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Healthy living, party unity, and ‘time to smell the roses’: Congressional Republicans’ New Year’s resolutions

Healthy living, party unity, and ‘time to smell the roses’: Congressional Republicans’ New Year’s resolutions

Most Americans look at the beginning of a new year as a fresh start, and an opportunity to set goals to better themselves over the next 12 months – and members of Congress are no exception. Like millions of people across the U.S., lawmakers are setting their own New Year’s resolutions, ranging from the professional to the very personal.  House Foreign Affairs Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, who is stepping down from the top spot on the committee after being term-limited, said his resolution was to use his new role as chairman emeritus “to be a strong voice on foreign policy and national security issues.” On a more individual level, McCaul told Fox News Digital he also set a New Year’s resolution for “daily exercise and spending my time on the things most important in life, like family. And taking time to smell the roses.” DANIEL PENNY TO BE TAPPED FOR CONGRESSIONAL GOLD MEDAL BY HOUSE GOP LAWMAKER Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., said her New Year’s resolution involved cleaner eating. “My New Year’s resolution is to not eat anything with seed oils. It’s going to be nearly impossible because they stick them in everything,” she said. Meanwhile, Rep. Pat Fallon, R-Texas, shared a broader goal for unity in 2025 involving his fellow House Republicans – after a 118th Congress marked by historic levels of discord and infighting. “I always said that the Republican conference is a big family,” Fallon said. “We may be dysfunctional at times, but we’re still a family, and my New Year’s resolution is that we can all sing from the same sheet music enough times to make a difference for the American people.” House Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Harris, R-Md., said, “My New Year’s resolution is to help Make America Healthy Again by steering our nutrition policy toward promoting healthy food choices, starting with changes to the food stamp (SNAP) program.” REPUBLICANS GIVE DETAILS FROM CLOSED-DOOR MEETINGS WITH DOGE’S MUSK, RAMASWAMY On the Senate side, lawmakers shared resolutions to forward the GOP agenda. “With a new year, new Congress, and new President, I know we can get America back on track and usher in a new golden era. My 2025 resolutions are to help secure our southern border to make our families and communities safer; return to regular order to cut wasteful spending and ensure Congress is a responsible steward of taxpayer dollars; and pass pro-family tax reform that grows opportunity and prosperity across our nation,” Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., told Fox News Digital. Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, said, “My New Year’s resolution is to become less tolerant of climate alarmism and hasten the demise of the administrative state.” The Republican will chair the energy committee in the new Congress.  Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., revealed his resolution is to “confirm all of Trump’s nominees and secure our borders.”

