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      Pope Francis and advocates add to pleas for Biden to clear federal death row

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      Pope Francis has called for commutations for people on death row in the US, as religious leaders, civil rights groups and current and former prosecutors urge Joe Biden to take executive action on capital punishment.In his Sunday prayer, Pope Francis, who has been a vocal death penalty opponent, said: “It comes to my heart to ask all of you to pray for the prisoners in the United States who are on death row. Let’s pray that their sentence would be commuted [or] changed.”On Monday, advocates fighting against capital punishment released letters from hundreds of leaders asking the president to clear federal death row before Donald Trump returns to office, with pleas from Black pastors, Catholic leaders, former prison officials, leading civil rights groups and mental health advocates.Biden has been facing intensifying pressure to grant clemency to people with death sentences after he recently announced that he was using his executive authority to pardon his own son.Advocates expect the incoming administration to be deadly if Biden doesn’t take action. In the final year of Trump’s first term, the US government executed 13 people in rapid succession, killing more people in the federal system than under the previous 10 presidents combined. The rushed process claimed the lives of people with intellectual disabilities, prevented defendants from presenting new evidence, and involved execution methods that lawyers said were torturous.Some of Trump’s first-term executions happened despite objections from prosecutors and victims, and took place after the US supreme court quickly overruled lower-court decisions halting the proceedings.The Catholic Mobilizing Network, which represents 30,000 advocates, including bishops and dioceses, urged Biden, who is Catholic, to commute every federal death row sentence, writing: “We know that the federal death row, just as in the states, is marred by significant arbitrariness, including racial bias and the imposition on vulnerable individuals such as those with intellectual disability, brain damage, and serious mental illness. There is also a risk that innocent people will be put to death.”Biden has previously opposed capital punishment and issued a moratorium on executions when he became president, but he has not yet indicated whether he will commute sentences.There are 40 men currently on federal death row, and 38% of them are Black, although Black people comprise 14% of the US population. Nearly one in four of the men were 21 or younger at the time of the crime. And 43% of them come from only three states – Missouri, Texas and Virginia.In another letter released on Monday, 38 current and former district attorneys, attorneys general and former US prosecutors and justice department officials laid out the flaws in capital punishment.“We know that we have not always executed the worst of the worst, but often instead put to death the unluckiest of the unlucky – the impoverished, the poorly represented, and the most broken,” they wrote. “Time and again, we have executed people with long histories of debilitating mental illness, childhoods marred by unspeakable physical and mental abuse, and intellectual disabilities that have prevented them from leading independent adult lives. We have also likely executed the innocent.” The group also pointed to studies demonstrating that the death penalty is not an effective deterrent to violence and does not reduce crime.A group of current prison officials, including some whom have overseen executions, pointed to the harms correctional staff face when carrying out capital punishment: “We have witnessed the depression, suicide, substance abuse, domestic turmoil, and other manifestations of trauma in our colleagues that study after study has documented among correctional staff who are impacted by executions, and on those close to them.”Families of murder victims also pleaded with Biden, writing that the death penalty “wastes many millions of dollars that could be better invested in programs that actually reduce crime and violence and that address the needs of families like ours”.Others now urging Biden to act include the American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty International, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, a coalition of Latino advocacy organizations and the Innocence Project.Trump intensified his pro-death penalty rhetoric during his campaign, calling for executions of “everyone who gets caught selling drugs”. And Trump allies, through the rightwing manifesto Project 2025, have called for the expansion of capital punishment and for the US to do “everything possible to obtain finality” for the 40 people on federal death row.In an interview before the election, Billie Allen, who is on federal death row and has long maintained his innocence, recounted to the Guardian what it was like to witness rapid executions under Trump’s first term: “I came in at 19. These are people I grew up with. I’m seeing them be carried out, never to return again, never to see them smile or hear them laughing.”He said he wished wished people recognized death row defendants were capable of change: “The majority of people here become better men for themselves, their family and friends and supporters.” More

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      Biden has been wrecking his legacy, but he still has time to do the right things | Judith Levine

