as the Epstein saga was reignited on Wednesday morning when Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released new emails in which the late sex trafficker said Trump “knew about the girls” that he was victimizing.

The emails are part of a trove of documents from Epstein’s estate released to the committee.

LONDON — British Prime Minister Keir Starmer refused to say Wednesday whether he would urge President Trump to drop his threat to sue the BBC for a billion dollars over the broadcaster’s edit of a speech he made after losing the 2020 presidential election.

During his weekly questioning in the House of Commons, Starmer was asked by Ed Davey, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, whether he would intervene in the row between Trump and the British public broadcaster, and to rule out the idea that the British people would hand over money to the U.S. president.

Instead of responding directly, Starmer reiterated the government’s line since the BBC’s director-general, Tim Davie, announced his resignation on Sunday because of the scandal.

“I believe in a strong and independent BBC,” he said. “Some would rather BBC didn’t exist, I’m not one of them.”

However, he added that “where mistakes are made, they do need to get their house in order.”

In an interview that aired Tuesday on Fox News, Trump said he intended to go through with his threat to sue the BBC, a century-old institution under growing pressure in an era of polarized politics and changing media viewing habits.

“I guess I have to,” he said. “Because I think they defrauded the public and they’ve admitted it.”

The president’s lawyer, Alejandro Brito, sent the threat to the BBC over the way a documentary edited his Jan. 6, 2021, speech before a mob of his followers stormed the U.S. Capitol. The letter demanded an apology to the president and a “full and fair” retraction of the documentary along with other “false, defamatory, disparaging, misleading or inflammatory statements” about Trump.

If the BBC does not comply with the demands by 5 p.m. EST Friday, then Trump will enforce his legal rights, the letter said.

The row centers on an edition of the BBC’s flagship current affairs series “Panorama,” titled “Trump: A Second Chance?” days before the 2024 U.S. presidential election.

The third-party production company that made the film spliced together three quotes from two sections of the 2021 speech, delivered almost an hour apart, into what appeared to be one quote in which Trump urged supporters to march with him and “fight like hell.”

Among the parts cut out was a section where Trump said he wanted supporters to demonstrate peacefully.

BBC Chairman Samir Shah apologized Monday for the misleading edit that he said gave “the impression of a direct call for violent action.”

In addition to Davie’s resignation, the news chief Deborah Turness quit Sunday over accusations of bias and misleading editing.

Pylas writes for the Associated Press.