Ukraine’s military said Russia had pulled some troops from towns on the opposite bank of the Dnipro River from Kherson city, the first official Ukrainian report of a Russian withdrawal on what is now the main front line in the south..

* Spain has stepped up security at public and diplomatic buildings after a spate of letter bombs, including one sent to Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and another to the Ukrainian embassy in Madrid, where an official suffered minor injuries.

* Air raid alerts were issued across all of Ukraine following warnings by Ukrainian officials that Russia was preparing a new wave of missile and drone strikes. “An overall air raid alert is in place in Ukraine. Go to shelters,” country’s border service wrote on Telegram messaging app.

* Ukraine’s military said it had found fragments of Russian-fired nuclear-capable missiles with dud warheads in west Ukraine, and that their apparent purpose was to distract air defences.

* The recently liberated Ukrainian city of Kherson has lost its power supply after heavy shelling by Russian forces, the regional governor said.

* European Union governments tentatively agreed on a $60 a barrel price cap on Russian seaborne oil, with an adjustment mechanism to keep the cap at 5% below the market price, an EU diplomat said.

* Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on that big problems had accumulated in the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), accusing the West of spurning the chance to make it a real bridge with Russia after the Cold War.

* Lavrov said that discussions with Washington about potential prisoner exchanges were being conducted by the two countries’ intelligence services, and that he hoped they would be successful.

* The European Union needs patience as it sanctions Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, as most measures will only have an impact in the medium and long term, Lithuania’s prime minister said in an interview at  the  Reuters NEXT conference.

* Switzerland has frozen financial assets worth 7.5 billion Swiss francs ($7.94 billion) as of Nov. 25 under sanctions against Russians to punish Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine, the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) said.

* Russia said the German parliament’s move to recognise the 1932-33 famine in Ukraine as a Soviet-imposed genocide was an anti-Russian provocation and an attempt by Germany to whitewash its Nazi past.

* Ukraine sacked a top engineer at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, accusing him of collaborating with Russian forces, and urged other Ukrainian staff at the plant to remain loyal to Kyiv.

* Russia must withdraw its heavy weapons and military personnel from the Zaporizhzhia plant if the U.N. atomic watchdog’s efforts to create a protection zone are to succeed, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said.

* In a grim sign of the energy crisis caused by Russian attacks on Ukraine’s electricity grid, nine people have been killed in fires over the past 24 hours as Ukrainians resorted to emergency generators, candles and gas cylinders in violation of safety rules to try to heat their homes after power outages.

* “Remember one thing – the Russians are afraid. And they are very cold and no one will help them, because they do not have popular support,” – Andriy Yermak, chief of Ukrainian presidential staff.

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The collapse of the crypto exchange FTX seemed to materialize out of nowhere: Within one week in November, FTX transformed from one of the most respected and trusted parts of the crypto industry to a bankrupt disgrace that lost more than $8 billion of its customers’ money, according to authorities.

Large chunks of the money went to pay off risky bets made by Alameda Research—the hedge fund started by FTX’s founder Sam Bankman-Fried. But increasing evidence suggests that the collapse of the highly controversial TerraUSD stablecoin—which some critics likened to a Ponzi scheme—months earlier may have started a chain reaction financial crisis that brought down FTX and Alameda.

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The links between the crash of the highly speculative TerraUSD and FTX—a much more mainstream player in the crypto market—could help explain how FTX’s losses mounted so quickly—and why it will be exceedingly difficult for FTX customers to get their money back.

Crypto investigators including Niklas Polk, who is part of a team at the blockchain analytics firm Nansen, have been on the trail of FTX’s missing billions by tracking transactions recorded on the blockchain. Polk recently co-authored a report containing evidence that after TerraUSD collapsed, hundreds of millions of dollars in crypto were transferred from FTX to major crypto lenders.

While much of the press coverage has focused on Bankman-Fried’s political donations and Bahamian real estate empire, it appears that those expenses paled in comparison to Alameda’s debts following the Terra crash. Whether specific customer deposits can be linked directly to Alameda’s debt repayments remains to be determined.

Where did the money go?

FTX, founded in 2019, allowed consumer investors to buy cryptocurrency and took deposits—similar to the way traditional financial institutions work. Alameda was created two years before FTX, and was founded by Bankman-Fried as a quant trading firm that made big bets on various parts of the crypto ecosystem.

Perhaps the biggest outstanding question from FTX’s bankruptcy is “where did the money go?” And the first part of that answer regulators say they know already. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) alleges in a complaint filed last week that most of the lost customer deposits ended up being used to cover risky bets and debts for Alameda Research.

FTX and Alameda were supposed to operate separately from one another, but Nansen found a slew of blockchain evidence that the companies have been entwined since FTX’s inception, with funds flowing freely between them. Alameda Research used FTX’s funds as an unlimited line of credit, the CFTC alleges. Alameda was the only account on the platform that was allowed to have a negative balance, according to the CFTC.

Bankman-Fried claims that the co-mingling of funds between Alameda and FTX was not purposeful, but resulted from his and others’ misreading of “confusing internal labeling,” he told Reuters.

In a crypto bull market, billions of dollars flowed freely amongst market participants, allowing Alameda’s use of FTX funds to go largely unnoticed and unquestioned. But in May 2022, the stablecoin TerraUSD collapsed, causing a domino effect that wiped out over $400 billion in value in the crypto ecosystem. A stablecoin is so named because it is supposed to stick to the value of the U.S. dollar. Stablecoins are a crucial part of the crypto ecosystem: when they work correctly, they provide traders with the option of parking their volatile crypto assets in a more stable currency.

While some stablecoins are fully backed with dollars being held in an account, TerraUSD was algorithmic, meaning that it relied upon code, market activity and sheer belief in order to keep its peg to the dollar. The stablecoin’s peg was also theoretically propped up by its algorithmic link to another currency, Luna—but many experts questioned the stability of such a system.

Read More: What We Can Learn from Terra’s Fall

Several major industry players including Three Arrows Capital and Voyager Digital filed for bankruptcy as a result of TerraUSD and Luna’s crash. The ensuing chaos forced many crypto lenders to call back their loans. Alameda was one of the companies forced to pay up, the CFTC says. The agency alleges that Alameda did not have the cash on hand to service its debts—and that in May or early June at Bankman-Fried’s direction, Alameda directly pulled several additional billion dollars worth of FTX user funds to pay off its debts. (Bankman-Fried has repeatedly denied that he “knowingly” transferred FTX user funds to Alameda.)

Afterward, FTX’s internal books showed that Alameda owed $8 billion to FTX. But in order to hide this hole, FTX executives isolated it into a folder called “our Korean friend’s account,” according to the CFTC. (This may be a reference to Do Kwon, the embattled Korean co-founder of TerraUSD and Luna.) Due to this change, the debt no longer showed up on FTX’s ledgers, the agency alleges.

A crash, then a flurry of transfers

Over the last couple months, Polk and other analysts at Nansen have been tracking money flows from FTX to Alameda. They published their findings in an extensive report on Nov. 17, which shows the many frantic transactions that FTX made following the TerraUSD crash. In particular, FTX transferred hundreds of millions of dollars worth of cryptocurrency first to Alameda and then to the trading firm Genesis, which had served as a major lender to many crypto companies.

Polk says that these transactions suggest that FTX user funds might have been deployed to pay off a massive debt to Genesis. Whether that happened cannot be known for certain yet—partly because any decisions that FTX or Genesis made internally—including the reasons that certain transfers were made—are outside the blockchain and represent a “black hole” to crypto investigators.

“We can say there’s money flowing from Alameda to Genesis in that time frame, which they got from FTX. But you cannot say if it was their money or user funds,” Polk says. “And since Genesis is centralized, we cannot say for certain if it was used to pay back which loans. But since it was a lender, we can at least assume it was used for that purpose.”

In an additional twist, the New York Times reported earlier this month that federal prosecutors are investigating whether Bankman-Fried manipulated the markets of TerraUSD and Luna. (Bankman-Fried told the Times he was not aware of, and did not intend, any market manipulation.) The Times cites an unnamed source who alleges that it was Bankman-Fried’s cryptocurrency trading firm that shorted Luna, or placed a giant bet on it falling, thus causing TerraUSD and Luna to crash and setting off a slew of ripple effects that led to FTX’s own demise.

This link has also yet to be proven. “We studied the Terra / Luna crash here but did not find ties to Alameda on-chain, but instead came to the conclusion that (at least on-chain) there was no single evil perpetrator to be found,” Polk wrote in a follow-up email to TIME. “But it could have just happened off-chain.”

A representative for FTX did not respond to a request for comment.

Clawing back payments

FTX, under new management, and federal agencies are now working to recover FTX funds that might be returned to customers. FTX claims it has recovered $1 billion in assets—a fraction of the $8 billion or more missing. Some $3.1 billion is owed to the company’s top 50 creditors, according to a bankruptcy filing from FTX last month. (It’s unclear whether that $3.1 billion is part of the $8 billion or separate.) Newly-appointed CEO John Ray III says FTX could owe money to more than one million people and businesses.

But it now seems likely that much of the money routed from FTX to Alameda is no longer in the hands of the latter company—especially if it was used to pay off debts that were incurred following the Terra-Luna crash.

Timothy Howard, a partner at the law firm Freshfields and a former federal prosecutor with the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, says that getting money back from third parties to return to customers is possible but complicated. “The Department of Justice is committed to providing restitution to victims of fraud. If assets go to third parties and are proceeds of a crime, they’re potentially forfeitable,” he says. “But third parties can exert an innocent owner defense—if they weren’t involved in the crime or had no knowledge or reason to know they were receiving proceeds of a crime—to dispute forfeiture.”

In a congressional hearing last week, Ray alleged that Alameda spent much of the money it received from FTX users, making it much harder for the money to be returned. “At the end of the day, we are not going to be able to recover all the losses here,” Ray said. “There was money spent that we will never get back.”

—With reporting by Nik Popli

Though you can’t use PayPal to pay for Amazon purchases directly, there are a few things you can do instead.

Marko Geber/Getty Images

• Amazon doesn’t let you pay with PayPal when making purchases. 
• However, you can use the PayPal Cash Card to make purchases on Amazon. 
• You can also use PayPal to buy an Amazon gift card, and then make purchases on Amazon.

In the world of online shopping, Amazon and PayPal are widely used. However, if you’ve tried to use your PayPal balance to purchase something on Amazon, you’ll already know that PayPal is not an accepted payment method. 

Of course, you can transfer your PayPal balance to your bank account to use those funds however you please, but if you’re set on using it to buy things on Amazon, there are some workarounds to make it happen.

Can you use PayPal on Amazon?

Amazon doesn’t let you pay with PayPal directly, but you can use the PayPal Cash Card to make purchases. You can also use PayPal to buy Amazon gift cards. 

Here’s how to do it all.  

Pay with the PayPal Cash Card

PayPal Cash Card is a debit card that draws funds from your PayPal account, and it works anywhere that accepts Mastercard payments; like Amazon. Since it’s a debit card, not a credit card, you need to have a balance on your PayPal account to use a PayPal Cash Card.

To apply for a PayPal Cash Card, simply go to this link, log in to your PayPal account, and follow the on-screen prompts. While there isn’t a credit check involved in the application process, note that PayPal charges fees for adding money to your account.

Once approved for a PayPal Cash Card, you can use it as a payment method on Amazon the way you would with any other credit or debit card.

Quick tip: Need to top up your PayPal account? Here’s how to add money to your PayPal account.

Buy Amazon gift cards

One of the easiest ways to use PayPal to buy from Amazon is to purchase Amazon gift cards with your PayPal account. You can buy an Amazon gift card from a site like eGifter.com using a PayPal balance and then use that gift card to shop normally on Amazon.

