‘Hain Tayyar Hum’: Congress to sound poll bugle in Nagpur; Kharge, Sonia, Rahul Gandhi set to address rally
The mega event assumes significance as it will be held in Nagpur, where the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s (RSS) headquarters and ‘Deekshabhoomi’, the historic place where Dr B R Ambedkar embraced Buddhism, are located.
Democrats in Biden’s home state are leaving for the Republican Party in droves, voter data shows
Democrats in Pennsylvania — President Biden’s birthplace — are flipping to the Republican Party in droves, according to the swing state’s recent voter registration data. Pennsylvania holds crucial importance for Biden’s reelection bid. He notably hailed Philadelphia campaign donors as the “backbone” of his presidential campaign earlier this year. As of Dec. 18, 35,589 Democrats reregistered as Republicans in the state so far this year; in contrast, 15,622 Republicans switched to the Democratic Party, data from the state department shows. The state trend was first reported Tuesday by Newsweek. RAMASWAMY VOWS TO WITHDRAW FROM COLORADO PRIMARY BALLOT UNLESS TRUMP IS ON IT, CALLS ON GOP OPPONENTS TO JOIN Biden’s ties to his home state deepen with wife Jill’s roots in Montgomery County and granddaughter Maisy’s recent graduation from the University of Pennsylvania. On Wednesday, the White House announced that Biden would make his first visit to Philadelphia on Jan. 6. Nathan Benefield, senior vice president of the Commonwealth Foundation — a Pennsylvania-based public policy think tank — said that while Pennsylvania is a swing state, “by all the polling, Joe Biden is unpopular here,” and much of it is attributed to the president’s “Bidenomics.” “Voters are saying they’re not happy with Bidenomics and the economy, and I think that’s reflected in the registration and some of the voting patterns,” Benefield told Fox News Digital in an interview Wednesday. “Whether Trump and Biden are at the top of the ticket or not, I do think it’s going to be pretty much one of the closest states next year,” he said. Benefield suggested that a shift is occurring among blue-collar Democrats in the state, particularly those in the western region who have historically favored Republicans in presidential elections. This change seems to be permeating to lower-level elections, and it’s now becoming evident in their party registration. TRUMP’S REPUBLICAN WHITE HOUSE RIVALS RALLY AROUND FORMER PRESIDENT IN BALLOT BATTLE State voter registration data also indicates a significant trend for both parties, revealing that a substantial number of voters are disassociating themselves from party affiliation. Specifically, 20,908 Democrats and 18,927 Republicans chose to leave their respective party memberships. In 2020, Biden defeated Trump by 1.2 percentage points to reclaim the state for the Democrats that Trump had flipped in 2016. Pennsylvania will have 19 electoral votes up for grabs in 2024 — down one from 2020 — and the latest surveys indicate that Biden is either even with Trump or trailing slightly. In 2020, Trump lost to Biden in Pennsylvania by just under 80,000 votes. VOTING EXTENDED IN CONGOLESE ELECTION AMID POLLING DELAYS Fox News’ Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.
Biden admin launched an aggressive campaign targeting home appliances with eco regulations in 2023
The Biden administration issued numerous energy efficiency regulations in 2023 that it said would lead to reduced carbon emissions and lower prices, but which experts say would lead to higher costs and restrict consumer choice. The regulations, which were largely crafted and finalized by the Department of Energy (DOE), mainly targeted popular home appliances including stove tops, water heaters, furnaces, dishwashers, refrigerators and ceiling fans. Overall, DOE said its finalized and proposed regulations will curb emissions by 2.4 billion metric tons cumulatively over 30 years, supporting President Biden’s “ambitious efforts to tackle the climate crisis.” “At the direction of Congress, DOE is continuing to review and finalize energy standards for household appliances, such as residential furnaces, to lower costs for working families by reducing energy use and slashing harmful pollutants in homes across the nation,” Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said in September. In addition to reducing the U.S. economy’s carbon footprint, DOE said its regulations will further save Americans an estimated $570 billion over three decades. BIDEN ADMIN AIMS TO PUSH TOWNS, CITIES TO ADOPT GREEN ENERGY BUILDING CODES: ‘VERY SUSPICIOUS’ DOE, meanwhile, has pointed to its authority under the 1975 Energy Policy and Conservation Act (EPCA), which established a federal program consisting of test procedures, labeling, and energy targets for consumer products. The 1987 National Appliance Energy Conservation Act then established