6 top winners and losers who emerged in politics in 2024

6 top winners and losers who emerged in politics in 2024

Several “winners” and “losers” emerged in 2024 as the year comes to a close after Republicans took control of Congress in the November election and several prominent Democrats ended up on the losing side. WINNER – President-elect Donald Trump Pundits in the media largely wrote Trump off after he left office and argued his political career was over in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot and House impeachments. That critique intensified after he found himself facing indictments in several different jurisdictions and battling with several prominent Republicans during the GOP primary.  However, Trump weathered the political storm while surviving two assassination attempts and won back the White House in November in what many described as the greatest political comeback in American political history. TOP POLITICAL GAFFES OF 2024 Trump will be sworn in as the 47th president of the United States on Jan. 20 for a term that will be bolstered by Republican control of the House and Senate for at least the next two years. LOSER – VP Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz President Biden made history this summer when he dropped out of the presidential race amid pressure from many within his own party and essentially handed the reins to his vice president despite calls to hold an open primary process. After several months of campaigning along with a spending blitz of $1 billion, Harris ultimately failed to make the case to voters that the Biden-Harris administration policies should be continued with four years of a Harris presidency.  Harris lost both the popular vote and the Electoral College to Trump, and Republicans down the ballot secured enough seats to keep control of the House and retake control of the Senate. 2024’S MOST ANNOYING PEOPLE. LEFT AND RIGHT CAN AGREE ON AT LEAST 2 Harris was widely criticized for her decision to select Walz as her running mate, with many political experts making the case that Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro was the optimal choice. Walz had been labeled by many media outlets as a personable and popular governor who brought “Midwestern charm” to the ticket but also consistently brought negative attention to the campaign with a series of gaffes and controversial statements about his past military service.  “Historically, vice presidents have little impact on a presidential candidate’s fate,” Rob Bluey, president and executive editor of the Daily Signal, told Fox News Digital last month.  “But in the case of Tim Walz, it proved to be a disastrous decision that doomed Kamala Harris from the moment she made it. Not only was Walz ill-prepared for the national spotlight and media scrutiny, but Harris passed over several better options. Given how little Americans knew about Harris or her policy positions, they were right to question her judgment on this big decision.” WINNER – Elon Musk The Tesla and SpaceX CEO officially threw his support behind Trump shortly after the former president survived being shot during a failed assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July. Musk quickly became a fixture on the campaign trail and spoke at a rally at the site of the assassination attempt.  “As you can see, I am not just MAGA. I am Dark MAGA,” Musk joked at the rally in October, a nod to the Dark Brandon meme. He called the upcoming Nov. 5 election “the most important election of our lifetime.” Over the past few months, Musk has positioned himself as a key voice in the Trump administration and has been seen at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida several times – some outlets have reported that he is living on the property – and his influence has grown to the point that liberal pundits are accusing him of being the “co-president.” Musk, along with former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, was appointed by Trump to lead the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency, which has already made waves in Washington, D.C., with elected officials on both sides of the aisle supporting the agency’s stated goal of slashing government waste. LOSER – George Soros 2024: THE YEAR PRO-TRUMP CELEBRITIES BECAME MAINSTREAM The Soros money machine that has propped up progressive lawmakers and district attorneys across the country suffered significant losses in blue California on election night as voters overwhelmingly rejected progressives on the issue of crime. California voters overwhelmingly voted in favor of Prop 36 that rolled back key provisions of Proposition 47, which was advertised by Democrats in the state as progressive crime reforms that would make the state safer.  When Proposition 47 passed in 2014, it downgraded most thefts from felonies to misdemeanors if the amount stolen was under $950, “unless the defendant had prior convictions of murder, rape, certain sex offenses, or certain gun crimes.” Progressives suffered another major loss in Los Angeles, where District Attorney George Gascón, who co-authored Prop 47 and was backed by Soros, was defeated by former federal prosecutor Nathan Hochman as crime was seen as a top issue of the election cycle. In another loss for Soros-backed prosecutors in the Golden State, Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price was recalled, less than two years after taking office, after backlash for her alleged soft-on-crime approach. Oakland Democrat Mayor Sheng Thao, who faced heat from her constituents amid rising crime, was also ousted from office after her recall effort passed with 65% of the vote. In San Francisco, where crime has been a major concern with voters, Democrat Mayor London Breed lost her re-election campaign. “I think that this is broader than just a message from people who care about crime,” Cully Stimson, senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation and co-author of the book “Rogue Prosecutors: How Radical Soros Lawyers Are Destroying America’s Communities,” told Fox News Digital. “This is a massive mandate and cry for help from the general population that we want our state back, we want our counties back, and we want our cities back and that our failed social experiments have had enough time, and they’re an absolute, abysmal failure.” WINNER – Vice President-elect JD Vance TRUMP’S CONVINCING 2024 VICTORY SETS HOUSE

