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Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., is forging ahead with a vote on his plan to avert a government shutdown and force tighter U.S. election measures through Congress on Wednesday.

Johnson was forced to cancel a vote on the measure last week after it hemorrhaged GOP support for days after being unveiled.

Multiple sources who spoke with Fox News Digital on Tuesday said the House GOP leadership’s efforts to persuade Republican opponents of the bill were largely unsuccessful over the weekend.

At least a dozen Republican lawmakers are expected to vote against the bill. With just a four-seat majority and widespread Democrat opposition anticipated, expectations within the GOP are low.

‘I mean. It buys us a week of arguing over illegal immigrants,’ one House Republican told Fox News Digital via text message. Asked if it was worth the news cycle if it failed, they replied, ‘At this point… I suppose.’

Another GOP lawmaker said, ‘They’re basically at the point where they need to say they ran the play – call folks RINOs, let the Freedom Caucus folks say ‘shut it all down’ and then just wait for Senate to jam us.’

‘Didn’t have the votes last week and can’t imagine that changing this week,’ they said.

Johnson himself said in a statement, ‘Congress has an immediate obligation to do two things: responsibly fund the federal government, and ensure the security of our elections. Because we owe this to our constituents, we will move forward on Wednesday with a vote on the 6-month CR with the SAVE Act attached.’

The speaker does, however, have a wide cross-section of support from within the conference.

House Freedom Caucus policy chair Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, led the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which is being attached to the spending bill.

He wrote on X on Tuesday that ‘some Republican nihilists would rather set up the failure they then get to complain about’ than pass an imperfect bill with conservative policies.

Meanwhile, Rep. Andy Barr, R-Ky., a top leadership ally, told Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo, ‘I support Speaker Johnson. He’s absolutely right, and the American people are with us on this.’

Congress is faced with a Sept. 30 deadline to fund the government for fiscal 2025 or see a partial government shutdown weeks before Election Day. The House has passed less than half of the 12 required appropriations bills while the Senate has not passed any.

Both Democrats and Republicans agree that a short-term extension of this year’s funding, known as a continuing resolution (CR), is needed to give negotiators more time.

But the SAVE Act, which would impose a proof of citizenship requirement on the voter registration process, has been called a nonstarter in the Democrat-controlled Senate and White House. President Biden has already threatened to veto Johnson’s plan.

Meanwhile, national security hawks and senior lawmakers within the GOP have called for a shorter CR through December, citing potential strains on military readiness if funding levels are consistent through March.

Another issue for House GOP leaders is that a large swath of Republicans, including the bill’s opponents, are against CRs on principle, arguing they are an extension of bloated federal spending levels.

Others have expressed frustration at being made to vote on a ‘messaging’ bill that would not pass the Democrat-controlled Senate.

‘Speaker Johnson is fake fighting by attaching a bright shiny object (that he will later abandon) to a bill that continues our path of destructive spending. I won’t be any part of this insulting charade,’ Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., wrote on X.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., wrote, ‘The only way to make the SAVE Act a law would be to refuse to pass a CR until the Senate agrees to pass the SAVE Act and Biden agrees to sign it into law.’

‘This would force a Gov shutdown on Oct 1… Johnson will NOT commit to standing up against the Democrats in a shutdown fight and will allow passage of a clean CR in order to fund the government because he believes a gov shutdown will be blamed on Republicans and will hurt their elections.’

Making matters more difficult for Johnson is former President Trump, with whom he met over the weekend after an assassination attempt on the ex-president.

Trump has publicly endorsed the SAVE Act on his Truth Social platform but urged congressional Republicans to push for a government shutdown if they did not get ‘absolute assurances on election security.’

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Business

Amazon workers must return to office full time, CEO says

Amazon is requiring its workers to return to the office full time.

In a note published Monday by the e-commerce giant, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, who took over from founder Jeff Bezos in 2020, said the move to end the company’s hybrid model was designed toward ‘being better set up to invent, collaborate, and be connected enough to each other and our culture to deliver the absolute best for customers and the business.’