minimum appliance efficiency standards and requires DOE to periodically update the standards. Then, in the decades that followed, Congress passed additional legislation establishing new appliance standards and requiring DOE to regularly review and update all standards and test procedures. WHITE HOUSE UNVEILS STRICT HYDROGEN REGULATIONS IN VICTORY FOR ENVIRONMENTALISTS “Ostensibly, these DOE efficiency standards are supposed to benefit consumers. That’s the way the law is written,” Ben Lieberman, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, told Fox News Digital in an interview. “But they’re clearly being done as part of the climate agenda, especially this agenda to electrify everything.” Experts, including Lieberman, have repeatedly warned over the last 12 months that the Biden administration’s energy efficiency actions will ultimately harm consumers and drive prices higher since manufacturers will be forced to adopt newer technologies to achieve the standards. In April, Lieberman led a comment letter alongside more than 15 other consumer organizations, arguing DOE’s efficiency standards for stovetops proposed in February “almost certainly compromise some of the features that gas stove users want, and all for the sake of saving an insignificant amount of energy.” According to the agency’s analysis, those standards would effectively ban half of all available stoves. “The agency’s exaggerated claims of climate change benefits do not alter the fact that proposed rule violates the consumer protections in the statute,” the comment letter stated. “For these reasons, we believe the proposed rule should be withdrawn.” JOE MANCHIN VOWS TO FIGHT BIDEN’S WAR ON APPLIANCES: ‘NOT SUPPORTING ANY OF THE CRAZINESS’ In the months after DOE released its proposed stovetop regulations, it proposed regulations in February for clothes washers and refrigerators that it said would reduce emissions by 233 million metric tons; finalized standards for air conditioners in March; proposed regulations cracking down on dishwashers in May; issued a proposal targeting water heaters in July; and proposed standards for furnaces in September. In addition, in November, Biden invoked wartime powers, awarding $169 million to companies to accelerate electric heat pump manufacturing. BIDEN INVOKES WARTIME POWERS TO FUND ELECTRIC HEATERS AS HE CRACKS DOWN ON GAS APPLIANCES And the Environmental Protection Agency recently finalized a rule to push an economy-wide transition to more advanced refrigeration and cooling technologies replacing “climate-damaging” hydrofluorocarbons. Energy experts warned that the EPA’s regulations targeting the chemical will ultimately drive prices higher for new air conditioners and refrigerators, and repairs while harming consumers. “They are trying to reshape the place that you live to make it look like the home they would like you to live in,” O.H. Skinner, the Alliance For Consumers’ executive director, told Fox News Digital in October. “They’re really trying to impose what are progressive preferences from places in coastal enclaves and make it so that everyone has to live like that. And that affects you every day.” “What’s crucial is to understand this administration isn’t just tweaking regulations. They’re doing things that effectively ban whole categories of things that exist on the market,” Skinner continued. “Almost all of these decisions, as you work through it, are influenced by the overall climate agenda and the green agenda and the desire for us to change our lives.” Environmentalists have long argued in favor of appliance and energy efficiency regulations given their high use of electricity and natural gas. Green energy groups have called for the electrification of homes and businesses, reducing reliance on natural gas and simultaneously replacing current fossil fuel-fired power with alternatives like wind and solar. According to federal data, the commercial and residential sector accounts for 30% of total end-use carbon emissions in the U.S., the largest share of any sector including industry, transportation and agriculture.
COVID-19: India logs 702 new cases, 6 deaths in last 24 hours amid JN.1 variant spike
The number of daily cases had dropped to double-digits by December 5, but the cases have again gone up after the emergence of a new variant and cold weather conditions.
Vladimir Putin invites PM Modi to Russia, says ‘will be glad to see…’
During a joint media appearance, Jaishankar expressed confidence that Prime Minister Modi and President Putin would meet for their annual summit next year, highlighting the frequent contact between the two leaders.
Italy to allow Indian students temporary residence after studies under new mobility pact
The agreement, given the green light by the Indian cabinet on Wednesday, is poised to not only strengthen bilateral ties but also address irregular migration.