The top 5 political stories of 2024

The top 5 political stories of 2024

Politics in 2024 was nothing short of unprecedented.  Now that the U.S. has put a bow on the year, Fox News Digital looks back on the biggest political news stories that turned Washington, D.C., on its head.  The year kicked off with President Biden in the driver’s seat of the Democratic Party as he keyed up a re-election effort in what was shaping up to be a second matchup against now-President-elect Donald Trump.  In February, however, Biden’s 81 years of age and mental acuity fell under public scrutiny after years of conservatives questioning the commander-in-chief’s mental fitness. Special counsel Robert Hur, who was investigating Biden’s alleged mishandling of classified documents as vice president, announced he would not recommend criminal charges against Biden for possessing classified materials after his vice presidency, calling Biden “a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.” The report renewed scrutiny over Biden’s mental acuity, which rose to a fever pitch in June after the president’s first and only presidential debate against Trump.  Biden faced backlash for a handful of gaffes and miscues in the days leading up to his debate against Trump, including former President Obama taking Biden’s wrist and appearing to lead him off a stage during a swank fundraiser, and also abroad when Italian Prime Minister Giogia Meloni guided Biden back to a group of world leaders when he appeared to wander off to give a thumbs-up to a parachutist during the G-7 summit.  When the big debate day arrived, Biden missed his marks repeatedly, tripping over his responses and appearing to lose his train of thought as he squared up against Trump. The disastrous debate performance led to an outpouring of both conservatives and traditional Democrat allies calling on the president to bow out of the race in favor of a younger generation.  CRITICISMS MOUNT THAT BIDEN IS A ‘SHADOW’ OF HIMSELF AFTER DISASTROUS DEBATE: ‘NOT THE SAME MAN’ FROM VP ERA The White House for weeks defiantly insisted that Biden would “absolutely not” drop out of the race, with his communications team and campaign daily combating the claims and speculation. On July 21, Biden issued a tweet that Sunday afternoon announcing he would bow out of the race. Biden endorsed Vice President Harris to pick up the mantle shortly after dropping out of the race in a separate social media post published on X, formerly Twitter.  Biden’s exit from the race, when there were only about 100 days left before Nov. 5, was the first time the presumptive nominee of a major political party withdrew from the election after winning primaries.  Harris soon launched her truncated campaign, flanked by staffers from the Obama administration and campaigns and also a handful of holdovers from Biden’s campaign.  Harris earned the nomination of the party despite not running in the primaries, sparking some calls, including from Democrats, that the process was “undemocratic.” High-profile Democrats from the Obamas to the Clintons threw their support behind Harris, while former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said Harris’ nomination was fair by arguing the nomination process was “open” and Harris “won it.”  “We do not live in a dictatorship,” left-wing group Black Lives Matter declared over the summer. “Delegates are not oligarchs. Installing Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee and an unknown vice president without any public voting process would make the modern Democratic Party a party of hypocrites.” Harris previously ran for the White House during the 2020 election cycle, but she dropped out in early December 2019, two months before the 2020 Iowa caucuses. BLACK LIVES MATTER SAYS DEMS ARE ‘PARTY OF HYPOCRITES’ FOR ‘INSTALLING’ HARRIS SANS ‘PUBLIC VOTING PROCESS’ Before Trump was elected president, he faced two assassination attempts in July and September that rocked voters and the election cycle.  Trump took the stage at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13 for what was intended to be a rally in the crucial swing state. Then shots rang out.  Trump was seen dropping to the ground during the rally before he quickly stood up, a bloodied ear apparent, while surrounded by Secret Service agents. “Fight, fight, fight,” Trump was seen shouting to the crowd with a raised fist as he was escorted off the stage.  One man, Corey Comperatore, lost his life while protecting his family from the attack, and two other people were seriously injured.  The would-be assassin, Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, was shot and killed by a Secret Service sniper.  TRUMP SAYS HE ‘PROBABLY TOOK A BULLET TO THE HEAD’ DUE TO DEM RHETORIC The attack unfolded just days before the Republican National Convention kicked off in Milwaukee. Despite initial speculation the RNC would be upended by the attempt, Trump appeared throughout the week with a patch over his injured right ear before formally accepting the nomination in a speech.  “The amazing thing is that prior to the shot, if I had not moved my head at that very last instant, the assassin’s bullet would have perfectly hit its mark and I would not be here tonight. We would not be together,” Trump said in his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention.  “Bullets were flying over us, yet I felt serene. But now the Secret Service agents were putting themselves in peril. They were in very dangerous territory,” Trump continued. “Bullets were flying right over them, missing them by a very small amount of inches. And then it all stopped. Our Secret Service sniper, from a much greater distance and with only one bullet used, took the assassin’s life, took him out.” Weeks later, on Sept. 15, Trump faced an assassination attempt while golfing at his Trump International Golf Club in Florida.  Trump was safely escorted from the green at his golf club in West Palm Beach that Sunday afternoon after suspect Ryan Routh allegedly pointed a rifle toward the 45th president just outside the perimeter of the club. Routh fled the scene but was apprehended shortly thereafter on I-95.  Routh allegedly waited in the bushes near Trump’s

