Former Vice President Mike Pence is set to launch his run for the White House against his old boss, former President Donald Trump, within the coming two weeks, four sources familiar with the planning told The Messenger.

The Georgia Republican Party may have tipped Pence’s hand Wednesday in an email explaining he could no longer deliver the keynote address at a June 9th event. Pence would make “an announcement regarding his future plans” at a televised town hall, the email said. The Georgia GOP did not specify which town hall, but Pence is scheduled to headline a CNN town hall in Des Moines, Iowa on June 7, his 64th birthday.

Four Republicans familiar with the plans say Pence and his team started ramping up their outreach two weeks ago, telling supporters that the launch was imminent and would take place in mid-June.

https://themessenger.com/politics/former-vice-president-mike-pence-to-launch-campaign-for-white-house-within-two-weeks-exclusive

In New York, all sorts of things that were once considered illegal are now fair game, like buying marijuana and smoking it in public, or betting on sports right from your cellphone.

But what if you wanted to buy wine from a grocery store? Or a bottle of vodka on Sunday morning for an early Bloody Mary? Sorry, no. That’s against the law.

For years, state lawmakers have tried to tackle New York’s antiquated liquor laws, with halting success. Until last year, for example, liquor stores were barred from opening on Christmas Day. And it wasn’t until 2016 that lawmakers passed the so-called boozy-brunch bill, which allowed restaurants to serve alcohol before noon on Sunday.

But attempts to make the alcoholic beverage industry more competitive and friendlier to consumers have typically faced opposition from recalcitrant parties that stand to lose money, and resistance from lawmakers concerned about easing the sale of alcohol. The state has created three commissions in recent years, the first two in 2009 and 2016, to make recommendations to update the state’s laws. Most were never adopted.

Speaker Kevin McCarthy toiled on Wednesday to lock down the votes to pass his deal with President Biden to suspend the debt ceiling and set federal spending limits, as a stream of defections from hard-right lawmakers raised the stakes for a climactic set of votes on the package.

With the nation’s first-ever default looming in days, the House was on track to begin consideration on Wednesday afternoon of a plan to defer the nation’s borrowing limit for two years — allowing the government to borrow unlimited sums as necessary to pay its obligations — in exchange for two years of spending caps and a string of policy concessions that Republicans demanded.

To muster a 218-vote majority to push the bill through the closely divided House, congressional leaders must cobble together a coalition of Republicans willing to back it and enough Democrats to make up for what was shaping up to be a substantial number of G.O.P. defections. Mr. McCarthy and his lieutenants predicted they would be able to do so and scheduled a final vote for Wednesday night, well after markets have closed.

Hard-right lawmakers are in open revolt over the compromise and have vowed to try to derail it, with some warning of dire consequences for Mr. McCarthy for shepherding it. Multiple right-wing lawmakers have savaged the bill, publicly using a profanity-laced description to compare it to a foul-tasting sandwich and arguing that it does nothing to secure the kind of deep spending cuts and rollbacks of Biden administration policies for which they have agitated.

The special counsel investigating former President Donald J. Trump’s efforts to cling to power after he lost the 2020 election has subpoenaed staff members from the Trump White House who may have been involved in firing the government cybersecurity official whose agency judged the election “the most secure in American history,” according to two people briefed on the matter.

The team led by the special counsel, Jack Smith, has been asking witnesses about the events surrounding the firing of Christopher Krebs, who was the Trump administration’s top cybersecurity official during the 2020 election. Mr. Krebs’s assessment that the election was secure was at odds with Mr. Trump’s baseless assertions that it was a “fraud on the American public.”

Mr. Smith’s team is also seeking information about how White House officials, including in the Presidential Personnel Office, approached the Justice Department, which Mr. Trump turned to after his election loss as a way to try to stay in power, people familiar with the questions said.

The investigators appear focused on Mr. Trump’s state of mind around the firing of Mr. Krebs, as well as on establishing a timeline of events leading up to the attack on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob on Jan. 6, 2021. The latest subpoenas, issued roughly two weeks ago, went to officials in the personnel office, according to the two people familiar with the matter.

Rishi Sunak has been accused of attempting to cover up the actions of ministers during the pandemic as the Cabinet Office intensified its battle to withhold Boris Johnson’s WhatsApp messages from the Covid inquiry.

The prime minister insisted his government has been cooperating with the investigation but is facing increasing calls from experts and MPs – with some coming from within his own party – to hand over evidence without redactions.

Both Labour and the Lib Dems accused the government of a potential cover-up, while relatives of those who died in the Covid pandemic questioned what ministers have to hide.

The inquiry, led by retired judge Heather Hallett, has used its sweeping powers to request unredacted notebooks, diaries and WhatApp correspondence between Johnson and 40 senior government figures.

The man accused of crashing a box truck into barriers near the White House in a bid to overthrow the government planned to give a speech announcing the end of U.S. democracy, prosecutors said.

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A memo federal prosecutors filed Friday in support of keeping Kandula behind bars with no conditions before a potential trial said he kept a journal that included a coup speech he planned to give had he taken over the government after the crash.

The memo quotes a passage of the journal, which the defendant described as a "green book," that describes a post-democratic U.S. He addresses "my fellow citizens of America" in prescribing historic change.

“As I am familiar with the [unknown] of this country being a democratic nation, and this will no longer be the case," the passage reads, according to the memo. "There shall be consequence if civil unrest happens. To make it clear Any opposition will be met with death penalty to make it clear: (kill president) As you have seen, we will declare martial until the situation has been [unknown]. We will rebuild this world."