He noted that the company’s three-day-a-week policy, instituted in 2023, had only reinforced the view that a full return was necessary.

‘When we look back over the last five years, we continue to believe that the advantages of being together in the office are significant,’ Jassy said.

The change will take effect starting in January 2025. The company will still respect extenuating circumstances, like caring for a sick child, and pre-approved work-from-home or hybrid arrangements.

Amazon joins a growing list of major U.S. firms returning to a five-days-a-week office policy, including Boeing, JP Morgan Chase and UPS.

However, according to data from FlexIndex, a firm that tracks company office policies, a majority of U.S. firms still offer hybrid arrangements.

The data does show bigger companies leading the way in pushing for more in-office full-time policies.

But notably, Jassy said he wants Amazon to operate as if it were ‘the world’s largest startup’ — a sentiment Bezos, Amazon’s founder, often stressed.

“That means having a passion for constantly inventing for customers,’ Jassy said, ‘strong urgency (for most big opportunities, it’s a race!), high ownership, fast decision-making, scrappiness and frugality, deeply-connected collaboration (you need to be joined at the hip with your teammates when inventing and solving hard problems), and a shared commitment to each other.”

Jassy also announced a move to reduce ‘bureaucracy’ within the firm, hinting at unintended consequences from Amazon’s aggressive hiring following pandemic reopenings — and possibly opening the door for layoffs. Jassy asked employee units to ‘increase the ratio of individual contributors to managers’ by at least 15% by the end of Q1 2025.

‘As we have grown our teams as quickly and substantially as we have the last many years, we have understandably added a lot of managers,’ Jassy said. ‘In that process, we have also added more layers than we had before. It’s created artifacts that we’d like to change.’

An Amazon spokesperson did not respond to a follow-up request for comment.

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Business

In federal trial, Michael Kors says it’s harder to sell handbags in TikTok and Taylor Swift era

In a federal courtroom on Monday, storied fashion designer Michael Kors spoke about the steep challenge of staying relevant in a world where brands can rise and fall based on viral TikTok videos and photos of handbags on the arms of celebrities such as Taylor Swift and Beyoncé.

Kors kicked off the week of testimony in the antitrust trial in Manhattan as a Federal Trade Commission lawsuit seeks to block Tapestry’s $8.5 billion acquisition of Capri. The deal, if approved, would put six fashion brands under a single company: Tapestry’s Coach, Kate Spade and Stuart Weitzman, with Capri’s Versace, Jimmy Choo and Michael Kors.

The FTC on Monday called Kors, who founded his namesake brand in 1981 at age 22 and still serves as its chief creative director, to testify. Yet, in his remarks, Kors described how even legacy brands like his own can struggle and lose shoppers’ interest.

“Sometimes you’ll be the hottest thing on the block,” he said. “Sometimes you’ll be lukewarm. Sometimes you’ll be cold.”

He acknowledged that his namesake label has fallen from favor and needs a refresh.

“I think we’ve reached the point of brand fatigue,” he said.

The FTC has argued that the combined companies, particularly with Coach and Michael Kors under the same owner, would create a bag behemoth with the power to hike prices for customers while offering them the same or worse products.

Attorneys for Tapestry and Capri, on the other hand, have questioned the FTC’s depictions of a consolidated handbag market. They have said competition has grown as customers consider both pricier luxury brands and lower-priced fast-fashion names, and can shop from online-only platforms and secondhand marketplaces.

The trial comes as consumers balk at high prices and when the outcome of the closely watched U.S. presidential election could change the federal agency’s strategy.

Shares of Capri, which includes Michael Kors, reflect the tougher stretch that the designer Kors described. As of Monday afternoon, the company’s stock has fallen about 24% so far this year. That trails far behind the roughly 18% gains of the S&P 500 and the approximately 17% rise of Tapestry.

In its most-recent fiscal quarter that ended in late June, Michael Kors’ revenue dropped 14.2% on a reported basis or 13.3% on a constant currency basis compared to the year-ago period.

Kors said he remains a student of the fashion industry and draws inspiration from spending time on store floors, talking to customers or people-watching at places such as airports. Even as an industry veteran, he said he must move nimbly.

For instance, he said he learned about Aupen, a handbag industry newcomer, when he saw a photo of Taylor Swift carrying one of the company’s handbags. When he went to the company’s website, it crashed, he said.

“It shows you the power of women like this,” he said.

In another testimony on Monday, former Macy’s CEO Jeff Gennette said retailers also feel it when brands lose some of their shine. Gennette, who retired early this year, said the department store’s sales got hit because it leaned too heavily on Michael Kors’ brand. He said the markdown of Michael Kors’ handbags contributed to “a bad spiral Macy’s was living through when I was there.”

The antitrust trial is expected to conclude on Tuesday with testimony by economists, including one for the FTC and one for the companies.

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Business

Charter rolls out new Spectrum pricing and internet speeds, aims to ‘be a better service operator’

Charter Communications CEO Chris Winfrey said he wants customers to think of reliability and credibility when they think of their cable and broadband provider.

The cable giant told CNBC it is unveiling a series of changes Monday to bolster that goal, including rolling out new bundles and pricing, increasing internet speeds, offering credits for service outages and promising heightened reliability for customers.

Charter — which provides broadband, cable TV and mobile services and is known to customers under the name of Spectrum — said it is also trying to make the company more approachable and remove the longtime negative connotations around cable companies by announcing Spectrum’s new “first-of-its-kind customer commitment,” branded as “Life Unlimited.”

The rollout comes as Charter and its industry peers contend with several trends: slowing broadband customer growth, continued defections from the cable TV bundle, and a young but speedily expanding mobile business.

“It is hard to be loved when you’re providing a critical service to the household that’s a physical infrastructure that charges over $100 a month,” Winfrey said in an interview with CNBC. “And to the extent there’s a problem, sometimes somebody has to enter your home … in the same vein that it is for an electrician or plumber.”

The first step to changing a less-favorable consumer view is with “pricing and packaging that creates more value than you can replicate anywhere else in the marketplace,” he said.

Spectrum said it will charge as low as $30 a month for its 500Mbps internet plan, or $40 a month for 1GB service, when either are bundled with two mobile lines or cable TV. The company is also increasing the baseline internet speed for current customers at no additional cost.

The company also said it’s planning to be upfront about costs. Under its new plan, taxes and fees are baked in, there are no annual contracts and pricing is guaranteed up to three years, it said. Charter even eliminated the 99 cents it had tacked on to most of Spectrum’s pricing in the past.

In addition, Spectrum pledged to give customers credits when the company’s customer service doesn’t live up to its promises, or for internet outages that are out of the customer’s control but are due to an issue on the company’s part and last more than two hours. Service issues such as those caused by weather, natural disasters or power outages don’t count.

Life Unlimited — a new platform for Spectrum’s internet, mobile and TV services — will roll out across its 41-state footprint this week, the company said.

“We wanted to make a bold statement about our commitment and our capabilities,” Winfrey said. “We also wanted to recognize that we’re not perfect and we’re putting ourselves under pressure, concrete pressure, to make sure that we can be a better service operator every month and every year from here on out.”

The announced changes are some of Charter’s biggest moves since Winfrey took the helm as CEO in December 2022.

He followed Tom Rutledge, who held the post for a decade and turned a relatively small cable operator into the second-largest cable company in the U.S. through the takeovers of Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks in 2016. Winfrey was CFO at the time and spearheaded the mergers.

Winfrey recalled the various investments and advancements cable companies had made over the years: namely in broadband, but also in the pay TV bundle and the landline and mobile phone businesses.

“For all the value that the industry’s brought over the years, and the service and reliability investments that we’ve made, we haven’t always gotten the full credit that we deserve, and in some cases, we did get the credit we deserve because we could have done things better,” Winfrey said.

He entered the top job at a moment when it was clear growth was unlikely to return to the cable TV bundle.

Winfrey had been a low-key and not widely known executive in the media industry, but he started off swinging.

At an investor day in December 2022, Charter announced an aggressive capital investment plan that included putting $5.5 billion over three years in its broadband infrastructure network. The higher-than-expected spending during a time of growing competition from 5G wireless providers sent alarms through Wall Street, and the stock dropped.

Charter’s stock price has fluctuated greatly in recent years. On Sept. 12, 2021, the stock price was $787.12. It closed at $340.17 on Friday.

Charter’s stock has fluctuated in recent years as there’s been a slowdown in broadband subscriber growth.

That’s in part because broadband customer growth at providers including Charter and Comcast has struggled, according to the companies’ earnings reports. Increased competition from wireless companies such as AT&T and Verizon has also played a role in the stagnation, as has the slowdown in the buying and selling of houses due to high interest rates.

The third quarter was the worst ever for broadband industry subscriber losses, according to MoffettNathanson. Charter lost 149,000 subscribers and had a total of 30.4 million residential and small business broadband customers as of June 30, according to its second-quarter earnings report.

While the losses weren’t as substantial as analysts had feared, Charter’s growth bright spot is now its mobile business, which launched in 2018. Spectrum Mobile has 8.8 million total lines and has grown rapidly due to enticing promotional deals and increased mobile usage on reliable Wi-Fi networks, the company said.

In late 2022, Charter announced its “Spectrum One” plan, the first time it offered broadband, Wi-Fi and mobile in a bundle with promotions that included competitive rates and, in some cases, free mobile lines.

“For wireless, the ‘Spectrum One’ promotion will almost certainly turn out to have been a home run,” analyst Craig Moffett said in a research note in July. “Despite the fact that it was initially viewed as shockingly aggressive, it was, in fact, a rather modest offer.”

Moffett called mobile an “underappreciated growth engine” for Charter, not only because of customer additions but also growth in average revenue per user, or ARPU, which is a metric often used by cable companies.

Winfrey doesn’t expect ARPU to be affected by the new promotions.

“When I think about Wall Street, I think about the customer,” Winfrey said. “If you focus on the customer, provide great customer service, save them money, provide value, then your capital market strategy, your regulatory strategy, all of that just falls into place.”

Customers have been dropping pay TV rapidly across all providers, including Charter. But the company has been vocal about its efforts to preserve the business, especially under Winfrey’s leadership.

The biggest moment came in 2023 when Disney-owned networks went dark for Charter’s customers and Winfrey called the pay TV ecosystem “broken” as he pushed for a revamped deal with Disney.

While these disputes are common — Disney and DirecTV on Saturday ended a roughly two-week blackout fight — this one was different in the age of streaming.

For Charter, the sticking point wasn’t just the fees. The company wanted Disney’s ad-supported streaming options to be part of its TV offering.

Pay TV providers often say the rates that programming companies such as Disney seek from them are too high, especially since the programmers are also funneling much of their content into streaming platforms. Although the cable bundle loses customers, cable providers note it’s still a cash cow while streaming chases profitability.

“Credit to Disney, eventually they were willing to lean in and they understood their role in the industry,” Winfrey said, adding that ESPN is considered the linchpin of the cable TV bundle. “They had to be the leader in the space, and we knew that.”

The deal allowed for ad-supported Disney+ and ESPN+ to be included in “Spectrum TV Select” packages. In addition, when ESPN launches its direct-to-consumer streaming option — which is expected to debut in fall 2025 — these customers will receive access to it, too.

“I give Charter a ton of credit because they walked into the room and they had very specific ideas. They had a vision that they wanted to execute against, and again, it was a hard negotiation,” ESPN Chairman Jimmy Pitaro said on CNBC on Sept. 3 when discussing the blackout fight with DirecTV.

Depending on the tier a customer subscribes to, their package can include the ad-supported versions of streamers Disney+, ESPN+, Max, Discovery+, Paramount+, AMC+, BET+ and/or Televisa Univision’s Vix.

The deals have also given Charter the opportunity to sell and market the streaming services to its broadband-only customers — and includes a revenue share agreement.

The most recent deals with Warner Bros. Discovery and AMC Networks were early renewals. That’s relatively uncommon in an industry where carriage negotiations often come down to the wire.

Charter last year also started offering its own streaming devices, known as Xumo, through a joint venture with Comcast. The device gets rid of the cable box and gives consumers a way to access both their cable TV and streaming apps in one place.

“We still have hurdles to get through,” Winfrey said, noting that Charter’s goal is to offer all ad-supported streaming apps owned by the major programmers it negotiates with on the cable TV bundle in the first half of 2025.

NBCUniversal’s Peacock is still not part of that roster, however. A Charter representative said the company doesn’t discuss renewals and declined to comment.

Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal, which owns CNBC.

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World News

An American pastor held in a Chinese jail for nearly two decades is finally home

A pastor who the United States says was wrongfully detained in a Chinese prison for nearly two decades has been released, according to the State Department, ending a case that the Biden administration said was a top priority in efforts to stabilize relations with Beijing.

David Lin, 68, was detained in China in 2006 after helping to construct an unapproved church building. He was later sentenced to life in prison for contract fraud, a charge he denied.

Lin was one of three Americans deemed by the US State Department to have been wrongfully detained in China. Businessmen Kai Li and Mark Swidan are still held behind bars, on espionage and drug-related charges respectively.

“We welcome David Lin’s release from prison in the People’s Republic of China,” a spokesperson for the US State Department said in a statement Sunday.

“He has returned to the United States and now gets to see his family for the first time in nearly 20 years,” the statement added.

The Biden administration has in recent years stepped up diplomatic efforts to secure the release of the three men.

American officials, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, have repeatedly raised the issue during their visits to China, citing it as a “top priority” to resolve their cases.

President Joe Biden also addressed the issue with Chinese leader Xi Jinping when they met in person in San Fransisco in November and spoke by phone earlier this year, according to readouts from the White House.

Lin visited China frequently in the 1990s and started to preach the Gospel there in 1999, according to ChinaAid, a US-based non-profit Christian human rights organization.

He was detained in 2006 for helping an underground “house church” build a place of worship and barred from leaving the country, according to ChinaAid.

Lin regarded his incarceration as an opportunity to share his faith with fellow prisoners and established a prayer meeting group, according to ChinaAid.

In China, many Christians used to worship in house churches, or informal gatherings independent of state-approved churches. But the Chinese government has cracked down hard on the movement in recent decades as the ruling Communist Party tightens its grip on religion, especially under Xi.

In 2009, Lin was jailed for life for contract fraud, a crime frequently used against house church leaders who raise funds to support their work, according to the Dui Hua Foundation, a San Francisco-based human-rights group which advocates on behalf of detainees in China.

While in prison, Lin received several sentence reductions and was scheduled to be released in 2029, according to the Dui Hua Foundation.

Lin’s release was welcomed by some US politicians, who also called for the release of other Americans detained abroad.

“I am extremely glad to hear David Lin was freed,” Rep. Michael McCaul said Sunday in a statement on social media. “However, Kai Li and Texan Mark Swidan still remain CCP prisoners — and must be freed now.”

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World News

Why these Gulf states want to be AI superpowers

In recent years, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has been signalling its intent to become a major player in artificial intelligence, but now other Gulf countries are also getting serious about the technology.

“Here in the region, people were much more prepared to experiment and get involved with AI than maybe some other parts of the world,” he added.

One issue around the rapid growth of AI is that it can be hugely energy intensive, and it is increasingly becoming a major source of greenhouse gas emissions. Google reported that its 2023 emissions were nearly 50% more than in 2019, which it partly attributed to the energy demands of AI. Energy demand from AI, data centers and cryptocurrencies could double by 2026, according to the International Energy Agency.

But Anderson believes that Gulf countries, whose economies are heavily dependent on fossil fuels, are well placed to become “major players” in the technology, and have the potential to make it greener.

“We’re at the center of the world when it comes to energy – not just old energy, but particularly new energy,” he said. “This is the lowest-cost place anywhere in the world to produce solar energy. So the opportunity to combine sustainability and energy with the computer power that’s required from an AI perspective is really important.”

Anderson pointed to the UAE, Qatar and Saudi Arabia as the region’s leading investors in AI.

As Saudi Arabia looks to cut its economy’s reliance on oil and gas, it has invested heavily in AI, which it says will help to realize the objectives outlined in its “Vision 2030” strategy, a government program to diversify the economy. According to a recent projection from the Saudi Data and AI Authority (SDAIA), which hosted the GAIN summit, AI will contribute 12% of its GDP by 2030, with the sector growing at an annual rate of 29%.

There have been significant efforts across the region to develop Arabic-language models trained on local datasets that capture the nuances of the language in a way that has been lacking on platforms like ChatGPT. Last year, the UAE unveiled a tool called Jais and Saudi Arabia has developed the Arabic chatbot ALLaM.

Last week, it was announced that ALLaM will be hosted on Azure, Microsoft’s cloud computing platform. This follows the news from earlier this year that it would also be accessible through IBM’s watsonx platform.

Nick Studer, CEO at management consulting firm Oliver Wyman Group, who attended the GAIN summit, said that the focus on Arabic language models could help Saudi Arabia compete with English-speaking markets that have an “underlying advantage” in the space because of the many large language models available

According to Studer, there are over half a dozen Arabic-based large language models in development in the country, focusing on a range of uses cases, from chat to governmental and corporate applications. “That combination of governmental and private sector entrepreneurialism may well lead to the development of an AI hub, particularly as the kingdom and the wider region seek to diversify their economies,” he said.

Challenge of governance

One of the major hurdles with the development of AI is public perception and governance: how should AI and data be regulated safely, securely, ethically and fairly?

During the summit, various policies were announced, including the launch of guidelines from the SDAIA addressing the responsible use of deep fakes, the unveiling of the Riyadh Charter for AI in the Islamic World, which establishes a framework for developing AI technologies in line with Islamic values and principles, and a global framework for AI readiness, led by the International Telecommunication Union.

Studer says a solid regulatory framework is essential for the future of AI.

“There are many concerns that go with the development of AI – not just privacy concerns, not just the risks of losing jobs, but also all the way up to national sovereignty if your economy starts to rely on a set of tools which are built outside of your control,” he said. “It is critical that we have sensible regulation in place.”

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World News

‘Why all this hate?’: Mayoral debate in Brazil turns ugly as candidate attacks rival with chair, live on TV

A mayoral debate in the Brazilian city of São Paulo turned ugly when one of the candidates attacked a rival with a chair.

Video from the debate, broadcast live on Sunday by TV Cultura, shows a tense exchange between José Luiz Datena and Pablo Marçal before Datena swings the chair at his counterpart.

Datena later told TV Cultura that he had attacked Marçal – who required hospital treatment for his injuries – because he had brought up old sexual harassment allegations against Datena that were dismissed several years ago.

“He came with a case that was archived, that was not even investigated by the police because there was no evidence. Something from 11 years ago that caused a very serious situation within my family,” Datena said.

Datena was expelled from the debate but insisted in a statement Monday that while he had made a mistake he did not regret his actions.

Marçal was treated at Sírio Libanês Hospital before being released. His team said he was treated for a possible fracture in the chest region and had difficulty breathing. The hospital said he had suffered trauma to his chest and wrist, but without any major complications.

Marçal compared the chair attack to the July assassination attempt against former US President Donald Trump and the stabbing of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro during the 2018 election, posting an image of all three attacks on Instagram with the caption: “Why all this hate?”

The remaining candidates Guilherme Boulos, Marina Helena, Ricardo Nunes and Tabata Amaral continued the debate following the attack. TV Cultura said it regretted the incident and had pressed ahead with the discussion in accordance with the rules after the other candidates agreed.

Marçal’s team has vowed to take legal action.

“Pablo Marçal was cowardly attacked by José Luiz Datena, who hit him in the ribs with an iron chair,” Marçal’s team said, adding that it was unfortunate the debate had continued without him.

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World News

Ryan Routh’s support for Ukraine is a propaganda win for Moscow, at a very tricky time for Kyiv

It is exactly the kind of attention Ukraine did not need. Since the start of clashes with Russia over its future in 2003, Ukraine has carefully avoided the sort of political violence Ryan Wesley Routh is accused of.

Yet now, at arguably the most crucial point of the conflict, Routh’s vocal support for Kyiv has somehow been seized upon by Russian echo chambers after he was detained Sunday in connection with an apparent assassination attempt on former US President Donald Trump.

Someone like Routh was quite easy to meet in Ukraine in the opening months of Russia’s full-scale war in 2022. Border crossings and railway stations were often haunted by whispering, unshaven expatriates of questionable military provenance, trying to conjure the idea that the very real and painful struggle of Ukraine was something they had a pivotal role in. As the conflict has dragged on, the fantasists have faded, and the resumes of dozens of Western volunteers been vetted, or become less relevant as their alleged experience has been tested in combat. The most brutal fighting Europe has seen since the 1940s, the Ukrainian front line has never been less of a place for amateur thrill-seekers.

Yet Routh tried his best to associate himself with the fight against Russia, expressing support for Ukraine in dozens of X posts that year, saying he was willing to die in the fight and that “we need to burn the Kremlin to the ground.”

Kyiv has enough on its plate now, other than explaining how little it had to do with the author of “Ukraine’s Unwinnable War: The Fatal Flaw of Democracy, World Abandonment and the Global Citizen – Taiwan, Afghanistan, North Korea and the end of Humanity.” This – Routh’s title for his self-published book – does not demand its author’s ideas are taken too seriously.

But already, Moscow’s prolific echo chambers have begun to fashion a narrative in which US support for Ukraine is somehow extremist. Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov, asked what he thought about the assassination bid, said, according to Reuters: “It is not us who should be thinking, it is the US intelligence services who should be thinking. In any case, playing with fire has its consequences.”

RT.com, a Kremlin-run English news outlet, also highlighted Routh’s interest in Ukraine, writing that “Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene stated that if the suspect’s identity is confirmed, it is clear he is ‘obsessed with the Ukraine war, which is funded by the US.’”

Do not expect any majorly new or intelligent arguments to surface about the war in Ukraine in the weeks ahead. But instead, anticipate a slow drip of some new voices, and some of the usual, suggesting the war in Ukraine cannot be won, that Putin must be given a chance to negotiate a deal (even one that lets him keep the chunk of Ukraine he has stolen), and that there is an unhealthy infection of extremists in the ranks of those who feel they must – as Routh once said – “fight and die” for Ukraine.

None of this helps Ukrainians who genuinely must fight and die to protect their homes and families. It particularly hampers Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, days before he is set to present a victory plan to the Biden administration. The clamor of support for Ukraine to receive US permission to fire longer-range US-supplied missiles at targets deeper inside Russian territory had been growing. It seemed likely last week that President Joe Biden would follow the course he’s taken when past decisions on arming Ukraine were presented to him, and consent – albeit very, very late – after public pressure from allies.

But now Zelensky’s press appearances may be dogged by questions about Routh, however absurdly distant from Kyiv’s agenda his apparent attack on a Florida golf course was. It will feed into the ultimate paranoia of US isolationists: that actions overseas which appear to benefit America’s global interests carry with them the risk of fomenting violence back home.

Routh’s political leanings and worldview were far from consistent, if not delusional. But in the breathy forum of random gibberish that is social media, they contribute to a narrative, for those who seek it, of support for Ukraine causing chaos in America. That the United States should just stay out of Putin’s war.

None of it connects with the savage reality Ukrainians face every night, shaken awake by Russian missiles, or losing loved ones to the ghastly attrition of the front lines.

Washington’s support for Kyiv is weighty and consequential when it lumbers into play, yet horrifyingly fragile when subjected to US electoral politics and the Republican party’s fickle grip on geopolitics. The sudden insertion of a wayward extremist like Routh is a loud, confusing wild card, at a time when support for Ukraine urgently needed a calm and balanced voice.

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World News

‘I am a rapist just like all the others in this room,’ says Frenchman accused of mass rape of wife

Dominique Pelicot, the Frenchman accused of drugging his wife and recruiting dozens of strangers to rape her over a decade, on Tuesday admitted to the various criminal charges he faces in a closely-watched trial, French media reported.

