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A Louisiana man was sentenced to 45 years in federal prison for kidnapping and attempting to murder a gay teen as part of a broader hate crime scheme targeting men on an LGBTQ dating app, the Justice Department announced Wednesday. His decadeslong sentencing rested on a variety of factors, the Justice Department revealed, including that Seneca intentionally targeted the teen and other gay men because of their sexual orientation. Within days of his assault on White, Seneca allegedly attempted to kidnap a different man and allegedly kidnapped another, the Justice Department said in a previous statement. The Louisiana case is one of several where people have used Grindr, a dating app founded in 2009 that is predominantly used by gay men, to target LGBTQ people around the world. In 2018, it was widely reported that Egyptian authorities and residents were using Grindr and other dating apps to entrap and persecute gay men.

☆ Storms in California have led to high snowpack and great skiing conditions — but the deluge still may not be enough to fill the state's empty reservoirs after years of drought
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-06 | by ( Kelsey Vlamis | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

California has faced heavy precipitation in recent weeks, leading to a high snowpack. The snowpack provides a third of California's water needs, but it's too soon to assess the impact on the drought. The snowpack in the Sierra Nevada, the mountain range that runs along the eastern part of the state, is often called California's "frozen reservoirs." Though the high snowpack this early in the season is promising, if the precipitation doesn't continue, it may not be enough to significantly address the drought. "It's great for the state of California to get out of this drought, and it's great for skiing."

WASHINGTON — Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., on Tuesday became the first female Senate president pro tempore, the second-highest-ranking position in the chamber. The president pro tempore ranks second under the president of the Senate — the vice president — and presides over the floor in the vice president's absence. Since the mid-20th century, the president pro tempore has been the senior member of the majority party out of tradition. "Making history today: Senator Patty Murray is now the Senate President Pro Tempore, the first woman in the history of the U.S. Senate to hold this title!" Murray succeeds Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., 82, as president pro tempore, who retired from Congress at the end of the year after serving in the Senate since 1975.

WASHINGTON — Patrick Leahy was swept into the Senate nearly a half-century ago in the wake of the Watergate scandal and President Richard Nixon’s resignation and pardon. Ron Frehm / APSen. Leahy take photos on the inaugural stand during Barack Obama's presidential inauguration at the Capitol on Jan. 21, 2013. Let’s stay here and vote where we can be seen.”Sen. Leahy, D-Vt., walks to the Senate Chamber on Jan. 6, 2021. Ira Schwarz / APSupreme Court nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayor is sworn in by committee chairman Sen. Leahy, D-Vt., during her confirmation hearing in 2009 in Washington. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., and Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., in the Senate subway.

☆ CIOs Nominate Their Favorite Reads of 2022
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-28 | by ( Tom Loftus | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +9 min

Chief information officers, ever alert to any development in a field that only hurtles forward, largely reflected that alacrity in their choice of reading during 2022. PREVIEWChris Bedi, chief digital information officer, ServiceNow Inc. Photo: IBM Corp.Ron Guerrier, chief information officer, HP Inc. Photo: Cisco Systems Inc.Fletcher Previn, chief information officer, Cisco Systems Inc. Photo: Home Depot Inc.Fahim Siddiqui, chief information officer, Home Depot Inc.

☆ West backs Nigeria's war on extremists, and backs off on human rights
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-28 | by ( Reuters Graphic | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +21 min

“While respect for human rights is unquestionably a high priority, we have many other equities at stake,” McCulley wrote. He said the focus on human rights had sent relations between the two countries into the “lowest ebb” in his three years there. Nigeria’s human rights record wasn’t only a moral issue – it was a legal one. Working under these laws provided “openings to incentivise and institutionalise” human rights protections within the Nigerian military, the State Department said. The pact also noted that London and Abuja had agreed on an “enhanced human rights dialogue” to ensure compliance with international rights standards.

Its failure to pass a funding bill on time, which is becoming a norm, meant that the government had to function on temporary extensions of last year's funding levels, which Democrats and Republicans alike say poses threats to national security. House Republicans oppose the bill, arguing it is too bloated and was crafted in secrecy among top congressional leaders. The 4,155-page bill was passed on Thursday in the Senate on a bipartisan vote of 68-29. The legislation would provide the Defense Department with a record $858 billion, up from $740 billion last year. It is an investment in the global security and democracy that we handle in the most responsible way," Zelenskiy, told a joint meeting of Congress.