Chris Christie pushes back on calls to drop out of the race, takes aim at Trump in first major ad blitz
Chris Christie is pushing back against calls from fellow Republicans for the former two-term New Jersey governor to drop out of the GOP presidential nomination race in the first major ad blitz of his 2024 bid. “Some people say I should drop out of this race. Really? I’m the only one saying Donald Trump is a liar,” Christie said while speaking directly to the camera in a spot launching on TV and digital on Thursday. Christie’s campaign said the commercial is the first spot in what they tout as a seven-figure ad buy in New Hampshire, the state that holds the first primary and second overall contest after Iowa’s caucuses in the GOP presidential nominating calendar. As Christie runs a second time for national office, he faces a steep uphill climb against former President Donald Trump, who is the commanding front-runner in the race as he makes his third straight White House bid. Similar to the 2016 cycle, Christie is once again concentrating his time and resources in New Hampshire, where independent voters and moderates have long played a crucial role in the state’s famed primary. CHRISTIE SAYS SUNUNU ENDORSEMENT OF HALEY ‘DOESN’T CHANGE MY STRATEGY’ Christie’s been running a frugal campaign since declaring his candidacy in June – with ads in support of him coming from an aligned super PAC titled Tell It Like It Is – but he has switched into a higher gear in recent weeks, increasing the number of events he’s hosting with Granite State voters. The former governor ran his first TV spot of his campaign earlier this month, which was backed by six-figures. Now, he’s upping the ante by shelling out at least $1 million for commercials. SUNUNU ON HALEY’S 2024 RIVALS: ‘I THINK THEY SHOULD ALL GET OUT’ A Trump ally turned vocal GOP critic, Christie is now taking aim at the former president in his new commercial. Christie charges in his new ad that Trump “pits Americans against each other,” adding that the former president’s Christmas message to anyone who disagrees with him was “rot in he**.” When referring to the Jan. 6, 2021, deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters that temporarily disrupted congressional certification of President Biden’s victory over the then-president in the 2020 election, Christie said: “he caused a riot on Capitol Hill. He’ll burn America to the ground to help himself. Every Republican leader says that in private. I’m the only one saying it in public.” THESE TOP FIVE MOMENTS IN 2023 SHAPED THE 2024 GOP PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY RACE “What kind of President do we want? A liar or someone who has the guts to tell the truth?” Christie asked in the ad. “New Hampshire. It’s up to you. I’m Chris Christie and you bet I approve this message.” Christie’s in third place in many of the most recent polls in New Hampshire, far behind Trump and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who later served as ambassador to the United Nations in the Trump administration. Haley, who has been rising in the polls the past couple of months, enjoyed a surge in the surveys in recent weeks after she landed the endorsement of popular Republican Gov. Chris Sununu of New Hampshire. That sparked calls from some Republican insiders and voters for Christie to end his White House bid in order for the anti-Trump vote to consolidate around Haley. Christie has repeatedly pushed back against the calls by saying he’s the only Trump rival in the race who’s directly taking on the former president. He told Fox News Digital earlier this month that he’s “not going anywhere, so let’s be really clear about that.” Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.
Under the rubble: The missing in Gaza
Every morning, 51-year-old Yasser Abu Shamala goes to the place where his family’s house once stood in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip. He starts digging through the rubble with his bare hands, lifting pieces of concrete to try to find members of his family buried under the debris. Abu Shamala’s family house was bombed by Israeli forces on October 26, demolishing the building and killing his parents, brothers and cousins. The strike killed 22 people with many more trapped under the rubble. Abu Shamala’s family members are among the more than 7,000 people who are reported missing in Gaza, including 4,900 children and women. The missing are believed to be trapped under bombed buildings, according to Hamas officials in Gaza. Despite multiple failed attempts, Abu Shamala refuses to quit and has pledged to continue searching for his relatives and recover their bodies from under the ruins of the house. He hopes he can bury them in a cemetery with proper Islamic rituals. Israel has dropped thousands of bombs on Gaza since October 7, the day the war started with Hamas attacks on southern Israel. The war is believed to be one of the most destructive and fatal in recent times, having killed nearly 21,000 people in Gaza and 1,139 in Israel, wounding nearly 55,000 Palestinians and at least 8,730 in Israel, and destroying or damaging at least 60 percent of Gaza’s residential units. As the war continues, finding and rescuing those trapped under the rubble is becoming increasingly difficult. Adblock test (Why?)
‘Piles of body parts’: Gaza’s Maghazi residents find families ‘in pieces’
Deir el-Balah, Gaza Strip – It has been four days since Gaza’s smallest refugee camp was pounded in yet another series of Israeli air strikes, but Palestinians there are still digging up the bodies of their loved ones from under the rubble. The onslaught in central Gaza’s Maghazi late on Sunday killed at least 90 people, including children and many who were internally displaced. In one of the deadliest attacks on the Gaza Strip since Israel launched a war on the enclave on October 7, residents including Ashraf al-Haj Ahmed said the assault happened “suddenly” and without prior warning. “At around 11:30pm that night, we witnessed a series of large explosions that shook the entire camp,” al-Haj Ahmed told Al Jazeera. At least three homes were completely destroyed [Abdelhakim Abu Riash/Al Jazeera] His relative’s home was among those that were flattened to the ground. Al-Haj Ahmed recalled running towards it as soon as the bombardment woke him up, just a few blocks down. At the scene of the attack, he found a four-storey building