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      President Joe Biden seems intent on demolishing his legacy.For months, the Democrats begged him to drop out of the presidential race. He defied them until the 11th hour. Kamala Harris lost.For years, capital punishment opponents pressed him to make good on his 2020 pledge to abolish the death penalty. In the past few weeks, they’ve been begging him to commute the death sentences of the 40 people on federal death row before Trump delivers them what Project 2025 icily calls “finality”. During his last term, Trump dispatched one woman and 12 men – more executions in six months than during the preceding 40 years.Biden has not responded to the pleas of the condemned. Instead, he pardoned Hunter, granting his son immunity from prosecution for any crime he “has committed or may have committed” between 2014 and 2024. The pardon, which experts call unprecedented in scope, not only breaks another vow (and “cements his legacy as liar-in-chief”, Fox News gleefully reports). It also hands Trump cover to use the Department of Justice to shower mercy on his fellow crooks and assorted sycophants and ruin his foes.And now Biden is considering preemptive pardons for the dozens of law-abiding public servants whom Trump is threatening with retaliatory criminal prosecution. Further abusing his office, tarring these people’s reputations with rumors of guilt, Biden is, in short, out-Trumping Trump.At the start, Biden called himself a human rights champion. Speaking at the state department shortly after his inauguration, he proclaimed that “upholding universal rights, respecting the rule of law and treating every person with dignity” would be “the grounding wire of our global policy – our global power”. There was no asterisk indicating an exception for Palestine.Yet since 7 October 2023, while Democratic opposition to the war in Gaza has grown to a majority, the Biden administration has drawn, and trampled, one line after another in Israel-Palestine’s sand. A year and a week into the war, on 13 October 2024, the US secretaries of state and defense – though, pointedly, not the president himself – signed a letter to the then Israeli secretary of defense Yoav Gallant threatening unspecified “implications for US policy” if Israel did not implement a list of “concrete measures” to end the starvation, disease and arbitrary displacement – to “reverse the downward humanitarian trajectory” in Gaza, “starting now and within 30 days”.Thirty days passed. The conditions were not met. The Democrats lost the election, in some part due to disaffection over the war. Bernie Sanders brought a resolution to the US Senate floor to withhold military aid to Israel, citing US law prohibiting it to countries that use the weapons to commit war crimes. The White House quietly lobbied against the resolution, claiming that “disapproving arms purchases for Israel … would put wind in the sails of Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas at the worst possible moment”. With nearly 44,000 Palestinians killed and 2 million displaced, it was unclear when a better moment might be.The next day, the international criminal court issued arrest warrants for the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, Gallant and the presumed-dead Hamas leader, Ibrahim Al-Masri (known as Mohammed Deif), alleging the same war crimes and crimes against humanity that Sanders cited in support of his resolution.And barely a week later, Biden asked Congress to approve a $680m arms package for Israel, which it did. The package included the weapons the Israel Defense Forces had been using to wipe out entire families, with no apparent military objective.What else has the president been doing since the election to burnish his memory in the world’s eyes? He recognized National Family Week, National Apprenticeship Week and National Impaired Driving Prevention Month. He pardoned two Thanksgiving turkeys. And oh, yes, he brokered a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, leaving the IDF undistracted from pulverizing every structure and living thing in Gaza.Biden is capable of changing his mind. In 1974, for instance, he opined that he didn’t “think a woman has the sole right to say what should happen to her body”. In 1994, he boasted of his steadfast record – “no fewer than 50 occasions” – of voting against federal funding for abortion. He reversed that stance in 2019, and, running for president in 2020, promised to “protect women’s constitutional right to choose”. The candidate had noticed that states were “passing extreme laws” against abortion. “Circumstances have changed,” he said – again, too late.There are a few explanations for this almost petulant farewell performance. Perhaps Biden is mad at the Democrats for pushing him aside. Perhaps Mr Nice Guy is the same obnoxious misogynist who interrogated Anita Hill during Justice Clarence Thomas’s 1991 confirmation hearings and declined to take testimony from three other women who alleged that Thomas had sexually harassed them too. Perhaps Biden is not really “driven” by human rights, as Politico’s Nasal Toosi concluded earlier this year, though he’ll tack them on if they don’t interfere with other realpolitik or economic goals.Or perhaps he’s entered the later stages of dementia and, in the muddle, switched parties.But the hell with explanations. The question is: now what? Circumstances have changed. Biden is a lame duck, free to do what he wishes. Trump is the next president. Biden’s legacy may be shot – and what’s not shot, Trump will shoot down or take credit for. But the president still has time to do the right things. He could start by saving a few, or a few thousand, lives.