[1/2] The U.S. Capitol is seen as Congress continues work on passing a $1.66 trillion government funding bill in Washington, U.S., December 21, 2022. REUTERS/Kevin LamarqueWASHINGTON, Dec 22 (Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives on Friday will vote on a $1.66 trillion government funding bill that provides more money for Ukraine's defense, restricts the Chinese-owned TikTok app and reforms presidential election certification, a top Democrat said. 2 House Democrat Steny Hoyer said the lower chamber would not take up the legislation until Friday morning as it performed some final legislative actions to pass it. "As soon as we get the document ... we will proceed as quickly as possible," he said on the House floor. House Republicans wanted to delay negotiations on the full-year legislation until early next year, after they take the majority.

☆ Democrats fret as Biden tries to bolster re-election case touting legislative wins
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-22 | by ( Peter Nicholas | Https | Media-Cldnry.S-Nbcnews.Com Image Upload Newscms Carol-Lee-Circle-Byline-Template.Jpg | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +8 min

WASHINGTON — As 2022 draws to a close, President Joe Biden plans to give an upbeat national address Thursday afternoon with a unifying message. Biden would be traveling the country touting reduced insulin prices and new road projects, while House Republicans hold hearings into obscure conspiracy theories. The first is Biden runs and loses, perhaps to a younger Republican opponent who eclipses Trump as the new GOP favorite. His top aides have been meeting privately with left-leaning interest groups urging them to go out and showcase Biden’s record. “President Biden became the first president since FDR in 1934 to not lose a single incumbent United States Senate seat” in the midterms, Donilon wrote.

☆ Senate passes $1.7 trillion government funding bill, teeing up House vote
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-22 | by ( Christina Wilkie | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

WASHINGTON — The Senate approved a $1.7 trillion government funding bill on Thursday, sending the legislation to the House, where it is expected to pass in time to beat a Friday night deadline to avert a partial federal government shutdown. The 4,155-page bill will provide $772.5 billion for non-defense discretionary programs, and $858 billion in defense funding, according to summary released earlier this week by Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. The total includes funds to replenish Pentagon stockpiles of weapons the U.S. sent sent to Ukraine, along with additional aid for NATO allies. The Senate vote came one day after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy traveled to Washington and delivered an historic speech to a special joint meeting of Congress. Dressed in military fatigues and boots, he urged lawmakers to keep funding his country's "war of independence" against invading Russian forces.

[1/2] Former acting chief editor of Stand News Patrick Lam leaves the court after release on bail over his charge of conspiring to publish "Seditious Publications" in Hong Kong, China November 7, 2022. REUTERS/Tyrone SiuHONG KONG, Dec 22 (Reuters) - A Hong Kong Court on Thursday rejected an application to terminate a sedition trial against now-defunct online media outlet Stand News, a case that could see two former top editors jailed if convicted. Former editors Chung Pui-kuen, 53, and Patrick Lam, 35, and the outlet's parent company, Best Pencil (Hong Kong) Limited, have been charged with conspiracy to publish seditious material related to news articles and commentaries between July 2020 and December last year. Hong Kong's government has said press freedom is enshrined in the city's mini-constitution, the Basic Law. Reporting by Jessie Pang and Darerca Siu; Editing by Stephen CoatesOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

WASHINGTON, Dec 20 (Reuters) - Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. Congress were moving forward with a $1.66 trillion government funding bill, scrambling to pass a measure, which includes record military spending, before temporary funding runs out on Friday. The total funding proposed by the sweeping bill, released early on Tuesday, is up from the approximately $1.5 trillion the previous year. This money would be on top of the record $858 billion in military spending for the year, which is up from last year's $740 billion and also exceeds Biden's request. On the non-defense side of the ledger, the bill's negotiators have set funding at $800 billion, a $68 billion increase over the previous year. This was the second year in a row Congress included funding for hundreds of largely unrelated projects requested by individual lawmakers.

WASHINGTON, Dec 20 (Reuters) - Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. Congress were moving forward with a $1.66 trillion government funding bill, scrambling to pass the measure, which includes record military spending, before temporary funding runs out at the end of the week. The total funding proposed by the bill is up from the approximately $1.5 trillion appropriated the previous year. Democrats and Republicans alike had aimed to tuck as many legislative wish-list items as possible into the "omnibus" bill funding the government through the end of this fiscal year on Sept. 30, 2023, without derailing the whole package. Negotiators worked through the weekend to put the finishing touches on the bill, which still could be amended by the full House or Senate. Among the most significant add-ons is the bipartisan Electoral Count Act, which overhauls and clarifies Congress' certification process for presidential elections.

