Finance

Since the war began, it’s been uglier still. He delivered a sermon calling on Russians to rally around the authorities and “repel enemies both external and internal.” In another, he likened the battle to the struggle between the church and the antichrist. He’s said the war for “Holy Russia” has “metaphysical significance,” the conquest of Ukraine a matter of eternal salvation. For good measure, he’s also said that part of what the Russian forces are combating is the horrific possibility of gay pride parades. Plenty of oligarchs have been canceled for less.

In prepared remarks in Iowa on Tuesday, Biden said the prices we pay in the United States shouldn’t hinge “on whether a dictator declares war and commits genocide half a world away.”

“By being consistent with our message. Here is my question that I put out to the city: I thought Black lives mattered. Where are all those who stated Black lives matter?” he asked in response. “Then go do an analysis of who was killed or shot last night. I was up all night speaking to my commanders in the Bronx and Brooklyn. The victims were Black. Many of the shooters were Black.”

Durbin (D-Ill.), meanwhile, said he’s concerned about the bill’s prospects, particularly given Republican accusations during Jackson’s confirmation hearings that the justice-in-waiting was soft on crime. The Judiciary chair ranked criminal justice as high on his list of priorities, though he said legislation addressing crime and law enforcement “may be just as challenging as immigration” — a famously tough area of bipartisan compromise on Capitol Hill.

Contaminated spinach last fall made people sick in 10 states, and sent three people into kidney failure, but the agency reacted too slowly to get to the bottom of it. There was no recall. That was just one of many examples in recent years of foods that sound like the diet of a healthy eater but instead sent hundreds of people to the hospital or the morgue: Romaine lettuce contaminated by E.coli bacteria, cucumbers tainted by salmonella, cantaloupes infected with listeria. And so on, with such regularity that many outbreaks no longer even make much news.

“You know I read a couple articles, I got a lot of reaction to this, 99 percent supportive, ‘MAGA is shocked,’” Hannity said. “When I supported Donald Trump pretty early I got the crap beaten out of me — Glenn Beck, Ben Shapiro … and I promised people he’d govern as a conservative and he did. And I’m saying the same thing about you [Oz].”

With the U.S. government reporting this week that inflation has hit a four-decade high and the Fed cranking up its efforts to drive down prices, President Joe Biden’s economy faces a dizzying array of risks. Growth was already expected to slow this year after 2021’s blistering 5.7 percent expansion, as both Congress and the central bank pull back support for the economy. But the hits keep coming — higher energy prices, a slowdown in China and the possibility of a Fed-induced recession.

“One way or another, we need to overturn that decision,” Rep. Doug Lamborn of Colorado told POLITICO. Lamborn is the top Republican on the House Armed Services Strategic Forces panel, which oversees the U.S. nuclear arsenal.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and other leaders have said what the Russians are doing in Ukraine amounts to war crimes. Last month, the U.S. embassy in Kyiv called it a war crime to attack a nuclear plant.

But practically, it is hard to envision that a criminal referral would matter much one way or the other.