WASHINGTON: Republican leaders projected confidence Thursday that they will keep control of the US House as more races were decided in their favor, while Democrats insisted they still see a path toward the majority and sought assurances every vote will be counted.
The GOP picked up two more hard-fought seats in Pennsylvania, which became a stark battlefield of Democratic losses up and down the ticket. Democrats notched another win in New York, defeating a third Republican incumbent in that state.
Both parties in the House huddled privately on conference calls to assess the political landscape as Congress prepared to return next week to a changed Washington, where a sweep of MAGA-infused GOP power is within reach for President-elect Donald Trump.
“The latest data indicates that we will also hold — and likely grow — our Republican majority in the House,” Speaker Mike Johnson said in a letter to colleagues, seeking their support to keep the gavel.
But Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said “it has yet to be decided” which party will control the House as several key races remained uncalled.
Seeing their options narrow, Democrats focused on flipping a handful of seats in Arizona, California and possibly Oregon to close the gap.
“We must count every vote,” Jeffries said.
A final tally in the House will almost certainly have to wait until next week, at the soonest, when Congress is back in session and prepares to elect its new leaders, including nominees for House speaker and the senator who will replace outgoing GOP Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
The election results were beyond what Republicans had even hoped for, including a majority in the Senate, where two races were still undecided — in Arizona between Democrat Ruben Gallego and Republican Kari Lake and in Nevada between Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen and Republican Sam Brown.
The Associated Press called more races Thursday. In Pennsylvania, Republican Ryan Mackenzie defeated incumbent Democratic Rep. Susan Wild in the Allentown-area district, and Republican Robert Bresnahan dislodged Democratic Rep. Matt Cartwright in the Northeast part of the state.
Pennsylvania’s Senate race between Sen. Bob Casey and wealthy businessman Dave McCormick was decided in McCormick’s favor, giving Republicans a 53rd seat in the chamber.
Democrats made up some ground in New York, where Laura Gillen beat incumbent GOP Rep. Anthony D’Esposito, the third flip for Democrats in Jeffries’ home state.
Attention increasingly focused on the West, where Democrats were eyeing what’s left of their path to the majority.
Democrats would need to sweep the most contested races, including two in Arizona and several in California, to win power. But tallies are expected to drag on as California, in particular, counts mail-in ballots that are arriving in the week after the election.
Republican Rep. Richard Hudson, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, told lawmakers on a private call that he’s confident the GOP will hold the House majority, according to a Republican who is familiar with the call but spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose details.
Trump is consolidating power in Washington, returning to the White House a much more dominant force than in his first term, when Republicans split over their support for him and some were openly skeptical of if not opposed to his rise.
This time, Johnson and Senate GOP leaders have drawn closer to Trump, relying on his power for their own as they drive a common Republican agenda more aligned with his “Make America Great Again” priorities.
Johnson, in his letter to colleagues, used a football metaphor to say he’s “ready to take the field with all of you” to play “the biggest offense of our lives.”
While Johnson is in line to remain House speaker in the new Congress, if Republicans keep control, the question of who will replace McConnell, who led his party in flipping Senate control, is its own intense contest.
The choices facing Republican senators for a new leader are between the “Johns” — No. 2 Republican Sen. John Thune and Texas Sen. John Cornyn — and a longshot, Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, who is favored by hard-right Senate conservatives who want Trump to weigh in on the race.
Cornyn and Thune, who both campaigned for Trump, are building support among senators in what is expected to be a close race on private ballots.
Thune has worked to mend a rocky relationship with Trump, and the two spoke as recently as Wednesday, according to another Republican familiar with the private conversation who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss it.
The South Dakota senator had been critical of Trump in the aftermath of the 2020 election for stoking claims of fraudulent voting ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack. Thune and Trump have been in touch throughout the year, the person said.
Thune has suggested it might be best if Trump stayed out of the leadership race.
“It’s his prerogative to weigh in on that,” Thune said on Fox News. “Frankly, I think if he lets it play out, we’ll get the right person. I’ve had conversations with him and have told him that we want to get his team in place so that he can hit the ground running and get to work on an agenda to make sure that he and our team succeeds.”
The Republicans are eyeing quick action aligned with Trump’s day-one priorities, which revolve around cutting taxes, deporting immigrants who are in the country without certain legal status, and reducing federal regulations and operations.
But after the chaos of the past two years of GOP control of the House, it’s unclear how much Republicans will be able to accomplish, especially if they have another razor-thin majority with few seats to spare for dissent, in the face of resistance from Democrats.