Panama commemorates canal handover despite Trump’s call for US control

Panama commemorates canal handover despite Trump’s call for US control

Top political leaders in Panama have held a ceremony to mark the 25th anniversary of the return of the Panama Canal after decades of United States control. But the celebration took place under a pall, as US President-elect Donald Trump continued calls for his country to reassert dominance over the pivotal waterway, which connects the Pacific Ocean to the Caribbean Sea. Panamanian President Jose Raul Mulino, a right-leaning leader like Trump, was among the speakers at Tuesday’s main ceremony in the capital Panama City. He reassured spectators that the Panama Canal would remain in his country’s possession, dismissing Trump’s remarks without mentioning the US leader by name. “There are no hands involved in the canal other than Panama’s,” Mulino said. “Rest assured, it will be in our hands forever.” But Trump has increasingly pushed for US governance over the canal as part of his broader expansionist rhetoric. President Jose Raul Mulino attends a ceremony to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the US ceding control of the Panama Canal in 1999 [Aris Martinez/Reuters] Earlier this month, Trump teased that Canada should become the 51st US state, and he repeated his desire to buy Greenland, an idea he floated during his first term in office. Advertisement But as Trump prepares for a second term on January 20, he has alarmed some observers with threats to potentially wrest the Panama Canal back from Panama’s control. On December 21, in a post on his online platform Truth Social, Trump accused Panamanian officials of exacting “exorbitant prices” for passage in the canal. The canal allows cargo ships to pass from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean without having to navigate all the way around South America, a perilous route that stretches thousands of kilometres. But the canal has seen increased traffic in recent decades. It has also suffered a severe drought that stymied travel through its system of locks: water chambers that lift boats up and down when the surrounding land is not level. In his posts, however, Trump indicated that Panama was violating a 1977 agreement that established conditions for the canal to shift from the US to Panamanian hands. “This complete ‘rip-off’ of our Country will immediately stop,” Trump wrote in the first of two lengthy posts. In the second, he continued with a warning. “If the principles, both moral and legal, of this magnanimous gesture of giving are not followed, then we will demand that the Panama Canal be returned to us, in full, and without question,” he wrote. “To the Officials of Panama, please be guided accordingly.” Institutional security officers stand during a ceremony to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the return of the Panama Canal on December 31 [Aris Martinez/Reuters] A history of control Building the canal through the isthmus of Panama had long been an ambition of Western colonial powers. Advertisement In the late 1800s, for instance, the US made overtures to construct the canal in Panama — part of Colombia at the time — but the South American country refused the deal. When Panama later declared independence, the US quickly supported its secession. The US was the first country to recognise Panama as its own state. In return for US support, Panama granted the North American country the right to build the canal and oversee the land surrounding it. That area became known as the Panama Canal Zone. But critics saw the agreement as a violation of Panama’s sovereignty. Ultimately, in 1977, then-US President Jimmy Carter signed two treaties to engineer the return of the canal and its surrounding lands. That transfer took effect on December 31, 1999, exactly 25 years ago. Carter died on Sunday, just shy of the anniversary. Mulino paid tribute to the late US president on Tuesday by holding a moment of silence. In his speech, Mulino described feeling a “mix of happiness for this 25th anniversary” and “sadness” over Carter’s death. A man on December 31 holds up a newspaper published decades earlier on January 1, 2000, announcing the transfer of the canal to the government of Panama [Aris Martinez/Reuters] Remembering ‘martyrs’ Tuesday’s celebrations also acknowledged the protesters who died advocating for the canal’s return to Panamanian control. Among the honoured were the more than 20 participants killed in a student protest on January 9, 1964. That day, known in Panama as the Martyrs Day, saw students try to raise a Panamanian flag alongside a US one at a high school in the canal zone. Violence erupted, resulting in the deaths of the protesters as well as four US soldiers. Advertisement In recent days, Trump has accused Panama of violating the terms of the canal’s return, by allegedly allowing Chinese soldiers to operate the shipping route. But Panama’s officials have denied that China has any influence over the canal. Jorge Luis Quijano, who served as the canal’s administrator from 2014 to 2019, was quoted in The Associated Press as saying that Trump has no legal basis for his claims to the canal. “There’s no clause of any kind in the neutrality agreement that allows for the taking back of the canal,” Quijano said. Adblock test (Why?)

