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Expect a traffic jam in the Senate soon as the race is on to confirm President-elect Trump’s cabinet nominees.

In short, nothing can happen until President-elect Trump takes office on Jan. 20.

Yes, there will be plenty of Trump loyalists attending various inaugural balls around town.

But once the inauguration festivities conclude at the Capitol, the Senate will get down to business. A handful of committees are already angling to schedule ‘markups’ to potentially discharge or send various nominations to the floor. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee has already teed up a meeting for 3:15 pm et on January 20 for the nomination of Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) to be Secretary of State. And if the custom holds, the Senate will confirm at least a few of Mr. Trump’s nominees just hours after he takes the oath of office.

Let history be our guide:

The Senate confirmed Trump’s Defense Secretary James Mattis and Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly on the evening of January 20, 2017. The next confirmation didn’t come until January 31, 2017. That was Elaine Chao, wife of former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), to be Transportation Secretary.

In 2021, the Senate confirmed one of President Biden’s nominees shortly after he was sworn-in. Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines was the first Biden nominee confirmed – on the night of January 20, 2021. The first, full cabinet-level vote did not come until January 22, when the Senate confirmed Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.

So, while everyone is trying to squeeze into their tux on Monday night, look for the Senate to potentially vote on a nominee or two on the evening of January 20th.

Fox is told that the most likely candidates might include Rubio – since he is a known quantity in the Senate and has bipartisan support. Another possibility would be CIA Director nominee John Ratcliffe. The Senate previously confirmed Ratcliffe as the Director of National Intelligence during the first Trump Administration. He is also a known entity in the halls of Congress and served as a Republican congressman from Texas. His hearing is on for tomorrow.

Frankly, the ambitious timetable of approving several of the nominees quickly could be challenging.

The Senate Energy Committee had to postpone Tuesday’s confirmation hearing for Interior Secretary Doug Burgum from Tuesday until Thursday due to delays over paperwork. Veterans Affairs Secretary nominee Doug Collins is not controversial. He is a former GOP congressman from Georgia. But his confirmation hearing for Tuesday was pushed back until next week. Collins may have been one figure who could have been confirmed quickly.

Attorney General nominee Pam Bondi is also one who could secure relatively speedy confirmation. Her hearing is Wednesday and Thursday. So maybe next week for her? Unclear.

But let’s examine the track record of the Senate confirming President Biden’s nominees and place it against expectations for the new Trump Administration.

After Lloyd Austin, the Senate confirmed Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on January 25, 2021, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken on January 26. Most cabinet officials weren’t confirmed until February or March. The Senate did not confirm Interior Secretary Deb Haaland until March 15, 2021, Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra until March 18, 2021, and Labor Secretary Marty Walsh until March 22, 2021.

You get the idea.

Every nominee must go through a hearing. Committees have different rules about how they discharge a nomination to the floor. So that could consume some time as well. Some nominees could be bottled up in committee, depending on opposition or attendance problems. Then there may be debate on the floor.

If Democrats filibuster a nominee, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) may need to tee up a procedural gambit to break filibusters. The process of just initiating a procedural vote to break a filibuster consumes parts of three days alone. If a nominee’s opponents still don’t relent, it’s possible that senators could drag out debate on a nominee for day or two – even though the Senate has broken a filibuster.

In February 2017, Mike Pence became the first Vice President to break a tie to confirm a cabinet official. He did so to confirm former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.

In other words, floor time is at a premium. There are various parliamentary ‘meridians’ for when the Senate can take certain procedural votes to advance a nominee. That’s why the Senate took a procedural vote at 7 am on the DeVos nomination in February 2017. The Senate also confirmed then Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price around 2 am one morning.

And we haven’t even gotten to other nominations which are important to the Administration – such as Pete Hoekstra to be Ambassador to Canada or Mike Huckabee to serve as Ambassador to Israel. There are more than 800 positions which require Senate confirmation.

To accelerate things, the Senate could confirm some swaths of non-controversial nominees ‘en bloc.’ That means the Senate clears the nominees on both sides to make sure there are no objections. If there are none, the Senate compiles a list and confirms a group of nominees together in one fell swoop.