Pelicot had been due to testify last week in the case that has shocked France, but his appearance was delayed due to health issues. He appeared in court with a cane.

“I admit to the charges in their entirety,” Pelicot, 71, was cited as saying by BFM TV, whose reporter was present in the courthouse, adding: “I am a rapist just like all the others in this room.”

Prosecutors have said Pelicot offered sex with his wife on a website and filmed the abuse. In addition to Pelicot, 50 other men accused of taking part are on trial, which is taking place in the southern city of Avignon. The other men so far have not commented on their charges.

Pelicot’s former wife, Gisele Pelicot, now aged 72, insisted on a public trial to expose him and the other men accused of raping her.

“I ask my wife, my children, my grandchildren to accept my apologies. I regret what I did. I ask for your forgiveness, even if it is not forgivable,” he said, according to BFM TV.

Pelicot faces charges including rape, gang rape and various privacy breaches by recording and disseminating sexual images.

Pelicot’s bad health required the judges to push back his hearing several times last week. His lawyer previously said he wanted to use the hearing to make an apology to his family.

He told the courtroom he had had a difficult upbringing and had been a victim of rape himself. At times he cried, according to French media.

Gisele Pelicot, 72, was in the courtroom during his appearance on the stand and also spoke, according to French media, saying: “It is difficult to hear from the mouth of Mr. Pelicot what he has just said.”

To many, Gisele Pelicot has become a symbol of the struggle against sexual violence in France. On Saturday hundreds of people, mostly women, gathered in cities across the country to demonstrate support for her.

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Science

‘All good here’: One of final messages from Titan submersible crew revealed in hearing

One of the final messages from the Titan submersible crew said they were “all good here” before it imploded, killing all five on board.

British adventurer Hamish Harding and father and son Shahzada and Suleman Dawood died alongside OceanGate Expeditions’ chief executive Stockton Rush and Frenchman Paul-Henri Nargeolet.

The five of them had been communicating with the Polar Prince support ship by text message, according to an animation presented by the US Coast Guard, shown on the first day of a hearing looking into the implosion.

Titanic sub hearing latest: Moment remains of imploded submersible found

The crew began to lose contact with those aboard the Polar Prince who repeatedly asked about the submersible’s depth and weight as it descended toward the wreck of the Titanic.

The Polar Prince also repeatedly asked if the Titan could still see the ship on its onboard display.

One of the Titan’s final responses, which became spotty as it descended deeper, was “all good here”.

The submersible made its final dive on 18 June 2023, losing contact with its support ship around two hours later.

Rescuers rushed ships, planes, and other equipment to an area around 435 miles (700km) south of St John’s, Newfoundland.

The search for the Titan attracted global attention and the wreckage was eventually found on the ocean floor around 300m from the Titanic wreckage, according to officials.

‘Uncover the facts’

The hearing in Charleston County, South Carolina, is expected to last two weeks.

It aims to “uncover the facts surrounding the incident and develop recommendations to prevent similar tragedies in the future”.

“There are no words to ease the loss endured by the families impacted by this tragic incident,” said Jason Neubauer of the US Coast Guard Office of Investigations, who led the hearing.

Speaking at the hearing, US Coast Guard officials also said that the Titan had been left exposed to weather and the elements during seven months of storage in 2022 and 2023.

The hull was also never reviewed by any third parties as is standard procedure, they added.

Other witnesses scheduled to testify on Monday include OceanGate’s former engineering director Tony Nissen, the company’s former finance director Bonnie Carl, and former contractor Tym Catterson.

Some key personnel from the company are not scheduled to testify, including Mr Rush’s widow, Wendy Rush, who was the company’s communications director.

The US Coast Guard does not comment on the reasons for not calling specific witnesses, a spokesperson said.

Scheduled to appear later in the hearing are OceanGate co-founder Guillermo Sohnlein, former operations director David Lochridge, and former scientific director Steven Ross, according to a list compiled by the US Coast Guard.

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