In India’s east, farmers risk jail to grow lucrative cannabis crop

In India’s east, farmers risk jail to grow lucrative cannabis crop

Odisha, India – Ajay Rout is an Indigenous farmer in a remote village in a southern district of India’s Odisha state. The village is surrounded by forest and hills with the nearest market 10km (6.2 miles) away. The 34-year-old grows sweetcorn and vegetables on his 0.2 hectares (0.5 acres) for both his family to eat and to sell at the market. Rout said this income is a pittance, so he has taken up growing cannabis, a banned drug, for a better income. He has about 1,000 cannabis plants located deep in the hills, which require a trek of at least two hours each way to get to because the path is full of boulders and rocks, making it almost impossible for him to ride his bicycle or motorcycle. The cultivation of cannabis – also known as hemp, marijuana, weed and ganja – is legal for medicinal use in only several states, including Uttarakhand, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Jammu. Odisha is not one of them. India had no legislation on narcotic substances until November 1985 when it brought in a law including a ban on the use of cannabis. Advertisement The Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985, makes it illegal for a person to cultivate, possess, sell, buy and consume narcotic and psychotropic substances and doing so can lead to severe fines and imprisonment of up to 20 years. Risky but profitable Rout, who has been in this business for the past eight years, served three months in prison in 2017 and has been out on bail ever since. The income from the business, huge for him, overcomes the fear of being involved in it. Brick houses are replacing mud houses in tribal areas in Odisha state [Gurvinder Singh/Al Jazeera] “We live in a hilly terrain where traditional farming has a very limited scope. I hardly earn 30,000 rupees [$357] a year by growing vegetables and sweetcorn whereas I can easily make 500,000 rupees [$5,962] in just five to six months in cannabis cultivation,” he told Al Jazeera after being assured that his real name would not be disclosed. Rout said he and other cannabis growers generally choose remote locations in the hills for their plantations to protect themselves from police raids. “We are lucky to live amidst hills as cops don’t raid here as the path is too difficult to trek and reach the plantation area,” he said. The planting season starts at the end of July. Typically, it takes five months for the flowers to grow, which are then plucked, dried under the sun, packed and sold to traders. An 8- to 10ft-tall (2.4- to 3-metre-tall) plant produces 1kg (2.2lb) of cannabis at a cost of about 500 to 600 rupees ($5.8 to $7) per kilogramme. Farmers sell that to traders for 1,000 to 1,500 rupees ($12 to $18) per kilogramme. Advertisement “But all the trees do not give similar production and most of them bear no flowers at all. Excessive rains are harmful for the crop,” said Deepankar Nayak, 37, a farmer. Change in lifestyle Cannabis cultivation, even though banned in Odisha, is a highly lucrative business for the farmers and has brought them overnight riches. Subhankar Das, 38, who lives in the same village as Rout, told Al Jazeera that he recently changed the flooring in his house from concrete to marble tiles with the income from the illegal trade. He has also bought three motorcycles. His children are enrolled in local language schools, but he is planning to shift them to English language schools, which are a lot more expensive. “I can even buy four-wheelers and can build a palatial house, but we have to refrain from such activities as it would bring us on the radar of cops who are always on alert to nab us and destroy our fields,” Das added. “Still, some among us have purchased four-wheelers.” NK Nandi, founder of SACAL, a nonprofit working in weed-growing districts, said he has witnessed the change in the lifestyle of the farmers. “We started work in 2000 in the districts where cannabis is grown and the locals, mostly tribal, hardly had two-wheelers and lived in mud houses. The marriages were simple and as per their tribal traditions. But everything has undergone a sea change in the past eight to 10 years,” Nandi said. “Each tribal family has not only purchased two to three motorcycles but has also built concrete houses. They carry out marriage ceremonies like they are done in other parts of the country and spend lavishly and invite several guests. The decline of rebel insurgent activities in these areas along with better transport connectivity has also helped traders to reach them,” helping expand the market for this banned product, he said. Advertisement Police raids Cannabis cultivation is currently active in six districts of Odisha state: Koraput, Malkangiri, Rayagada, Gajapati, Boudh and Kandhamal, all of which have mountainous and hilly terrain. Police with seized cannabis [Courtesy of Odisha Police] Senior state police officials told Al Jazeera they are putting in their best effort to stop the illegal trade and have seized about 600 tonnes of cannabis in the three years until 2023, goods worth $200m, and have also arrested 8,500 drug traffickers. Of that drug haul, police got their largest one-time catch last year when they seized 185,400kg (408,737lb) of cannabis worth about $55m. The police have also destroyed about 28,000 hectares (70,000 acres) of cannabis plantations in Odisha from 2021 to 2023, the highest for cannabis in the country, JN Pankaj, a former inspector general of the Special Task Force of the Odisha Police, told Al Jazeera. In the first seven months of 2024, his team seized 102,200kg (225,312lb) of cannabis worth about $30m, he said. “We use drones and even satellite images to track the planting areas and destroy them. The challenge for us is not the hilly terrains but the use of landmine explosives in these areas,” which have traditionally been hideouts for rebel groups, Pankaj said, adding: