More than 100 Democrats voted to cut military aid to Israel as US public opinion shifts – Republicans are noticing too

Somewhere in the days before Wednesday’s vote, Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, sat down and wrote his caucus a letter urging Democrats to reject an amendment that would strip security assistance to Israel. For most of his tenure as Democratic leader, that kind of internal whipping operation would have been unnecessary, because the outcome would have been assumed.

His own second-in-command voted the other way anyway.

Effort is latest attempt to pass bill that seeks to ban mail-in ballots and imposes voter identification requirements

House Republicans on Wednesday made another attempt to answer Donald Trump’s demand for new restrictions on voting nationwide by linking the measure to an unrelated spending bill and passing both largely along party lines.

The effort was the latest attempt by congressional Republicans to pass the Save America Act, which would ban mail-in ballots and impose new identification requirements on voters when they register and cast ballots. While the Trump administration has cast the bill as necessary to prevent non-citizens from voting and combat election fraud, voting rights advocates say there’s no evidence of widespread election tampering and warn the bill could disenfranchise swaths of eligible voters ahead of November’s midterm elections.

Backing by 103 Democrats underscores how sentiment in party towards Israel and Netanyahu government has soured

The House on Wednesday defeated a measure to slash military aid to Israel, but more than 100 House Democrats voted for it in a significant rebuke of the longtime US ally as accusations that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government green-lit genocide in Gaza continue to convulse the party ahead of November’s midterm elections.

The amendment proposed by Republican congressman Thomas Massie to a spending measure would have halted $3.3bn in planned aid – much of which would have gone to Israel’s military. But it was rejected by a 104-314 vote, with 10 lawmakers voting present. Massie was the sole member of the GOP to vote yes.

Exclusive: bill from Democratic lawmaker comes two days after Marco Rubio vowed to dismantle war crimes tribunal

The Democratic congresswoman Ilhan Omar introduced a resolution on Wednesday urging the United States to join the international criminal court (ICC), marking the first congressional pushback against the Trump administration’s pledge to “systematically disable” the war crimes tribunal through sanctions and diplomatic pressure.

Omar’s bill came two days after Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, vowed to dismantle the court.

Lawmakers dubious of answers from Kathryn Ruemmler, whose name appeared thousands of times in released files

Democrats said Kathryn Ruemmler, who served as White House counsel under Barack Obama, was not “completely truthful” with lawmakers during her Wednesday testimony before the House committee on oversight and reform about her ties to Jeffrey Epstein.

Ruemmler, who testified as part of the panel’s investigation into the convicted sex offender, said in her opening remarks that Epstein “used” her “to legitimize his standing” and that “it was a mistake to deal with” him. She insisted she never witnessed criminal activity.

House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, calls amendment ‘overly broad’ as party grapples with backlash over Israel

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Top House Democrats split on Tuesday over a proposal to block aid for Israel’s military, with two of the party’s highest-ranking lawmakers saying they will oppose the effort while the chair of the progressive caucus encouraged his colleagues to back the defunding.

The debate over an amendment introduced by Republican congressman Thomas Massie to halt $3.3bn in aid for Israel – the majority of which would go to its military – comes as Democrats grapple with a rebellion among their voters over the party’s support for the Middle Eastern ally, which has fueled the defeats of a series of congressional incumbents in recent primaries.

Sunshine Protection Act has bipartisan support, including backing of Trump and some Democratic co-sponsors, and will head to the Senate next

The US House of Representatives on Tuesday voted overwhelmingly to approve a bill that would end the practice of changing clocks twice a year and make daylight saving time permanent.

The bid to end clock-changing, dubbed the Sunshine Protection Act, has bipartisan support, including the backing of Donald Trump and some Democratic co-sponsors. Following the 308-117 tally in the House, the bill next goes to the Senate.

Many imagined his buff, gruff and tattooed traits would help him connect with working-class men. But this logic was flawed

The left would do well to revisit New York’s Democratic primaries two weeks ago – it was a sunnier news cycle, yes, but those races were also an object lesson in progressive realpolitik.

Zohran Mamdani, busy as he already was, devoted a remarkable amount of time, resources and political capital to selecting and backing the eventual victors in three different races – in one case reversing a promise to support an incumbent, Adriano Espaillat, in favor of activist Darializa Avila Chevalier, and in another case supporting Claire Valdez, a relatively unknown assemblywoman, even as the Working Families party, major unions and other progressives backed the Brooklyn borough president, Antonio Reynoso.

Lawmakers face obstacles, including demands from Trump, Mitch McConnell’s absence and senator’s sudden death

Republican lawmakers return to the Capitol this week facing a lengthy to-do list and Donald Trump’s demands for new voting restrictions, as Democrats jockey for an advantage ahead of the November midterm elections.

Lawmakers from both parties are eager to highlight before voters legislative victories ahead of the midterms, when control of Congress is at stake. But for Senate Republicans, who are already navigating an array of demands from Trump, their agenda grew further complicated over the weekend with the death of Lindsey Graham, the budget committee chair who was a key player in negotiating a party-line bill to fund additional defense spending and other priorities outlined by the president.

Ro Khanna said settlers were armed with US-made weapons and Israel Defense Forces refused to intervene

The US congressman Ro Khanna says armed Israeli settlers detained him during a visit to the Israel-occupied West Bank recently, describing the experience as a first-hand view of the realities faced by Palestinians living under occupation.

In an interview with Reuters on Thursday from a Palestinian village, the progressive US House Democrat from California said his detention happened the previous day while his delegation visited an area of the southern West Bank that has experienced repeated attacks by Israeli settlers.

President says he would refuse to sign housing bill without passage of voting legislation, but without veto it will still become law

A major housing bill has automatically become law without Donald Trump’s signature, after the president said he would refuse to sign the legislation because Congress has not approved new restrictions on voting nationwide.

The measure, known as the 21st Century Road to Housing Act, is the biggest change to federal policy for buyers, renters and homebuilders in decades, and Congress approved it with large margins last month after lengthy negotiations between Democrats and Republicans.

Experts say Ratepayer Protection Act ‘posing as a consumer protection measure’ and will raise prices on working people

The bipartisan Ratepayer Protection Act, designed to shield individuals from soaring electricity prices amid the datacenter boom, would fail to meaningfully protect the public from the centers’ true costs, consumer advocates warn.

The bill, backed by some in big tech such as Microsoft, moved through a House subcommittee in mid-June, and a vote in full committee scheduled for 1 July was delayed. Its measures are largely voluntary, meaning the state utility commissions that set electric rates can ignore the law altogether.

Investigations into president and corruption charges will get heavy scrutiny if Democrats win majority in midterms

Donald Trump’s presidency is facing investigations and corruption charges from a key House Democrat and ex-prosecutors, involving political and personal abuses of power, which legal experts predict will get heavy scrutiny if Democrats win the House majority in the midterms.

Legal critics call the scandals dogging the president “target rich” for investigations that Democrats will have a “field day” investigating if they win the House majority. Critics cite, for instance, Trump’s damaging the rule of law by weaponizing the Department of Justice (DoJ) to exact revenge on political foes and protect himself from federal investigations, plus Trump moves to profit in radical ways from his presidency with lucrative and new cryptocurrency ventures.