      Judith Levine is a Brooklyn journalist and essayist, a contributing writer to the Intercept and the author of five books More

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      White House says ‘Trump will inherit economy primed for growth’ in defense of Biden record – US politics live

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      White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters that Donald Trump will inherit a good economy, thanks to Joe Biden’s policies over the past four years.She also announced that Biden would promote his economic accomplishments in a speech on Tuesday, after government data released today showed that hiring remained strong in November.“Just today, we learned more than 220,000 jobs were created last month, making this the only presidency in 50 years to have job growth every single month,” Jean-Pierre said.“Over the last four years, the president has rejected trickle-down economics and written a new economic playbook that builds the economy from the middle out and bottom up, not the top down. This is a strong foundation for years to come … Trump will inherit an economy primed for growth.”Vice president-elect JD Vance backed Kash Patel’s nomination for FBI director, saying he is in a “very good spot” for Senate approval.Still, Vance was unsure whether he would join Patel on Capitol Hill next week, according to CNN, where Patel is expected to meet with senators.“I don’t know what I’ll be doing next week. We’re fully behind Kash’s nomination, and I’m not even sure if— I’m not sure where I’m gonna be tomorrow, much less next week, but we’re fully supportive of Kash’s nomination. I actually think he’s in a very good spot for his nomination,” Vance said.Melania Trump called her husband’s win “incredible” during her first post-election interview with Fox & Friends.“We are very, very busy … I’m establishing my transition team. And also, working on my office, putting my office together, and also, you know, organizing the residence and packing,” Melania Trump, who is set to return to the White House as first lady in January, said during the interview.She also announced her new Christmas ornament collection during an appearance on Fox News on Friday. One of the ornaments is priced at $90, while the other ornaments are $75 each.“After I left the White House, I established my Web3 and Web2 platforms where I design and offer collectibles like ornaments each season,” she said. “This is the third season, and there are many other collectibles available now.”The 2024 collection, titled Merry Christmas, America!, has four designs: a golden star with “USA” in the center, a golden Lady Liberty, a red-white-and blue snowflake, and a golden clover. Each ornament has Melania Trump’s signature.JD Vance defended Pete Hegseth after he toured western North Carolina, which was ravaged by Hurricane Helene in September.Vance said that Donald Trump’s defense secretary pick deserved a Senate confirmation hearing rather than a “sham hearing before the American media” over allegations of sexual assault and excessive drinking of alcohol.“Pete Hegseth is going to get his hearing before the Senate armed services committee, not a sham hearing before the American media. We believe that Pete Hegseth is the right guy to lead the Department of Defense,” Vance said. “We’re not abandoning this nomination.”North Carolina Democrats have filed a lawsuit in federal court to block a Republican candidate’s effort to throw out 60,000 votes in a state supreme court race that a Democrat leads by just a few hundred votes.Allison Riggs, a Democrat on the state supreme court, appears to have defeated Republican Jefferson Griffin by a little more than 700 votes in the race. A recount has already confirmed Riggs’ victory once, and a second recount tallying a sampling of precincts in each county is ongoing.Democrats are closely watching the race because they need to win it to have a chance at retaking control of the court in a few years. Republicans currently have a 5-2 majority on the court.After the election, Griffin’s campaign challenged the validity of 60,000 voters. The challenged voters include those whose voter registration lacked either a driver’s license or Social Security number, those who are the adult children of North Carolinians living abroad, and overseas voters who submitted ballots without voter ID. Many of the challenges rely on legal theories that have already been rejected by the courts.Several eligible voters have already spoken out in frustration against the challenges, saying they are eligible voters and have been casting a ballot without issue for years. Riggs’ parents are among those whose votes are being challenged.