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TORETSK, Ukraine (AP) — Russia pounded eastern Ukraine on Tuesday as the U.S. defense secretary promised to “keep moving heaven and earth” to get Kyiv the weapons it needs to repel the new offensive even as Moscow warned such support risked widening the war.
Two months into the devastating conflict, Western arms have already helped Ukraine stall Russia’s invasion — but its leaders have said they need more support fast.
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said that more help was on the way, as he convened a meeting of officials from around 40 countries at the United States’ Ramstein Air Base in Germany to pledge more weapons. Germany announced it cleared the way for delivery of anti-aircraft guns to Ukraine.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday takes up President Joe Biden’s efforts to shut down a Trump administration program to restrict immigration at the southern border.
The justices will hear courtroom arguments on whether the Biden administration acted properly in trying to end the “remain in Mexico” policy, formally known as the Migrant Protection Protocols. It requires people seeking asylum at the southern border, mainly from Central and South America, to wait in Mexico while their claims are decided.
From late January 2019 until Biden suspended the program, nearly 70,000 people were shuttled back to Mexico. Tent cities sprang up in Mexico near border-entry stations, and human rights groups said hundreds of asylum-seekers were kidnapped, raped, tortured and assaulted while waiting to get into the U.S.
As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has transformed into a grinding war of attrition with no meaningful peace deal in sight, the US and its allies have begun to convey a new, longer-term goal for the war: to defeat Russia so decisively on the battlefield that it will be deterred from launching such an attack ever again.
That message was delivered most clearly on Monday, when Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin told reporters after a trip to Ukraine’s capital city of Kyiv that “we want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine.”
A National Security Council spokesperson said that Austin’s comments were consistent with what the US’ goals have been for months – namely, “to make this invasion a strategic failure for Russia.”
Politico, ,
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/04/26/gop-obamacare-aca-health-care-00027585
Associated Press, ,
https://apnews.com/article/2022-midterm-elections-new-york-legislature-election-2020-congress-a4b0acb7bdc37f642cbbd93c8dfd9cbe
For years, Republicans had an easy health care talking point: Repeal and replace Obamacare.
In 2017, with full control of Washington, the GOP managed nothing of the sort. Three trips to the Supreme Court, all instigated by Republican-engineered legal challenges, have also left the law standing.
It might seem that if the GOP wins Congress again in 2022, the party will leave American health care alone. The only visible attempt at a broad agenda for Republican congressional candidates — the 11 Point Plan to Rescue America by Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) — includes no mention of health care policy at all. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) proposed last month on a Breitbart News radio interview that Republicans should repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, but backtracked just a few days later.
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — The fight for control of the U.S. House moves to New York’s highest court on Tuesday, where judges will determine whether Democrats illegally gerrymandered the boundaries of the state’s newly redrawn congressional districts.
New York’s Court of Appeals is expected to hear arguments in a lawsuit brought by a group of Republican voters challenging the legality of the new district maps.
The suit says the Democrat-controlled Legislature violated provisions in the state constitution that barred the redrawing of districts for partisan gain.
The Hill,
April 26, 2022 – 10:00 am to 12:00 pm (ET)
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp holds a more than 20-point lead in the Republican gubernatorial primary race against former Sen. David Perdue (Ga.), according to a new poll by the University of Georgia’s School of Public and International Affairs on behalf of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The poll, which surveyed likely Republican primary voters, found that 53 percent of voters support Kemp in the race, while 26 percent support Perdue.
Similar results occur when asked whether respondents approve of the men, with Kemp’s favorable rating at 71 percent and Perdue’s at 57 percent.
April 26, 2022 – 6:00 pm (ET)