Republicans pick up more key House seats while Democrats insist they still have a path to a majority
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Republicans pick up more key House seats while Democrats insist they still have a path to a majority
- Seeing their options narrow, Democrats focused on flipping a handful of seats in Arizona, California and possibly Oregon to close the gap
- Trump is consolidating power in Washington, returning to the White House a much more dominant force than in his first term
Western France put on high flood alert after storm ‘Herminia’
RENNES: France placed swaths of Brittany in the west of the country on red weather alert on Monday as a violent storm brought flood levels not seen in decades.
The “Herminia” depression has unleashed downpours especially in the Ille-et-Vilaine department, with administrative center Rennes experiencing its worst flooding in 40 years.
Weather service Meteo France warned that the situation could get worse.
Eight other French departments were on orange weather alert for flooding, flash floods or, in the case of the French Alps, avalanches.
“Unfortunately we haven’t seen the worst of the flooding,” the mayor of Rennes, Nathalie Appere, said late Sunday.
“Water levels will not begin to subside slowly until Wednesday.”
The city over the weekend evacuated some 400 residents living in streets near the city’s Saint-Martin canal, and turned gyms into temporary shelters.
The rising water lifted house-boats on the canal to the same level as cars parked in the street. Brittany’s western-most area Finistere was on orange flash flood alert on Monday, a level that was to be widened to the entire west coast on Tuesday, Meteo France said.
Herminia, which brought on the heavy weather over western France, follows Storm Eowyn which hit Ireland and the United Kingdom before the weekend.
European parliament's largest far-right bloc to rally in Madrid next week
- Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and France’s Marine Le Pen are attending the rally
- Patriots for Europe is third-largest faction in the EU parliament
MADRID: The European Parliament’s largest far-right bloc will hold its first summit in Madrid next week with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and France’s Marine Le Pen in attendance, Spanish party Vox said on Monday.
Patriots for Europe will meet on February 7 and 8 under the presidency of Vox leader Santiago Abascal to outline their strategy for the coming months, party spokesman Jose Antonio Fuster told reporters.
The group has realigned the EU far right and became the parliament’s third-largest force after Orban helped launch it last year to shift Brussels rightwards.
Its 84 lawmakers include France’s National Rally, the Party for Freedom of Dutch anti-Islam firebrand Geert Wilders, Vox, Austria’s Freedom Party and Chega from Portugal.
The bloc overtook the European Conservatives and Reformists, associated with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party, after last year’s EU elections, in which the far right performed strongly in several countries.
Fuster said there was an alternative to the coalition between the European People’s Party of European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen and the Socialists and Democrats.
Slamming “their climate fanaticism and their open-door policies to mass immigration,” Fuster said his group “represents millions of Europeans who want common sense to return to European institutions.”
India and China agree to resume air travel after nearly five years
- Tensions soured between the two nations after a 2020 border clash, following which India made it difficult for Chinese companies to invest in the country
- Relations have improved over the past four months with several high-level meetings, including talks between President Xi Jinping and Indian PM Modi in Russia
BEIJING/NEW DELHI: India and China have agreed to resume direct air services after nearly five years, India’s foreign ministry said on Monday, signalling a thaw in relations between the neighbors after a deadly 2020 military clash on their disputed Himalayan border.
Both sides will negotiate a framework on the flights in a meeting that will be held at “early date,” the ministry said after a meeting between India’s top diplomat and his Chinese counterpart.
Tensions soured between the two nations after the 2020 clash, following which India made it difficult for Chinese companies to invest in the country, banned hundreds of popular apps and severed passenger routes, although direct cargo flights continued to operate between the countries.
Relations have improved over the past four months with several high-level meetings, including talks between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Russia in October.
On Monday, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri in Beijing that the two countries should work in the same direction, explore more substantive measures and commit to mutual understanding.
“Specific concerns in the economic and trade areas were discussed with a view to resolving these issues and promoting long-term policy transparency and predictability,” the Indian foreign ministry statement said in a statement.
Their meeting was the latest between the two Asian powers following a milestone agreement in October seeking to ease friction along their frontier.
Reuters reported in June that China’s government and airlines had asked India’s civil aviation authorities to re-establish direct air links, but New Delhi resisted as the border dispute continued to weigh on ties.
In October, two Indian government sources told Reuters that India would consider reopening the skies and launch fast-tracking visa approvals.