“Instead of respecting the results of the election, Jefferson Griffin and Republicans are attempting to throw out over 60,000 votes. Those 60,000 voters are Republicans, Democrats, veterans, seniors, teachers, our neighbors. No North Carolinian deserves to have their vote thrown out in a callous power grab – but this is no surprise from the party of insurrectionists,” Anderson Clayton, the chair of the North Carolina Democratic party, said in a statement.Among other issues, the lawsuit says that Griffin’s mass challenges are essentially an effort to conduct a mass purge of voters after election day. Doing so would violate a federal law that prohibits purging voters within 90 days of a federal election.“North Carolina Republicans’ attempts to throw out 60,000 lawful votes to overturn Justice Allison Riggs’ victory is a brazen and callous attack on the rule of law and North Carolinians’ right to vote, but it isn’t surprising. From trying to take power away from the newly elected Democratic governor to threatening to overturn the will of the voters, Republicans will stop at nothing in their quest for power,” said Sam Cornale, executive director of the Democratic National Committee.Austin Tice, an American freelance journalist who was kidnapped in Syria early into the country’s civil war, is alive, his mother said following a meeting with Biden administration officials at the White House.“The best thing that we want to share with you is that we have from a significant source that has already been vetted all over our government, Austin Tice is alive. Austin Tice is treated well, and there is no doubt about that, and so I think that is the most important thing,” Debra Tice said at the National Press Club.The press conference was held as rebels have swept across Syria in recent days, seizing major cities from president Bashar al-Assad’s forces. It is unclear who was behind Tice’s kidnapping in August 2012, but the Biden administration believes Syria’s government is holding him. Here’s more on what we know about Tice’s captivity, and the efforts to free him.Donald Trump will head to Paris this weekend to attend the reopening of Notre Dame.Joe Biden will not be there, but first lady Jill Biden will be in attendance at the ceremony to mark the church’s return after it nearly burned down in a fire five years ago.“The president has had a scheduling conflict, which is why he was not able to attend,” Jean-Pierre said, when asked about why Joe Biden would not attend.Here’s more on Trump’s trip in the midst of political chaos in France:White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters that Donald Trump will inherit a good economy, thanks to Joe Biden’s policies over the past four years.She also announced that Biden would promote his economic accomplishments in a speech on Tuesday, after government data released today showed that hiring remained strong in November.“Just today, we learned more than 220,000 jobs were created last month, making this the only presidency in 50 years to have job growth every single month,” Jean-Pierre said.“Over the last four years, the president has rejected trickle-down economics and written a new economic playbook that builds the economy from the middle out and bottom up, not the top down. This is a strong foundation for years to come … Trump will inherit an economy primed for growth.”Former Biden administration official Jesse Lee pointed out on X that if Donald Trump stops the US Postal Service from electrifying their fleet, it will likely cost jobs.Fox Carolina reports that a manufacturer of the new electric vehicles for the postal service planned to hire 1,000 people to make them. That hiring would presumably be in jeopardy if Trump cancels the plan.“Trump planning to kill 1,000 jobs in South Carolina right off the bat,” Lee wrote.Donald Trump is considering canceling efforts to electrify the United State Postal Service’s fleet once he takes office, Reuters reports.The president-elect campaigned on killing electric vehicle incentives enacted during Joe Biden’s term to combat the climate crisis, and Reuters says his transition team is looking for ways to cancel contracts with vehicle manufacturers for electric vehicles that will be used by the postal service to move mail.Here’s more on the potential plan, from Reuters:
      The move, which could be unveiled in the early days of Trump’s administration that begins on Jan 20, is in line with Trump’s campaign promises to roll back President Joe Biden’s efforts to decarbonize US transportation to fight climate change – an agenda Trump has said is unnecessary and potentially damaging to the economy.
      Reuters has previously reported that Trump is planning to kill a $7,500 consumer tax credit for electric-vehicle purchases, and plans to roll back Biden’s stricter fuel-efficiency standards.
      The sources told Reuters that Trump’s transition team is now reviewing how it can unwind the postal service’s multibillion-dollar contracts, including with Oshkosh Corp (OSK.N) and Ford (F.N), for tens of thousands of battery-driven delivery trucks and charging stations.
      Oshkosh shares fell by roughly 5% to 105.65 per share after the Reuters report.
      Oshkosh and Ford did not respond to requests for comment.
      In 2023, Congress gave USPS $3 billion as part of a $430 billion climate bill to buy EVs and charging infrastructure. It plans to buy some 66,000 electric vehicles to build one of the largest electric vehicle fleets in the nation by 2028.
      As part of that, Oshkosh is expected to deliver about 45,000 electric vehicles, with the remaining coming from mainstream automakers like Ford, according to the USPS. The initial batch of 14,000 chargers are being supplied by Siemens, ChargePoint and Blink, according to the USPS.
      JD Vance on Friday surveyed damage from Hurricane Helene and talked to first responders in western North Carolina in one of his first public appearances since the November election.The hurricane struck in September and caused at least $53bn in damage in North Carolina, according to government estimates.Vance and his wife, Usha Vance, visited the Fairview volunteer fire department. There, he learned that the building had flooded with 4-6ins of water and that roughly a dozen people contracted walking pneumonia as they responded to the hurricane’s destruction.“At the height of it, I imagine y’all were working nonstop,” Vance said.After the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the US economy added more jobs than forecast in November, President Joe Biden said that “America’s comeback continues.” The unemployment rate, on the other hand, ticked higher last month.“This has been a hard-fought recovery, but we are making progress for working families,” Biden said in a statement.“While there is more to do to lower costs, we’ve taken action to lower prescription drug prices, health insurance premiums, utility bills, and gas prices that will pay dividends for years to come.”New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez officially announced her bid to serve as ranking member on the Committee on Oversight and Accountability, the key investigative arm of the legislature.“The responsibility of leading Democrats on the House Oversight Committee during Donald Trump’s second term in the White House is a profound and consequential one,” the progressive lawmaker said in a letter released Friday.Ocasio-Cortez seeks one of the most influential positions in the House as Democrats work to counter the incoming Trump administration and monitor the president-elect and his allies.These allies have pledged to retaliate against opponents and disregard political norms in Washington.“We must do all that we can, now, to mark a different future for the American people,” reads Ocasio-Cortez’s letter, “one that inspires us to reject the siren calls of division, corruption, and authoritarianism through a shining example of a government that works for the people, by the people – one that sees their struggles and fights for them, not just the powerful and the wealthy.”If Democrats regain control of the House in the 2026 midterms, the new Oversight chairperson would have significant authority to issue subpoenas and investigate the Trump administration.Democratic representative for South Carolina, James Clyburn, said President Joe Biden should issue preemptive pardons for some of the people who have attacked President-elect Donald Trump, although it is not how the pardon power was intended.“We have to use the pardon system, or the clemency system, to get everything in order to address the current situation that we live in,” Clyburn told CNN.These comments come as the Biden administration considers the possibility of him granting mass pardons to a broad range of public officials to protect them against the possibility of retribution and revenge from Donald Trump when he assumes power.After a federal appeals court upheld a law banning TikTok across the US unless the it was sold off by its China-based parent company, the viral video app posted the following statement on X:“The Supreme Court has an established historical record of protecting Americans’ right to free speech, and we expect they will do just that on this important constitutional issue. Unfortunately, the TikTok ban was conceived and pushed through based upon inaccurate, flawed and hypothetical information, resulting in outright censorship of the American people. The TikTok ban, unless stopped, will silence the voices of over 170 million Americans here in the US and around the world on January 19th, 2025.”Donald Trump and JD Vance have gone to bat for defense secretary nominee Pete Hegseth, who has faced allegations of sexual assault, excessive drinking and financial mismanagement that could imperil his Senate confirmation. Trump said Hegseth “is doing very well”, while Vance said he and the president-elect have “got his back”. We’ll see if those statements move any wary senators. Meanwhile, TikTok suffered a setback when an appeals court rejected its attempt to block a law that will force its Chinese parent company to cut ties with the popular social media app by mid-January or face a ban. However, the story is far from finished: TikTok is expected to appeal to the supreme court, and Trump has made an about-face on the issue, saying he supports keeping TikTok available.Here’s what else is going on today:

      Trump aides believe that Hegseth is on track for confirmation, despite several Republicans saying the stories about his personal conduct make them hesitant to support him.

      Hakeem Jeffries, the top House Democrat, says his lawmakers will find ways to work with the “Department of Government Efficiency”, so long as what it proposes is a good idea.

      Joe Biden is reportedly considering preemptive pardons for potential targets of retaliation, once Trump takes office. At least one Democratic senator thinks such a move would be a bad idea.
      At his press conference today, Democratic House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries said his party is willing to work with the new “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE), as long as what it proposes is reasonable.“It’s unclear to me what exactly the objective is related to this so-called DOGE initiative. From our perspective, we want a federal government that is effective and efficient in equilibrium. And, to the extent the other side of the aisle shares that objective, which is what is right for the American people, then we’ll see if there’s common ground as possible,” Jeffries told reporters.The GOP will remain the majority party in the House of Representatives beginning next year, but only by a mere two seats. Jeffries implied that their slim control of the chamber will make working with the Democrats essential:
      It’s clear that the incoming House Republican majority will not be able to do much without us. More

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      A pardon that proves power trumps all | Brief letters

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      There are plenty of people in the US justice system who suffer miscarriages of justice, who cannot afford good lawyers and who receive unnecessarily harsh sentences. By pardoning his son (Report, 2 December), Joe Biden has sent a message to the American people – and the world – that people close to those in power can get a better deal. This undermines the entire justice system and is an utter disgrace.Angela WrightLondon In your article (Four of UK’s oldest nuclear plants to run for even longer as Hinkley Point delayed, 4 December), we are told by Ed Miliband that these extensions are “a major win for our energy independence”. No, Ed – they are a major win for EDF, a French company on whom, this article asserts, we are 100% dependent for our nuclear energy.Rosemary MiddletonMiddle Taphouse, Cornwall There is an internet meme that sums up Mary Ann Sieghart’s article (Why do some men behave badly? I think I have the answer, 6 December) in 10 words, advising women and girls to: “Carry yourself with the confidence of a mediocre white man.” One of my younger feminist colleagues has even cross-stiched this great advice.Prof Rachel FysonUniversity of Nottingham You report (3 December) that the leader of Merthyr Tydfil county borough council says his team, officers at the council and external agencies will “move heaven and earth to ensure everything is put back into place” following the emergence of a sinkhole. Earth, yes, but is it really necessary to move heaven?Richard FosterThatcham, Berkshire If the government is allowing the British Museum freedom to decide on the fate of the Parthenon marbles (Report, 2 December) then the Greek authorities had better keep an eye on eBay.John Rushton Bridge of Weir, Renfrewshire More

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      Senior Biden aide commits to giving Ukraine avalanche of military assistance

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      The White House has gamed out a last-minute strategy to bolster Ukraine’s war position that involves an avalanche of military assistance and sweeping new sanctions against Russia, according to a background briefing from a National Security Council spokesperson.National security adviser Jake Sullivan met with the head of the office of the Ukrainian president Andriy Yermak for more than an hour on Thursday, committing to provide Ukraine with hundreds of thousands of additional artillery rounds, thousands of rockets and hundreds of armored vehicles by mid-January, according to the briefing shared with the Guardian.The US is also pledging to support Ukraine’s manpower challenge, offering to train new troops at sites outside Ukrainian territory. This comes alongside a nearly finalized $20bn in loans, which will be backed by profits from immobilized Russian sovereign assets.The United States is tying that to a number of new sanctions to come in the coming weeks, all with the intent of complicating Russia’s ability to sustain its war effort and boosting Ukraine’s bargaining power at the negotiation table that could lay the groundwork for a future settlement.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe White House’s latest move comes a little more than a month in advance of Donald Trump’s inauguration, when the US may unload an all-new strategy for a ceasefire altogether.According to a Reuters report, the president-elect’s team is quietly developing a peace proposal for Ukraine that would effectively sideline Nato membership and potentially cede significant territory to Russia, signaling a dramatic shift from current US policy. Trump, for his part, has often stated that he would end the Ukraine and Russia war within 24 hours.Still, Ukrainian officials, including Yermak and Ambassador Oksana Markarova, have been meeting with key figures in Trump’s transition team this week, including JD Vance, Florida representative and potential National security adviser Mike Waltz and Trump’s pick for Russia and Ukraine envoy Keith Kellogg, in a bid to secure continued support.These meetings carry heightened urgency, particularly after House speaker Mike Johnson blocked a vote on $24bn in additional aid to Ukraine. The Pentagon has nonetheless committed to sending $725m in military assistance this week, the largest shipment since April. More

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      Biden to participate in final Christmas tree lighting ceremony as president

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      Joe Biden is set to take part in the annual national Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Washington DC on Thursday evening, for the final time before leaving the White House.This year, the centerpiece of the 102-year tradition will be a 35ft red spruce from the George Washington and Jefferson national forests in Virginia.The event, which is scheduled to begin at 6pm ET, will be held at the Ellipse park just south of the White House and will feature performances by Adam Blackstone, Stephen Sanchez, James Taylor, the War and Treaty, and others.For the Bidens’ last Christmas at the White House, Jill Biden chose the theme A Season of Peace and Light for the holiday decorations, which she unveiled on Monday.“As we celebrate our finally – final holiday season here in the White House, we are guided by the values that we hold sacred: faith, family and service to our country, kindness toward all of our neighbors, and the power of community,” the first lady said.Inside the White House, one of the centerpieces of the holiday decorations is the Christmas tree.This year, it is an 18.5ft Fraser fir tree from Cartner’s Christmas Tree Farm in North Carolina.The farm is in Newland in the Blue Ridge Mountains, a region that was recently devastated by Hurricane Helene.“The Cartner family lost thousands of trees to the storm,” the first lady said last week at the tree arrival ceremony. “But this one remained standing – and they named it Tremendous for the extraordinary hope that it represents.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAt the tree arrival ceremony, Jill Biden was joined by the congresswoman Virginia Foxx, as well as members of the North Carolina national guard and their families, who are working to rebuild after Hurricane Helene.“This tree recognizes your tremendous strength and service,” she told them.In an interview with the Associated Press, Sam Cartner Jr, one of three brothers who owns the farm, said that they wanted to be “an uplifting symbol for the other farmers and other people in western North Carolina that have experienced so many losses”. More

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      Biden library reportedly under threat by Democrats enraged by Hunter pardon

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      Senior Democrats are reportedly considering withholding contributions to Joe Biden’s future presidential library amid a mounting backlash over his decision grant a blanket pardon to his son Hunter.The threat has emerged as simmering anger among congressional Democrats – already building over the president’s insistence on seeking a second term before belatedly stepping aside as the party nominee in favour of Kamala Harris – has burst into the open over Sunday’s pardon, which Biden had previously vowed not to give.Axios reported that party grandees were considering taking out their “rage” on Biden’s library project. Planning for the library, in the president’s home state of Delaware, is being spearheaded by the White House deputy chief of staff, Annie Tomasini, and Anthony Bernal, senior adviser to Jill Biden, the first lady.“If they had their shit together, they would have been doing the work on this over the summer – right after he announced he was stepping aside,” the site quoted one unnamed Democrat as saying. “Now, it’s just too late. Hopefully they are rightsizing their expectations and budget!”Presidential libraries – a tradition begun by Franklin D Roosevelt – are generally funded by a combination of private donors, state and local governments, and university partners. Maintained by the National Archives and Records Administration, they are used to house presidents’ papers and documents after they leave office.A source familiar with Biden’s project played down the possibility of donations being withheld, telling Axios: “That sentiment hasn’t come up in a single donor conversation, and work is well under way.”However, the fact that it is being publicly mooted is a sign of the internal party disenchantment following the pardoning of Hunter Biden, 54, who was convicted of lying on gun ownership application forms and separate charges of tax evasion. He had been due to be sentenced on both convictions this month. The act of clemency came less than a month after a demoralising election defeat that many privately blame Biden for.Biden, in his statement, said his son “was treated differently” than other people who had been late paying taxes because they were undergoing addiction problems. Biden pardoned his son for all possible offences committed between 2013 and 2024 – foreclosing the possibility of the incoming Trump administration reopening a case against the younger Biden that might be driven by the president-elect’s often-repeated desire for “retribution” against his political enemies.The judge in the tax case, Mark Scarsi, accused the president of “rewriting history” in a ruling penned after the pardon. He added that Hunter Biden’s tax offences had been committed after the period of his drug and alcohol addiction.A procession of Democratic senators and congressmembers have publicly accused Biden of putting his feelings for his son above the national interest and handing Donald Trump an excuse to abuse the presidential clemency powers.Even Chuck Schumer, the Democrats’ leader in the Senate and normally a loyal ally of the president, damned him with uncharacteristic reticence this week, telling reporters “I’ve got nothing for you on that” when asked his view.But party insiders say the outrage is a lightning rod for lingering resentment over Biden’s refusal to drop his bid for a second term until it was too late for Harris or other presidential contenders to be stress-tested in primaries and launch a well-prepared presidential campaign.“The pardon is simply a resentment delivery vehicle, like dressing on lettuce,” Philippe Reines, a veteran strategist who helped prepare Harris for September’s debate against Trump – which she was widely viewed to have won – told the New York Times.David Axelrod, a former adviser to Barack Obama, said the pardon gave “a free throw for people who think they can gain political advantage” from separating themselves from an unpopular, outgoing president.“But,” he added, “there’s also genuine concern and anger about the way the last year went down.” More

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      Joe Biden should pardon Reality Winner for her actions as a whistleblower | Margaret Sullivan

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      In late November, Reality Winner – who turned 33 this week – finished her lengthy punishment for sending a government document to a news organization.It’s past time for her to be pardoned so that she can move on with her life and, particularly, her education. She wants to be a veterinary technician, get a good-paying job and move out of her mother’s Texas house, but having a felony in one’s background doesn’t help with any of that.“She doesn’t deserve to be punished forever,” her mother, Billie Winner-Davis, told me in an interview this week. “You would think that once you’d served your sentence, you’d be okay, but that doesn’t seem to be true.”A presidential pardon, of course, would help immensely, in removing the scarlet “F” from her record. And Biden, who pardoned his son Hunter just days ago, may find that the time is finally right since this, too, was a politically driven prosecution.Winner has been treated harshly – scapegoated for an act she intended to be patriotic.Because Donald Trump wanted to make an example of her, the US air force veteran and former National Security Agency (NSA) translator was hit with the longest prison sentence ever given for leaking government information to the media.Her crime? She sent an intelligence report about Russian interference in the 2016 elections to the investigative news organization the Intercept; the report indicated that Russian hackers had gained access to state-level voter information and apparently intended to use a “phishing” operation to hack it.“A public service” was how the well-respected investigative reporter James Risen described what Winner did. After all, he noted, a US Senate report concluded that most state election officials found out about the Russian hacking threat from the press, not federal officials, “who didn’t bother to notify them”.“And the main way the press found out about it,” Risen added pointedly, “was through Reality Winner”.Risen, a Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter for many years, got to know Winner while he was the director of the First Look Press Freedom Defense Fund, which paid her legal bills.In an email to me this week, Risen said Winner is “incredibly smart and really nice, and was doing the right thing to help America”.But her punishment was meant to send a message – that leakers (or whistleblowers) would be given no mercy, no matter how much the information they shared was in the public interest. And of course, Trump has been desperate to term any evidence of Russian interference, no matter how clear or troubling, as nothing but a hoax perpetrated by the liberal media.The law is rigid in federal prosecutions of leak cases, Risen explained.“The fact that a leak to the press is a public service is not admissible in court when a whistleblower is charged with the disclosure of classified information – even when a Senate committee concludes that it was a public service.”Winner was denied bail and held in harsh pre-trial conditions for about a year before her trial. And her punishment included a strict provision that she can never be paid for telling her life story – whether in a book or through the several movies that have been made about her.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionWinner’s attorney, Alison Grinter Allen, told me on Wednesday that the most helpful action for those who want to support a pardon is to communicate with their members of Congress. Online petitions don’t seem to be as effective in this administration as in past ones, she said.The lawyer worries about how Winner’s case might somehow be reopened in a new vengeance-seeking Trump administration through a newly weaponized justice department.“She’s already been targeted and made an example of,” Allen said.The best hope, she thinks, is a letter signed by multiple members of Congress supporting a pardon; she and others are working on that, but a deadline is looming: “We’re running out of president.”Reality Winner has served a harsh sentence for a patriotic, if illegal, act. She has a lot to offer the world if she’s allowed to move on.And so, Biden, in the short time he has left as president, has the power to do the right thing.In James Risen’s words: “She deserves a pardon.”

      Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist writing on media, politics and culture More