Top Stories for April 25:
VIDEO OF THE DAY: Pam Bondi gets the Epstein news she feared
Unfortunately for the disgraced ex-Attorney General Pam Bondi, her firing will not spare her from the wrath of the House Oversight Committee. While she tried to wriggle her way out of having to testify about her role in covering up the Epstein files, Rep. Robert Garcia has made it clear that she has left them “no choice” but to be held in contempt if she doesn’t obey the subpoena.
Take Action: Do not let Donald Trump appoint another Supreme Court justice!
Over 120 homes destroyed, nearly 1,000 threatened by Georgia wildfires
Two large wildfires burning in drought-stricken southeast Georgia have destroyed 122 homes and are threatening nearly 1,000 more. In total, 38,500 acres have burned. Governor Brian Kemp told reporters after touring the fire area Friday, April 24, that state officials believe the fires have burned more homes than any other in Georgia’s history.
The fire in rural Brantley County has burned 87 homes since it began Friday. The Pineland Road fire that began in Clinch County has destroyed 35 homes. Kemp said officials believe the Brantley County fire was sparked by a balloon landing on a live power line, while the Pineland Road fire likely started by a spark flying as someone welded fence. The second and larger fire in sparsely populated Clinch and Echols counties at the Florida state line has destroyed 35 homes.
MAGA extremist and billionaire lapdog Greg Abbott launches re-election run
Gina Hinojosa for Texas: Gov. Greg Abbott has become a national figure for his astonishing mismanagement, breathtaking corruption, and shocking cruelty. He’s the man who stripped Medicaid from two millions Texans, most of them kids. He’s the man who has spent years trying to privatize our public school systems and funneled a billion taxpayer dollars into the pockets of his donors. He’s the man who refused to use state money to feed kids during the SNAP freeze. Former school board president Gina Hinojosa is running to put an end to Abbott’s depravity once and for all. Will you chip in to help her take advantage of Abbott’s barrel-bottom 32% (!) approval rating?
Top Democrats demand clarity from Jeanine Pirro over threat to reopen investigation into Jerome Powell
Senators Elizabeth Warren and Dick Durbin, the ranking Democrats on the Senate banking and judiciary committees, wrote to Jeanine Pirro, the former Fox News host serving as US attorney for the District of Columbia, demanding that she explain her threat that she could reopen a criminal investigation into Jerome Powell, the Federal Reserve chair, and asking whether Fed governor Lisa Cook is still under investigation. Both Powell and Cook have been identified by Donald Trump as enemies he wants to force out of the central bank so he can replace them with appointees who might be more compliant with his desire to cut interest rates despite the risk of inflation.
Take Action: Make Trader Joe’s a sanctuary from ICE’s violence!
Justice Department to allow firing squads for executions in move to ramp up capital punishment
The Justice Department will adopt firing squads as a permitted method of execution as the Trump administration moves to ramp up and expedite capital punishment cases, officials said Friday. The Justice Department is also reauthorizing the use of single-drug lethal injections with pentobarbital that were used to carry out 13 executions during the first Trump administration — more than under any president in modern history. The Biden administration had removed pentobarbital from the federal protocol over concerns about the potential for unnecessary pain and suffering. The moves were announced as part of a broader push to step up federal executions after a moratorium under the Biden administration. Only three defendants remain on federal death row after Democratic President Joe Biden converted 37 of their sentences to life in prison, though the Trump administration has so far authorized seeking death sentences against 44 defendants.
Take Action: Don’t let Trump bring back the draft!
Lebanese journalist Amal Khalil bombed and left to die by Israel
Prominent Lebanese journalist Amal Khalil was killed on Wednesday in what appeared to be a targeted attack by the Israeli military in the town of Tyre in southern Lebanon. Her employer, Al-Akhbar, confirmed the death of their correspondent Wednesday evening. Khalil and Zeinab Faraj, a freelance photojournalist, were both on assignment in southern Lebanon, reporting on recent attacks on the southern village of Bint Jbeil.Israel did not respond to requests for access, obstructing any rescue operation, according to a Lebanese military official speaking to Al Jazeera. The Red Cross was eventually granted limited access to the site, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, which remained under active fire.
They were able to evacuate Faraj, who reportedly sustained critical head injuries, and to recover the bodies of two other civilians who were killed. But they were forced to withdraw before finding Khalil because of continued shelling and the direct firing on rescue crews and vehicles. The Red Cross vehicle that transported journalist Faraj to Tubnin Governmental Hospital was hit by Israeli gunfire, with bullet marks visible on the vehicle.
“The repeated strikes on the same location, the targeting of an area where journalists were sheltering, and the obstruction of medical and humanitarian access constitute a grave breach of international humanitarian law,” CPJ Regional Director Sara Qudah said in a statement. The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Democratic Maine governor vetoes first US state freeze on new datacenters
The Democratic governor of Maine on Friday vetoed a bill that would have made it the first US state to impose a moratorium on large new datacenters, even as local opposition to the electricity-hungry facilities grows. The decision reflects the difficult trade-off facing political leaders, who must weigh the impact of datacenters on the environment and household energy bills against the millions of dollars in investment and tax revenue they can bring. If signed into law, the bill would have frozen approvals until October 2027 for datacenters requiring more than 20 megawatts of power while a state-appointed council analyzed their impact on the local grid, electricity bills, air and water.
Maine lawmakers passed the bill against datacenters last week, sponsored by Melanie Sachs, a Democratic state representative. The state was seen as a test case of whether such measures could be adopted in other places. Limiting datacenter development would have, however, added to the economic pressure in a rural state already grappling with mill closures that have eroded one of its key industries.
Sachs said Mills’ decision to veto the bill was “simply wrong”. “While a veto might protect the proposed data center project in Jay, it poses significant potential consequences for all ratepayers, our electric grid, our environment and our shared energy future,” Sachs said.
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