Both nations have also agreed to resume dialogue for functional exchanges step by step and with an early meeting of the India-China Expert Level Mechanism, India’s foreign ministry said.
China and India should commit to “mutual support and mutual achievement” rather than “suspicion” and “alienation,” Wang said during the two officials’ meeting, according to the Chinese foreign ministry’s readout.
German Holocaust remembrance under fire from far right
- US tech billionaire Elon Musk told AfD supporters that “children should not be guilty for the sins of their great grandparents"
- Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk criticizes slogans made at a far-right rally without mentioning Musk by name
FRANKFURT: As the world remembers Auschwitz, the German far right has pushed back against the country’s tradition of Holocaust remembrance, now with backing from US tech billionaire Elon Musk.
“I think there’s too much of a focus on past guilt and we need to move beyond that,” the ally of US President Donald Trump told an Alternative for Germany (AfD) rally in a video discussion at the weekend.
“Children should not be guilty for the sins of their great grandparents,” he told supporters of the AfD, an anti-immigration party he has strongly supported ahead of February 23 elections.
Musk’s comments flew in the face of those made by Chancellor Olaf Scholz to mark 80 years since the liberation of the extermination camp in what was Nazi-occupied Poland and on the “civilizational rupture” of the Holocaust.
“Every single person in our country bears responsibility, regardless of their own family history, regardless of the religion or birthplace of their parents or grandparents,” Scholz said in a speech.
Musk’s comments were all the more divisive as they came ahead of Monday’s 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, where more than one million Jewish people and over 100,000 others died between 1940 and 1945.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, whose country is hosting commemorations, was quick to criticize slogans made at Saturday’s rally, although he did not mention Musk by name.
“The words we heard from the main actors of the AfD rally about ‘Great Germany’ and ‘the need to forget German guilt for Nazi crimes’ sounded all too familiar and ominous,” the Polish leader wrote on X.
“Especially only hours before the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.”
Scholz, who went to Poland for the anniversary events, responded to Tusk’s message: “I couldn’t agree more, dear Donald.”
India, China agree to resume flights 5 years after stoppage
- Around 500 monthly direct flights operated between China and India before the pandemic, according to Indian media outlet Moneycontrol
NEW DELHI: India and China agreed in principle on Monday to resume direct flights between the two nations, nearly five years after the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent political tensions halted them.
The announcement came at the conclusion of a visit to Beijing by New Delhi’s top career diplomat and heralds the latest signs of a thaw in the frosty ties between the world’s two most populous nations.
Indian foreign ministry secretary Vikram Misri’s trip to the Chinese capital marked one of the most senior official visits since a deadly Himalayan troop clash on their shared border in 2020 sent relations into a tailspin.
A statement from India’s foreign ministry said a visit by a top envoy to Beijing had yielded agreement “in principle to resume direct air services between the two countries.”
“The relevant technical authorities on the two sides will meet and negotiate an updated framework for this purpose at an early date,” it said.
India’s statement also said China had permitted the resumption of a pilgrimage to a popular shrine to the Hindu deity Krishna that had also been halted at the start of the decade.
Both sides had committed to work harder on diplomacy to “restore mutual trust and confidence” and to resolve outstanding trade and economic issues, the statement said.
Around 500 monthly direct flights operated between China and India before the pandemic, according to Indian media outlet Moneycontrol.
A statement from China’s foreign ministry did not mention the agreement on flight resumptions but said both countries had been working to improve ties since last year.
“The improvement and development of China-India relations is fully in line with the fundamental interests of the two countries,” the Chinese statement said.
India and China are intense rivals competing for strategic influence across South Asia.
Flights between both countries were halted in early 2020 at the start of the pandemic.
Services to Hong Kong eventually resumed as the public health crisis receded but not to the Chinese mainland, owing to the bitter fallout of the deadly troop clash later that year.
At least 20 Indian and four Chinese soldiers were killed in the skirmish in a remote stretch of the high-altitude borderlands along their 3,500-kilometer (2,200-mile) frontier.
The fallout from the incident saw India clamp down on Chinese companies, preventing them from investing in critical economic sectors, along with a ban on hundreds of Chinese gaming and e-commerce apps, including TikTok.
Beijing and New Delhi agreed last October on a significant military disengagement at a key flashpoint of their disputed border.
The accord came shortly before a rare formal meeting — the first in five years — between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Misri’s visit to Beijing came weeks after a diplomatic tour by India’s national security adviser Ajit Doval, a key bureaucratic ally of Modi.
