Donald Trump campaigned as the master deal-maker, a guy who could come to Washington, knock a few heads and get the government working again.
But on the anniversary of Trump’s inauguration, America awoke to a government shutdown — a dramatic testament to dysfunction, partisan gridlock and failed leadership.
There was a lot at stake: for the public, for House Republicans who fear losing their majority, for Senate Democrats whose incumbents will now have to defend their votes and the shutdown to constituents, and for Trump, whose approval ratings have languished below 40 percent.
But as federal spending authority expired at midnight Saturday, the nation’s top elected officials sent the election-year message that they’re less concerned with performing the most basic task of governance than catering to the demands of partisans.
In what is being described as a “first,” lifeguards successfully deployed a drone to rescue two boys in trouble while swimming off the eastern coast of Australia Thursday.
It was all a bit of serendipity, too. Members of the Australian Lifeguard Service just happened to be training with the drone — which is being developed to spot sharks — when they got word that the swimmers were having difficulty nearby as they encountered a 9-foot swell in rough surf conditions, according to the surf lifesaving website in New South Wales.
And the man piloting the drone at the time just happened to be Jai Sheridan, the 2017 New South Wales Lifeguard of the Year.
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The Westpac Little Ripper UAV and Rescue Pod at Bilgola Beach in New South Wales, Australia, used to drop the flotation device. (Westpac Little Ripper via AP)
The Global Positioning System (GPS) has been among the most far-reaching innovations of the past 50 years. Operated by the U.S. Air Force, the technology uses satellite signals to determine a precise location and synchronize time around the world. It’s been instrumental in the development of everything from drones and mobile maps to the infrastructure of our modern financial system and utility grid.
GPS doesn’t come from your phone. Few realize that it’s a complex network, comprising a constellation of advanced satellites in orbit, a sophisticated ground control system and signal receivers that today serve over a billion military, commercial and civilian users. The Air Force now is engaged in a major modernization program that will give the system even more advanced capabilities.
A critical component to this modernization is a new generation of satellites, known as “GPS III.” Developed by Lockheed Martin, GPS III is not just an upgrade but an entirely new, more resilient design to produce the most powerful GPS satellites ever. GPS III surpasses any of its predecessors with greater accuracy, improved anti-jamming capability and a longer on-orbit life. The pathbreaking technology will for the first time provide users around the world with greater connectivity by leveraging other global navigation satellite infrastructures.
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The next generation of GPS will bring even more advanced capabilities for a safer world.
Cindy Garcia has had a long, exhausting and life-changing week. And by all appearances, the whirlwind is going to continue.
On Monday morning, she watched immigration agents escort Jorge Garcia, her husband of 15 years, through the security gates at Detroit Metropolitan Airport, deporting him to Mexico after nearly three decades living and raising a family in Michigan.
Video of Cindy Garcia and the couple’s two adolescent children sobbing as they said goodbye grabbed national headlines. Supporters held up the family’s experience as an example of the far-reaching effects of President Trump’s sweeping crackdown on undocumented immigration. Observers across the political spectrum took notice. “Surely this should not be happening,” tweeted Bill Kristol, editor of the right-leaning Weekly Standard.
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Jorge Garcia poses with his wife, Cindy Garcia, in Detroit on Jan. 15 at a farewell party before he was deported to Mexico. (Niraj Warikoo /Detroit Free Press via AP)
Dolores O’Riordan, the lead singer of the Irish rock band the Cranberries, died on Monday in London. She was 46.
Her death was announced by her publicist, who did not specify the cause.
“Irish and international singer Dolores O’Riordan has died suddenly in London today,” Lindsey Holmes, the publicist, said in an emailed statement, adding that Ms. O’Riordan had been in London for a recording session.
The statement said that family members are “devastated to hear the breaking news and have requested privacy at this very difficult time.”
A spokeswoman for the Metropolitan Police said on Monday that the police were called to a Park Lane hotel in Westminster at about 9:05 a.m., and that Ms. O’Riordan was pronounced dead at the scene. Her death is not being treated as suspicious.
Lawmakers appeared a little closer Wednesday to passing yet another short-term spending bill to keep the government open, but as Senate Democrats looked increasingly likely to cave, conservatives in the House looked increasingly likely to fight ― or at least get some concessions. And depending on what demands GOP leaders give in to, those changes could still throw the Senate into chaos and the government into a shutdown.
House Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) emerged from a meeting with Chief Deputy Whip Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) on Wednesday night saying House Republicans don’t yet have the votes to pass another short-term spending fix, called a continuing resolution (CR).
“At this point, if the vote were to happen today, there’s not the votes to fund it with Republican-only votes,” Meadows told reporters Wednesday night.
Still, Meadows said they were making “good progress,” and he expected leadership to have some accommodation for conservatives.
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Bill Clark via Getty Images
Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, said a short-term spending bill is on shaky ground. “At this point, if the vote were to happen today, there’s not the votes to fund it with Republican-only votes.”
Only three people have a US national holiday observed in their honor: Christopher Columbus, George Washington, and the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr. Day is celebrated on the third Monday in January each year (near his Jan. 15 birthday) to honor his legacy in battling for civil rights. The fight to create a national holiday was a massive struggle, one that required the same commitment as the movement to guarantee the rights of all Americans: community organizing, long-term determination, and relentless persistence.
King was assassinated in 1968. The legislation designating the federal holiday in his honor wasn’t passed for another 15 years, and the day wasn’t officially commemorated until 1986. And even as King’s work continues to inspire generations of leaders, the fight for universal recognition of the holiday in the US still isn’t over.
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King never stopped fighting, and neither did his supporters. (Associated Press)
White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly told Democratic lawmakers Wednesday that some of the hard-line immigration policies President Trump advocated during the campaign were “uninformed,” that the United States will never construct a wall along its entire southern border and that Mexico will never pay for it, according to people familiar with the meeting.
The comments were out of sync with remarks by Trump, who in recent days has reiterated his desire to build a border wall that would be funded by Mexico “indirectly through NAFTA.”
The mixed signals underscore the difficulty congressional Republicans have faced as they have tried to decipher what the president wants in an immigration deal. And they have contributed to tensions over how to resolve the legal status of immigrants, known as “dreamers,” brought to the country illegally as children.
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White House Chief of Staff John Kelly arrives at the Capitol on Wednesday for a meeting with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. (Susan Walsh/AP)
In this remote outpost in Siberia, the cold is no small affair.
Eyelashes freeze, frostbite is a constant danger and cars are usually kept running even when not being used, lest their batteries die in temperatures that average minus-58 degrees Fahrenheit in the winter, according to news reports.
This is Oymyakon, a settlement of some 500 people in Russia’s Yakutia region, that has earned the reputation as the coldest permanently occupied human settlement in the world.
It is not a reputation that has been won easily. Earlier this week, a cold snap sent temperatures plunging toward record lows, with reports as extreme as minus-88 degrees Fahrenheit. The village recorded an all-time low of minus-98 degrees in 2013.
Though schools in the area remain open as temperatures dip into the minus-40s, they were closed on Tuesday, the Associated Press reported.
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The coldest village on Earth reached minus -88 degrees. Here are three of the coldest places on Earth to live.(Elyse Samuels/The Washington Post)
Film and Writing Festival for Comedy. Showcasing best of comedy short films at the FEEDBACK Film Festival. Plus, showcasing best of comedy novels, short stories, poems, screenplays (TV, short, feature) at the festival performed by professional actors.
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Dolores O’Riordan