☆ Lawmakers Boost Military, Domestic Spending in Omnibus Bill
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-20 | by ( Siobhan Hughes | Lindsay Wise | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +1 min

Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy said the bill ‘directly invests in providing relief from the burden of inflation on the American people.’WASHINGTON—Lawmakers early Tuesday unveiled a wide-ranging spending bill for fiscal 2023 with sharp increases in military and domestic funding, kicking off a sprint to pass the bill before Christmas in the last act of the Democratic-controlled Congress. The bill, the product of months of behind-the-scenes haggling, also carries an additional $44.9 billion in aid to help Ukraine and North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies, $40.6 billion for disasters such as drought and hurricanes, as well as funds earmarked for projects in lawmakers’ home districts. It includes changes to the 1887 Electoral Count Act that would make it harder to block the certification of a presidential election, widens a ban on TikTok on government devices, and extends a Dec. 27 deadline for Boeing Co. to secure federal safety approvals for two new versions of the 737 MAX airplane.

It could be the last major bill that passes this year before Republicans seize control of the House on Jan. 3. He has pressured GOP lawmakers to vote against it, forcing Democrats to supply most of the votes to pass it in the House. Capitol Hill leaders decided to attach the election bill and Ukraine aid to ease the process of passage, on the belief that the combined package has the votes to pass. For Republicans, one incentive to pass the bill now is that it funds the military at a higher level than the nondefense budget. “This is a strong outcome for Republicans,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said, arguing that the GOP persuaded Democrats to back down on their long-standing demand for “parity” between the two pots of money.

☆ Lawmakers Boost Military, Domestic Spending in $1.65 Trillion Omnibus Bill
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-20 | by ( Siobhan Hughes | Lindsay Wise | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +1 min

Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy said the bill ‘directly invests in providing relief from the burden of inflation on the American people.’WASHINGTON—Lawmakers early Tuesday unveiled a wide-ranging, $1.65 trillion spending bill for fiscal 2023 with sharp increases in military and domestic funding, kicking off a sprint to pass the bill before Christmas in the last act of the Democratic-controlled Congress. The bill, the product of months of behind-the-scenes haggling, also carries an additional $44.9 billion in aid to help Ukraine and North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies, $40.6 billion for disasters such as drought and hurricanes, as well as funds earmarked for projects in lawmakers’ home districts. It includes changes to the 1887 Electoral Count Act that would make it harder to block the certification of a presidential election, widens a ban on TikTok on government devices, and extends a Dec. 27 deadline for Boeing Co. to secure federal safety approvals for two new versions of the 737 MAX airplane.

☆ The Year in Pictures 2022
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-19 | by ( The New York Times | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +57 min

Every year, starting in early fall, photo editors at The New York Times begin sifting through the year’s work in an effort to pick out the most startling, most moving, most memorable pictures. But 2022 undoubtedly belongs to the war in Ukraine, a conflict now settling into a worryingly predictable rhythm. Erin Schaff/The New York Times “When you’re standing on the ground, you can’t visualize the scope of the destruction. Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times Kyiv, Ukraine, Feb. 25. We see the same images over and over, and it’s really hard to make anything different.” Kyiv, Ukraine, Feb 26.

☆ U.S. wrongly revoked Oppenheimer security clearance: Biden admin
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-17 | by ( ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +2 min

The Biden administration on Friday reversed a 1954 decision by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) to revoke the security clearance of Robert Oppenheimer, known as the “father of the atomic bomb” for his work on the Manhattan Project. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said in a written order that the since-dissolved AEC acted out of political motives when it revoked Oppenheimer’s security clearance nearly 70 years ago. He oversaw the first atomic bomb detonation in the New Mexico desert, code-named “Trinity,” before the weapons were used in the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Following the war, Oppenheimer opposed nuclear proliferation and development of the hydrogen bomb, stances that Granholm suggested in her order led the AEC to revoke his security clearance. of Energy Granholm for vacating the AEC’s flawed 1954 decision to revoke Robt Oppenheimer’s security clearance,” Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont said on Twitter.

☆ Biden admin says U.S. wrongly revoked Oppenheimer's security clearance in 1954
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-16 | by ( Dan Whitcomb | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Dec 16 (Reuters) - The Biden administration on Friday reversed a 1954 decision by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) to revoke the security clearance of Robert Oppenheimer, known as the "father of the atomic bomb" for his work on the Manhattan Project. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said in a written order that the since-dissolved AEC acted out of political motives when it revoked Oppenheimer's security clearance nearly 70 years ago. He oversaw the first atomic bomb detonation in the New Mexico desert, code-named "Trinity", before the weapons were used in the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Following the war, Oppenheimer opposed nuclear proliferation and development of the hydrogen bomb, stances that Granholm suggested in her order led the AEC to revoke his security clearance. of Energy Granholm for vacating the AEC’s flawed 1954 decision to revoke Robt Oppenheimer’s security clearance," Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont said on Twitter.

WASHINGTON — The Senate voted Thursday to pass a one-week stopgap bill to temporarily avert a government shutdown as congressional leaders finish work on a full-year government funding package. Just nine House Republicans joined a unanimous Democratic caucus to vote for the measure, an indication of the narrow margins House Democrats will face in trying to pass the full-year funding bill. On Tuesday, Capitol Hill leaders reached agreement on a bipartisan framework for a massive government funding bill to address modern needs and prevent federal agencies from functioning on autopilot, as they have for months awaiting congressional action. To become law, the bill requires a simple majority in the House and at least 10 Republicans to break a filibuster in the Democratic-led Senate. His leadership team was also encouraging GOP members to vote the stopgap bill down this week.

☆ Elon Musk’s Twitter blocked links to rival Mastodon. That could raise alarms among regulators
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-16 | by ( Brian Fung | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +8 min

Soon, however, Twitter began throwing up roadblocks — marking links to Mastodon as “unsafe” and potentially malicious, blocking tweets containing those links and preventing users from adding Mastodon links to their profiles. Now, legal experts are pondering whether there may be anticompetitive or other regulatory implications arising from Twitter’s blocking of Mastodon links. Eugen Rochko, the founder and CEO of Mastodon, has not publicly addressed Twitter’s link blocking, but has amplified a public report about it. Baer added that Twitter’s link blocking doesn’t just raise potential competition concerns. And prior to Thursday, there did not appear to be grounds for Twitter to claim that Mastodon links were unsafe.

☆ Congressional negotiators reach bipartisan agreement on framework for funding deal
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-14 | by ( Zoë Richards | Zoë Richards Is The Evening Politics Reporter For Nbc News. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +1 min

Congressional leaders reached a bipartisan deal Tuesday on the framework for a massive government funding package they hope to pass before the holidays. "The pain of inflation is real, and it is being felt across the federal government and by American families right now. Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., is the vice chair of the Senate Appropriation Committee. “If all goes well, we should be able to finish an omnibus appropriations package by December 23rd," Shelby said. Funding is set to expire Friday, but senators had been eyeing a one-week stopgap bill to push the deadline back to Dec. 23 to give negotiators more time to pursue a full-year funding agreement.

"If all goes well, we should be able to finish an omnibus appropriations package by Dec. 23," Shelby said in a statement. The full-year "omnibus" bill is also expected to contain new emergency funds to aid Ukraine in its battle against Russian forces. It also is expected to fold in an unrelated bill reforming the way Congress certifies U.S. presidential elections. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell had said his Republicans want work on the omnibus bill wrapped up by Dec. 22. Any negotiations on the funding bill would get more complicated next year, when Republicans take majority control of the House.

☆ There is a spending outline in Congress. Now what?
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-14 | by ( Lauren Fox | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

Washington CNN —Tuesday night’s announcement that Senate and House negotiators secured an agreement on the omnibus spending bill framework is a big deal. A framework is not legislation and taking an outline and appropriating millions of dollars to every single department across the US government is always a big undertaking. Who was missing from negotiationsIt is notable that the statement from Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy on Tuesday night didn’t offer many details as to what the spending outline looked like. The statement also didn’t include any reference to House Republicans – because they were largely absent from these talks. Democrats wanted to act now while they had control of the House, Senate and White House and they had maximum power over negotiations.

☆ House to vote on stopgap bill to avert shutdown at end of the week
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-14 | by ( Clare Foran | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

CNN —The House is expected to vote late on Wednesday to pass a stopgap bill to avert a government shutdown at the end of this week with funding currently set to expire on Friday at midnight. The stopgap measure will extend funding for another week – until Friday, December 23 – to give congressional negotiators time to finalize a broader, full-year government funding deal with new topline spending levels. After the House approves the stopgap bill, the Senate will next need to take it up before it can go to President Joe Biden to be signed into law. On Wednesday, Shelby said the top line is about $1.7 trillion, but would not elaborate. Shelby said the exact allocations to the different government agencies are still being negotiated.

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