But this is a long and tedious process. Confirming various positions in the Trump administration is going to take months. It consumes hours of floor time. That’s the most precious commodity in the Senate. Keep in mind that the push to confirm Trump nominees comes as the Senate is trying to work out a time agreement and amendments to pass the Laken Riley Act and a bill to sanction the International Criminal Court over its arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

This is a monster process. And it will likely consume some early mornings, very late nights and even some weekend sessions before this is settled.

This post appeared first on FOX NEWS

Rashida Jones, the president of MSNBC, announced Tuesday that she is stepping down after four years of steering the cable news network.

Jones, who made history as the first Black executive to lead a major U.S. television news network, made the announcement to top MSNBC anchors, leaders and network staff on Tuesday morning. (MSNBC and NBC News are both units of NBCUniversal.)

Rebecca Kutler, the network’s senior vice president of content strategy, was named interim MSNBC president. Jones, who recruited Kutler to the network in 2022, plans to stay on in an advisory role until March.

Rebecca Kutler will be interim president of the network.MSNBC

“I came to this decision over the holidays while reflecting on our remarkable journey and the many successes we’ve achieved together as a team. This has been the most rewarding chapter of my professional career and I am immensely proud of what we have accomplished, which has been made possible only by you,” Jones said in a memo to staff.

The announcement comes nearly two months after Comcast announced a plan to spin off most of its cable TV networks into a separate publicly traded company, currently known as SpinCo. The new company will include MSNBC, CNBC, the USA Network, Oxygen, E!, SYFY and the Golf Channel.

Jones took charge of MSNBC in February 2021 after the inauguration of President Joe Biden and the Jan. 6 riots at the U.S. Capitol. She drove MSNBC to ratings triumphs on major political nights.

She retained and signed new long-term deals with the network’s top talent, including Rachel Maddow. She also created a live event series; relaunched a new mobile app and premium subscription series; and made investments in other network digital offerings.

MSNBC has seen a post-election ratings dip. The network still ended last year as the No. 2 network across cable, with 807,000 average viewers daily and 1.3 million viewers in the prime-time hours.

Rashida Jones.MSNBC

The cable television business writ large is at a crossroads as consumers move toward streaming alternatives such as Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. In this business environment, some cable channels remain profitable with healthy cash flows, but other brands have rapidly declined.

In a memo to staff, Mark Lazarus, the incoming chief executive of SpinCo, praised Jones for her years helming MSNBC.

“Rashida has expertly navigated MSNBC through a years-long, unrelenting and unprecedented news cycle, all while driving the network to record viewership and making investments in nonlinear businesses. MSNBC is well-positioned for the future,” Lazarus said in a memo to staff.

Lazarus told staff members on a network call that MSNBC will retain its name after the spin-off transaction is complete.

Jones previously served as senior vice president of NBC News and MSNBC, overseeing and leading the production of cross-network special events, including election night coverage and presidential debates.

Kutler came to MSNBC from CNN, where she spent two decades, most recently as a senior vice president.

This post appeared first on NBC NEWS

Southwest Airlines is pausing corporate hiring and promotions, suspending most of its summer internships and going without some employee team-building events that date back to the 1980s in order to cut costs and improve margins, CEO Bob Jordan told staff.

“Every single dollar matters as we continue to fight to return to excellent financial performance,” Jordan said in the note Monday, which was seen by CNBC.

He said the company will delay other activities “when it makes sense.”

A Southwest spokeswoman confirmed the changes.

“We’ll continue to evaluate hiring needs on an ongoing basis to determine when it makes sense for the business to resume hiring,” she said in an email.

As part of the cost cuts, Southwest is pausing its employee “rallies,” a company team-building tradition that dates back to 1985 in which staff hear from the airline’s leaders about the year’s goals and are treated to food and entertainment.

Southwest spent months last year under pressure from activist Elliott Investment Management, which called for a CEO change at the carrier. The two sides settled in October with Elliott winning five Southwest board seats, short of control, and Jordan remaining in the top job.

“We made a lot of progress in 2024, and we have a lot of tangible momentum … but we’re still far from our goal of returning to industry-leading profit margins,” Jordan wrote. “A key risk in 2025 is acting as if the urgency has passed and therefore not sustaining the focus and energy from 2024.”

The airline last year charted out a plan to increase profits that includes ditching its more than 50-year-old open seating model in favor of assigned seats and creating a section with extra legroom, flying overnight flights, and more aggressively cutting back unprofitable routes.

In September, the company slashed its flights from Atlanta, eliminating jobs, though staff were able to apply to work out of other bases.

Southwest is scheduled to report fourth-quarter results on Jan. 30. The carrier’s shares are up 14% over the past 12 months, while United’s are up more than 160% and shares in Delta Air Lines and American Airlines have gained about 70% and 33%, respectively.

This post appeared first on NBC NEWS

Boeing handed over 348 airplanes in 2024, about a third fewer than it did a year earlier as the aerospace giant struggled with a crisis after a midair door panel blowout a year ago and a machinist strike in the fall that halted production.

The tally widened the delivery gap with Boeing’s chief rival, Airbus, which gave 766 jetliners to customers last year, the most since 2019, though both companies are facing supply chain strains that have slowed production and fulfillment of their otherwise robust backlogs.

In December, Boeing delivered 30 airplanes as it restarted production of its bestselling 737 Max planes after the nearly eight-week machinist strike ended the month before. Deliveries are key for manufacturers because it is when customers pay the bulk of an airplane’s price.

A shortage of aircraft from suppliers has driven up lease rates, with rentals expected to hit records this year, aviation data firm IBA said in a report this month.

Boeing logged 142 gross orders in December for new planes, including 100 737 Maxes for Turkey’s Pegasus Airlines and 30 787s for flydubai, whose intention to purchase was first unveiled at the Dubai Air Show in late 2023. Boeing also took more than 130 orders off its books for India’s now-defunct carrier Jet Airways.

Boeing’s gross orders for the year stood at 569, while net orders were 377 airplanes — 317 including accounting adjustments. Airbus, which released its December and full-year tally last week, said it logged 878 gross orders last year and 826 net orders.

Boeing is scheduled to report fourth-quarter and full-year results before the market opens on Jan. 28, when CEO Kelly Ortberg and other Boeing leaders will face investor questions about their plans to ramp up production and restore the aerospace giant’s profitability.

This post appeared first on NBC NEWS

Taiwan has seen a “significant rise” in the number of individuals charged with spying for China in recent years, according to new data released by the island’s security bureau, amid escalating intimidation by Beijing.

In a report released Sunday, Taiwan’s National Security Bureau (NSB) said the number of individuals prosecuted for Chinese espionage had increased threefold in recent years, rising from 16 in 2021 to 64 in 2024.

Of those 64 charged, 15 were military veterans and 28 were active service members, according to the report, which said targets of Chinese infiltration included military units, government agencies and local associations.

Beijing claims the self-governing democracy as its own territory and has vowed to take control of it, by force if necessary, despite having never controlled it.

The Taiwanese government has repeatedly rejected China’s sovereignty claims and emphasized that Taiwan’s future can only be decided by its 23.5 million people.

“The Chinese Communist Party continues to use diverse channels and means to infiltrate all walks of life in order to absorb citizens to help them develop networks or gather sensitive government information,” the report said.

In recent years, Beijing has stepped up its pressure on the island, launching large-scale military drills more frequently and raising alarm over the possible deployment of “gray zone” tactics – acts that fall below the threshold of war.

Taiwan officials’ suspicions earlier this month that a Chinese vessel may have been responsible for damage to an undersea internet cable underscored concerns on the island about vulnerabilities that could be exploited by Beijing in so-called “gray zone operations.”

In December, China also fielded its largest regional maritime deployment in decades – including multiple formations of Chinese naval and coast guard vessels – in regional waters and around the Taiwan Strait, according to Taiwan’s Defense Ministry.

For years, Taiwan’s security agencies have warned about Beijing’s growing attempts to infiltrate its armed forces and their espionage activities, particularly efforts to bribe military officers in exchange for national secrets.

The latest report said that improved counter-intelligence capabilities has allowed authorities in Taiwan to uncover more cases of suspected Chinese espionage.

It said Chinese agents allegedly attempted to establish contacts with criminal gangs and local temples, as well as setting up underground banks to recruit military personnel and China-friendly groups in Taiwan.

The report added, without specifying details of the cases, that some of the suspected spies were tasked to serve as agents of “sabotage” and raise China’s flag in the event of a Chinese invasion. Some were also asked to gather intelligence in a move to build a “sniper team” for an “assassination assignment.”

China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS), which oversees intelligence and counterintelligence both within China and overseas, has also previously accused Taiwan of conducting spying activities.

Last August, the ministry said it had uncovered over a thousand Taiwanese espionage cases in recent years and dismantled a number of espionage networks.

China’s MSS has also launched a high-profile campaign against what it says is a surge in espionage activities by foreign nationals at a time when relations with western powers, especially the United States, have cratered.

Chao Yu-hsiang, a resident search officer at Taiwan’s Institute of National Defense and Security Research (INDSR), said he hopes the recent surge in prosecutions by Taiwan would prompt the Taiwanese military to enhance security measures.

“Both our military and civilians should maintain a high level of vigilance in our words and deeds, develop good confidentiality habits, and use social media with caution to prevent those with ulterior motives from infiltrating, absorbing and exploiting us,” he wrote in a column published by INDSR on Monday.

This post appeared first on cnn.com

The top judge at the International Court of Justice Nawaf Salam has been designated Lebanon’s next prime minister in a surprising turnaround for the crisis-ridden country.

On Monday, the office of newly minted President Joseph Aoun asked Salam to form a government, after the judge was endorsed by a large majority of lawmakers during consultations with Aoun.

Aoun’s election and Salam’s designation mark the end of a more than two-year long stalemate with a presidential vacuum and a cabinet operating in a day-to-day caretaker capacity.

The consultations over the country’s next prime minister were triggered by Aoun’s election in parliament on Thursday, following a robust push from Saudi Arabia.

Salam is widely viewed as a reformist. He is a Sunni Muslim – the only sect allowed the position of prime minister – and was a candidate for the premiership twice before in recent years.

The judge rose to international prominence last year after he was elected head of the ICJ, presiding over South Africa’s case accusing Israel of genocide and other tribunals.

Some media outlets likened Salam’s designation to a “tsunami.” He put himself forward as a candidate on Sunday morning, according to local media reports. Prior to that, incumbent caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati was widely viewed as the most likely contender for the post.

Salam’s designation is a blow to Hezbollah and its allies Amal, known as the Shia duo, who are believed to have supported Mikati. Speaking to reporters, Hezbollah parliamentary bloc leader Mohammad Raad said the move to designate Salam sowed “division” in the country, and said he hoped the cabinet would respect the country’s confessional power-sharing “pact.”

Unofficially, Lebanon’s major sects – Muslims from Sunni and Shia sects as well as Christians – must all be represented in cabinet.

No Shia lawmakers endorsed the prime minister designate, putting Nawaf on a potential collision course as he tries to form a government in the next few weeks.

This post appeared first on cnn.com

Items belonging to missing British hiker Aziz Ziriat have been found in the Italian Alps, close to where the body of his hiking partner Samuel Harris was discovered last week, rescue teams said Sunday.

More than 100 rescuers took part in Sunday’s operation, using shovels to dig into the snow across an area of around 5,500 square meters (18,000 square feet) at an altitude of around 2,400 meters (7,800 feet), according to a statement from Italy’s alpine rescue service.

“Snow depth varied from 50 centimeters (20 inches) to nearly two meters (6.6 feet) in wind-drifted accumulations,” the statement said.

The rescue service said more than 500 people, including seven dog units, were involved in the “complex” search operation.

Search operations will now be “temporarily suspended” to allow for changes in the environmental and snow conditions, adds the statement.

Ziriat, 36 and Harris, 35, were experienced hikers who had planned an excursion in the Adamello mountain range near Trento in northern Italy but went missing on January 1, reported the Associated Press.

Rescue services said they only received an alert about the pair on January 6 after they failed to check in for their flight home and relatives alerted the authorities, according to the Associated Press.

The search operation was complicated by snowfall, fog and avalanche warnings, but on January 8, Harris’ body, as well as the men’s backpacks and equipment, was found by rescuers guided by their phone records.

This post appeared first on cnn.com

Japan’s Meteorological Agency has issued a tsunami advisory after a 6.9 magnitude earthquake occurred off the coast of southwest Japan.

The quake struck shortly after 9:19 p.m. local time (7:19 a.m. ET), the agency said, triggering an advisory for Miyazaki province, in the island of Kyushu, as well as Japan’s southern Kochi prefecture.

Authorities have urged locals not to enter the sea or approach the coast until the advisory is lifted, the country’s meteorological agency said on X.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

This post appeared first on cnn.com

Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Monday signed a bill restricting the use of smartphones at school, following a global trend for such limitations.

The move will impact students at elementary and high schools across the South American nation starting in February. It provides a legal framework to ensure students only use such devices in cases of emergency and danger, for educational purposes, or if they have disabilities and require them.

Education minister Camilo Santana told journalists in the capital Brasilia on Monday that children are going online at early ages, making it harder for parents to keep track of what they do, and that restricting smartphones at school will help them.

“We want those devices, as in many other countries, to only be used in class for pedagogical purposes and with a teacher’s guidance,” Santana said.

The bill had rare support across the political spectrum, both from allies of leftist Lula and his far-right foe, former President Jair Bolsonaro.

Many parents and students also approved the move. A survey released in October by Brazilian pollster Datafolha said that almost two-thirds of respondents supported banning the use of smartphones by children and teenagers at schools. More than three-quarters said those devices do more harm than good to their children.

“(Restricting cell phones) is tough, but necessary. It is useful for them to do searches for school, but to use it socially isn’t good,” said Ricardo Martins Ramos, 43, father of two girls and the owner of a hamburger restaurant in Rio de Janeiro. “Kids will interact more.”

His 13-year-old daughter Isabela said her classmates struggled to focus during class because of their smartphones. She approved the move, but doesn’t see it as enough to improve the learning environment for everyone.

“When the teacher lets you use the cell phone, it is because he wants you to do searches,” she said. “There’s still a lot of things that schools can’t solve, such as bullying and harassment.”

As of 2023, about two-thirds of Brazilian schools imposed some restriction on cellphone use, while 28% banned them entirely, according to a survey released in August by the Brazilian Internet Steering Committee.

The Brazilian states of Rio de Janeiro, Maranhao and Goias have already passed local bills to ban such devices at schools. However, authorities have struggled to enforce these laws.

Authorities in Sao Paulo, the most populous state in Brazil, are discussing whether smartphones should be banned both in public and private schools.

Gabriele Alexandra Henriques Pinheiro, 25, works at a beauty parlor and is the mother of a boy diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. She also agrees with the restrictions, but says adults will continue to be as a bad example of smartphone use for children.

“It is tough,” she said. “I try to restrict the time my son watches any screens, but whenever I have a task to perform I have to use the smartphone to be able to do it all,” she said.

Institutions, governments, parents and others have for years associated smartphone use by children with bullying, suicidal ideation, anxiety and loss of concentration necessary for learning. China moved last year to limit children’s use of smartphones, while France has in place a ban on smartphones in schools for kids aged six to 15.

Cell phone bans have gained traction across the United States, where eight states have passed laws or policies that ban or restrict cellphone use to try to curb student phone access and minimize distractions in classrooms.

An increasing number of parents across Europe who are concerned by evidence that smartphone use among young kids jeopardizes their safety and mental health.

A report published in September by UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, said one in four countries has already restricted the use of such devices at schools.

Last year in a US Senate hearing, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg apologized to parents of children exploited, bullied or driven to self harm via social media. He also noted Meta’s continued investments in “industrywide” efforts to protect children.

This post appeared first on cnn.com

While they continued to emphasize that officials will remain cautious until the negotiations produce a final deal to end the Gaza conflict, as of Monday, the sources said US officials believe a ceasefire agreement could very well be announced in the forthcoming last days of President Joe Biden’s time in office.

Another source said that “all the big blocks (to a deal) have been resolved.”

“I am not going to sit here and make predictions – this has been a long time coming,” Finer said. “Fundamentally, we believe there is progress being made. There is a deal on the table that Hamas should accept.”

It comes as a Hamas official said Monday morning that the group is “very close to an agreement” with Israel.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar also announced some progress, saying Monday that Israel is working hard to reach a deal in the ongoing negotiations being hosted in the Qatari capital of Doha, and that “progress was made.”

“Israel wants a hostage deal. Israel is working with our American friends in order to achieve a hostage deal, and soon we will know whether the other side wants the same thing,” Saar said in a news conference in Jerusalem.

They include Hamas’ demands that Israel withdraw from the Philadelphi corridor, a narrow strip of land along the Egypt-Gaza border, and commit to a permanent ceasefire rather than a temporary halt to the military operations launched in the wake of the Hamas October 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel.

Disagreement also remains over an Israeli-proposed buffer zone inside Gaza to run along the strip’s eastern and northern borders with Israel. The official said that Hamas wants the buffer zone to return to the pre-October 7 size of 300-500 meters (330-545 yards) from the border line, while Israel is requesting a much larger 2,000-meter depth.

“We believe this means that 60 km (37 miles) of the Gaza Strip will remain under their control, and displaced people will not return to their homes,” the official said.

Beyond those key demands, the Hamas official said that negotiators were hammering out specific details of the release of Palestinian prisoners and maps covering the areas from which Israeli forces would withdraw.

The optimistic tone was tempered though by Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who said Monday that the potential ceasefire-hostage deal would be a “catastrophe” for Israel’s national security. In a post on X, Smotrich described it as a “surrender deal” that would include releasing “terrorists” and “dissolving” the war’s achievements.

On Monday, 10 members of Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party sent a letter to the Israeli prime minister expressing concern about a potential agreement and reiterating three “red lines” should not be crossed. The Knesset members argued that Israel should not have to rely on others for security, all hostages must be returned and a mass return to northern Gaza should be prevented in any framework for a deal.

Netanyahu spoke with US President Joe Biden on Sunday, their first publicly announced call since October, about the progress in negotiations.

Netanyahu, who met with President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, on Saturday, is facing pressure from both the current and incoming US administrations to reach a deal.

Meanwhile, Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan has been in close consultation with top Israeli officials, including David Barnea, and Qatar’s prime minister, on Monday, per sources.

“There’s a bigger picture here that he (Netanyahu) wants to achieve. And you know, remaining on track with Trump is important. That’s the thing,” the source added. They said that even if there is no deal by January 20, when Trump will be sworn in as president, then “we have to get to a framework” by that date.

On Monday US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan struck an optimistic tone, saying the two sides were inching closer to a potential deal and that it could “get done this week.”

“I’m not making a promise or a prediction, but it is there for the taking, and we are going to work to make it happen,” he told reporters at the White House Monday.

Finer said Monday that some remaining differences that were present in recent weeks “have been resolved or narrowed.”

Gazans hope for a ceasefire

Since the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, the death toll from Israeli military action in Gaza has risen to 46,584, with 109,731 people injured, according to the latest daily report from the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

The report added that a number of victims are still under the rubble and on roads, and ambulance and civil defense crews cannot reach them.

Meanwhile, a peer-reviewed study by researchers from a leading health research university in the UK found the number of people killed in Gaza is significantly higher than the figure reported by authorities in the enclave.

Ahmad Salama, another man displaced from Khan Younis, said: “My family hopes that the negotiations will succeed so the war will end, and we can return to safety, and the fear and terror will stop, and we won’t have to flee from one place to another with the children and my mother again.”

The war in Gaza has also exacted a heavy toll on Israeli forces. At least 15 Israeli soldiers have been killed in northern Gaza in the past week, according to the Israeli military.

This post appeared first on cnn.com