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WASHINGTON — Americans for Prosperity — the group backed by David H. and Charles G. Koch that has been pouring millions of dollars into competitive Senate races to the rising alarm of Democrats — was also among the politically active groups on the ground in this month’s special House election on Florida’s Gulf Coast. But its agenda had little to do with the fate of David Jolly , the Republican candidate who won that race. The group’s ground troops — including those who knocked on doors, ran phone banks and reached out through social media to gauge ways to motivate voters — were part of a much greater project, with a prize much larger than a congressional seat. Americans for Prosperity turned the Florida contest into its personal electoral laboratory to fine-tune get-out-the-vote tools and messaging for future elections as it pursues its overarching goal of convincing Americans that big government is bad government. As the group emerges as a dominant force in the 2014 midterm … [Read more...] about Koch Group, Spending Freely, Hones Attack on Government

WASHINGTON - President Biden and former president Donald Trump may have each drawn a record number of votes in 2020, but at this early stage in the 2024 election cycle, Americans show little enthusiasm for a rematch between the two well-known yet unpopular leaders, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll. Neither Biden nor Trump generate broad excitement within their own party, and most Americans overall say they would feel dissatisfied or angry if either wins the general election. Biden, who has said he intends to seek reelection, has no current opposition for the Democratic nomination. Trump is likely to face at least several challengers in his bid to lead his party for a third consecutive election. Among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents, the Post-ABC poll finds 58 percent say they would prefer someone other than Biden as their nominee in 2024 - almost double the 31 percent who support Biden. That is statistically unchanged since last September. Among … [Read more...] about Few Americans are excited about a Biden-Trump rematch, Post-ABC poll finds

Britain's steel industry risks plunging into “irreversible decline” unless the Tories intervene, MPs warned tonight. A cross-party group has written to Rishi Sunak urging him to back moves to make the sector less polluting. A dozen Labour , Conservative and Welsh and Scottish nationalist Independent MPs have signed the letter, seen exclusively by the Mirror, calling on the Prime Minister to act. The letter warns the PM: “We are concerned that in the absence of government support the UK risks becoming the first G20 economy to see its domestic steel production go into irreversible decline.” Describing steel as “a vital, strategic industry in the UK”, the MPs call on Mr Sunak to “act now to safeguard the future of the industry”. Read More MPs have written to the Prime Minister highlighting the trouble the sector faces ( Image: AFP via Getty Images) The warning comes as 800 jobs hang in the balance at British Steel, and with 440 jobs under threat at Liberty … [Read more...] about UK steel industry on brink of ‘irreversible decline’, MPs warn Rishi Sunak

There is a lot of doom and gloom out there at the moment. The soaring cost of living , the ongoing war in Ukraine, the very uncertain future... it’s enough to make us all want to head to the jungle to eat bugs. No matter how many times someone says “we’ve got through worse”, it doesn’t seem to cut through the anxiety of coping with everything right now. But it is during such difficult times that magic can happen – when communities come together and work towards making other people’s lives better. A lot of fantastic initiatives were set up during the pandemic, showing a small contribution can make a big difference. Get all the latest news sent to your inbox. Sign up for the free Mirror newsletter Food banks help communities ( Image: Manchester Evening News) People volunteered their time and skills to help those struggling to make ends meet. Restaurants fed the hungry, people on local Facebook groups answered the call to deliver care packages or pick … [Read more...] about ‘Watching students work together to serve their local community gave me hope’

Detectives in Lancashire have now been searching for missing dog walker Nicola Bulley for 10 days now. While police on Friday revealed they were working on the theory the 45-year-old mum had fallen into the river, her family urged the public this was only one possible scenario. Nicola's sister Louise Cunningham said there was "no evidence" she had entered the River Wyre, where she was last seen walking her dog on the morning of Friday, January 27. In a Facebook post, Ms Cunningham, urged people to "keep an open mind" as there is "no evidence whatsoever" that the dog walker fell in the river. She said: "Off the back of the latest Police media update, please can I add there is no evidence whatsoever that she has gone into the river, it's just a theory." As the search enters its ninth day and concerns for Nicola mount, here is a day-by-day timeline of events starting from the day of her disappearance. Nicola Bulley, 45, has now been missing for more than eight days … [Read more...] about Nicola Bulley’s mysterious disappearance: Timeline of all events as search enters Day 10

Here’s something odd: We’re getting worse at construction. Think of the technology we have today that we didn’t in the 1970s. The new generations of power tools and computer modeling and teleconferencing and advanced machinery and prefab materials and global shipping. You’d think we could build much more, much faster, for less money, than in the past. But we can’t. Or, at least, we don’t. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, productivity in the construction sector — how much more could be done given the same number of workers and machines and land — grew faster than productivity in the rest of the economy. Then, around 1970, it began to fall, even as economywide productivity kept rising. Today, the divergence is truly wild. A construction worker in 2020 produced less than a construction worker in 1970, at least according to the official statistics. Contrast that with the economy overall, where labor productivity rose by 290 percent between 1950 and 2020, or to the manufacturing sector, … [Read more...] about The Story Construction Tells About America’s Economy Is Disturbing

A broken CCTV camera could have hindered the search for missing mum Nicola Bulley , it is claimed - as police admit "blackspots" have affected their investigation. Officers have been trawling through camera footage trying to ascertain what happened to Nicola, 45, who has not been seen since January 27. The detective heading the investigation says the mum-of-two may have fallen into the water while trying to retrieve her dog's ball, but her friends and family have cast doubt on this theory. Police believe it is "very unlikely" that a third party was involved, but Nicola's sister has urged investigators to keep an "open mind". Hundreds of volunteers joined a search for the missing mortgage advisor today. Nicola was walking with her springer spaniel Willow at the side of the River Wyre close to St Michael's in Lancashire when she vanished. A frustrated pal has said that the one camera that could shed light on what happened is broken, piling on agony for her family. This … [Read more...] about Missing Nicola Bulley: Camera that could have seen EVERYTHING was ‘only one broken’

For the 26th time in two years, the Texas attorney general Ken Paxton recently filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging a Biden administration policy. The suit, which seeks to wipe out a new Labor Department rule about the investment of pension trust assets, wasn’t filed in Austin, the state capital, or in Dallas, where the Labor Department’s regional offices are, or anywhere else with a logical connection to the dispute. It was filed in Amarillo. Why Amarillo? By filing there, Mr. Paxton had a 100 percent chance of having the case assigned to Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk — appointed to the bench by President Donald Trump in 2019 and a former deputy general counsel to the First Liberty Institute, which frequently litigates religious liberty cases before the Supreme Court. “Forum shopping” has long been a problem in civil litigation. Clever lawyers use procedural rules to file in courts deemed most likely to be sympathetic to their claims. But what Mr. Paxton and other plaintiffs are … [Read more...] about Don’t Let Republican ‘Judge Shoppers’ Thwart the Will of Voters

As companies from Coca-Cola to Amazon to Citigroup appear to be tripping over one another to declare that they are “pausing” or “reassessing” donations to Republicans who sought to overturn the election — and, in some cases, suspending giving to both parties — they might want to look at a company that didn’t say anything. That company is IBM . It didn’t need to issue a mea culpa for a simple reason. It doesn’t donate to candidates on either side of the aisle — at all, ever. IBM is one of only a handful of large companies in the United States that are not involved in direct political giving to candidates. It has no political action committee. Even when it gives money to trade groups, it restricts its money from being funneled to candidates. It was a policy put in place more than a century ago by Thomas J. Watson, the founding father of the modern IBM. “We should not use IBM time, money or materials for political purposes,” Mr. Watson’s son, Thomas J. Watson Jr., … [Read more...] about ‘An Epiphany Moment’ for Corporate Political Donors May Have Arrived

WASHINGTON — People of color have been disproportionately hurt by the economic disruptions caused by global trade, as a trend toward offshoring and globalization in recent decades prompted U.S. factories to relocate abroad, according to a newly released report from a government trade agency. The report , issued on Monday by the U.S. International Trade Commission gathers academic literature and worker testimonies to show that workers who are not white have fared worse than their counterparts in the face of so-called trade shocks, such as China’s integration with the global marketplace, which eliminated jobs and lowered wages for some American workers. The report, which was compiled at the request of Katherine Tai, the U.S. trade representative, is the latest sign of shifting views in Washington toward the pursuit of what are commonly referred to as free-trade policies. Many politicians on the right and the left have backed away from policies that pushed aggressively toward more … [Read more...] about Foreign Trade Competition Has Hurt Black and Disadvantaged Workers Most, Report Says