destroyed “on top of those who were living in it”. “There must have been around 40 people, among them are the owners of the house, as well as displaced families who were taken in,” he said. At least three houses in the overcrowded camp were hit by Israeli air strikes. Officials in Gaza said seven families were among the casualties. While the official number of those who were killed stands at 90, residents of the camp near Deir el-Balah say in reality, the figure is much higher as entire residential blocks were wiped out. “In each home, there’s a minimum of 50 people,” another Maghazi resident told Al Jazeera. “A lot of them are displaced Palestinians from other parts of Gaza who were forced to flee their homes.” Israel’s attacks have not spared homes and shelters that displaced people have fled to [Abdelhakim Abu Riash/Al Jazeera] The camp normally houses 30,000 people, according to the UN refugee agency for Palestinians (UNRWA). But with the displacement of Palestinians fleeing Israel’s relentless bombardment in other parts of the enclave, the number of people there has risen to an estimated 100,000. “We pulled out so many body parts that we can’t even estimate the total number of deaths yet,” the second resident said. “They’re all in pieces, and we’re pulling them out with our bare hands,” he added. “We’ve now gathered at least two piles of body parts.” ‘Dark and painful night’ Israel’s attacks have not spared homes and shelters that people have fled to. Despite being on the southern side of the Strip, an area that Israeli forces deemed “safe” and ordered civilians from the north to flee ahead of their ground offensive, Maghazi has been subjected to intense artillery and air raids. It was also attacked last month when at least 50 Palestinians were killed. The vicinity of the camp was also subjected to intense Israeli shelling over the last week. Abu Rami Abu al-Ais is among those who have been sheltering in Maghazi ever since he left his home in the al-Zahra neighbourhood. He said Sunday’s attack was not the first time he and his family members had been hit. “We had a home in al-Zahra, which came under attack. After coming here, the house we were staying in was bombed again,” al-Ais, whose daughter is badly injured, told Al Jazeera. More than 21,000 Palestinians have been killed since October 7 [Abdelhakim Abu Riash/Al Jazeera] He echoed al-Haj Ahmed’s experience and said there had been “no warnings whatsoever” prior to the strikes. Al-Ais said in previous assaults on the enclave, Israeli forces would sometimes warn residents of a building to evacuate a few minutes before an attack, either by throwing leaflets or via speakerphones. But during this offensive, there had been no such warnings. “The rockets fall on the heads of innocent people sleeping in their homes,” he said. “They [Israel] want to commit a complete genocide.” Al-Ais said people are still collecting the remains of their friends, neighbours and relatives with their bare hands. “We found the remains of women and children who were blown up. Their body parts have been scattered over a span of about three blocks,” due to the intensity of the strikes, al-Ais said. “It was a very dark and painful night for Maghazi,” he recalled. “The widespread and sheer destruction is indescribable.” Residents of Maghazi refugee camp have called for an urgent ceasefire [Abdelhakim Abu Riash/Al Jazeera] Infrastructure, such as roads leading to the camp, were also destroyed. Al-Ais said there are no excavators that can help speed up the process of recovering people from under the blocks of concrete. The lack of much-needed fuel to operate bulldozers and vehicles means that – just like civil defence teams in Gaza – residents are digging with only their bare hands to try and pull out as many victims from under the rubble as they can. Israel has blocked the entry of fuel since it imposed a total siege on the already blockaded Strip at the start of the war, and has only allowed a very small amount of aid in through the Rafah border crossing. “We don’t need food, we don’t need water, we don’t need coffins,” al-Ais said. “What we need is a ceasefire and for this war to end.” Al-Haj Ahmed, agreed. “Shame on the Arab world. We don’t just need aid, we need you here personally. Come and stand with your brothers,” he said. Attacks on refugee camps and civilian infrastructure have become common since October 7. The Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza has been targeted several times, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of Palestinians. Civilian infrastructure – including schools, hospitals, ambulance vehicles, and places of worship – has also been subjected to bombardment. More than 21,000 Palestinians have been killed since October 7, while nearly 1.9 million – more than 80 percent of the 2.3 million people who live in Gaza – have been displaced. Adblock
No safe place for Palestinians in Gaza as Israel widens offensive
As the Israeli military pounded central and southern Gaza by land, sea and air, Palestinian authorities reported scores of casualties and the United Nations health agency said thousands of people were trying to flee the widening offensive. Residents in the central Gaza Strip said that with nightfall, Israeli tank shelling intensified on Wednesday east of the already overcrowded Bureij, Maghazi and Nuseirat refugee camps where tanks have been trying to force their way through. Israeli army spokesperson Daniel Hagari said that additional reinforcements have been sent into the southern part of the Palestinian territory on the outskirts of Khan Younis. Israeli forces were pressing on with their operations in the northern part of the enclave, leaving hundreds of thousands of fleeing Palestinians with no safe place left to shelter. The World Health Organization (WHO) said its staff had seen thousands of people fleeing heavy strikes in Khan Younis on foot, on donkeys or in cars. Makeshift shelters were being built along the road. “WHO is extremely concerned this fresh displacement of people will further strain health facilities in the south, which are already struggling to meet the population’s immense needs,” said Rik Peeperkorn, WHO representative for the occupied Palestinian territories. “This forced mass movement of people will also lead to more overcrowding, increased risk of infectious diseases and make it even harder to deliver humanitarian aid.” Adblock test (Why?)