Just be sure you verify that the site from which you’re buying a gift card is safe and secure.

Quick tip: Check out our guide for more places to buy an Amazon gift card.

Which option is the best?

It really depends on your circumstances and needs. To help you decide, here are the various pros and cons that come with these two options:

	Pros	Cons
PayPal Cash Card	It’s a debit card, so you don’t have to worry about getting a hit to your credit for opening the account Earn cash back on some purchases	You could pay up to $4.95 to reload cash onto the debit card
Amazon Gift Card	Gift cards are reloadable, so it works for one-off purchases as well as long-term use	You have to buy the gift card from a vendor that accepts PayPal, which can be limiting

Why doesn’t Amazon accept PayPal directly?

There are two major reasons that Amazon does not work with PayPal.

First, historically PayPal was a part of eBay, one of Amazon’s direct competitors. From 2002 to 2015, PayPal and eBay were linked together. PayPal has since split into an independent brand, but their partnership with eBay remains strong.

Second, PayPal is a direct competitor to Amazon’s own payment service, the rather bluntly named Amazon Pay. Just as with PayPal, Amazon Pay is accepted by numerous third-party retailers, letting you use Amazon payment methods beyond the immediate orbit of Amazon itself.

FAQs

What other payment methods are accepted by Amazon?

Amazon accepts the following payment methods:

• All major credit cards (Visa, MasterCard/EuroCard, Discover Network, American Express, and Diner’s Club — provided you have a U.S. billing addresses)
• Visa, MasterCard, or American Express prepaid credit or gift cards
• Amazon Store Cards
• Amazon Secured Cards
• JCB
• NYCE
• STAR
• China UnionPay (credit card only)
• Venmo

How can I transfer money from Amazon to PayPal?

Unfortunately, there isn’t a direct route. You’d have to initiate a transfer from your Amazon Payments account to your bank account, then transfer those funds into your PayPal account.

Cash App provides several security features, like Venmo and PayPal, but falls short in some areas when compared to a traditional bank account.

SOPA Images/Getty Images

• Cash App is relatively safe due to its encrypted transactions, security features, and protections.
• You should enable the app’s security features and watch for scams or fraudulent transactions.  
• Cash App isn’t a replacement for a bank account as your balance isn’t federally insured.

Cash App is one of several popular peer-to-peer transaction services, similar in many ways to PayPal, Venmo, and others. 

Cash App tries to differentiate itself from other apps by serving as a potential alternative to a traditional bank account; it can even receive direct deposits, for example.

The app is simple to set up and use, but you might wonder: Is Cash App safe and secure enough for regular use?

Cash App is relatively safe to use

Like Cash App’s peers, it’s a relatively safe way to pay for products and send money to friends, family, and co-workers.

Cash App encrypts all data in transit and can claim PCI-DSS level 1 certification — the highest level of compliance with a set of standards designed to ensure companies store, transmit, and process credit card data to the highest standards. The app also offers fraud protection for unauthorized charges. 

Cash App also features security built into the app to prevent unauthorized users from gaining access to the app if they should get physical possession of your phone; these include Touch ID and PIN code security, depending upon which phone you have. 

Even so, the weakest link in Cash App is often the user, so you need to be vigilant. “Cash App payments are instant and cannot be canceled,” said tech expert and media personality Kim Komando. “If something goes wrong, such as you sent it to the wrong John Smith in your contacts, then hopefully that person is honest and sends it back to you. But there has been a surge of payment app scams. More people are using Cash App and scammers are getting very bold.”

It’s worth noting, though, that Cash App positions itself as a possible alternative to a traditional bank account, but this is an area in which its safety is lacking; your balance is not FDIC insured.  “This could be a big problem if the company is hacked, if it were to go out of business, or if it were to experience some other catastrophe,” said Ted Rossman, senior industry analyst at Bankrate.com.

Quick tip: Another key thing you can do to help keep your data safe is to make sure that your devices are up to date. Here’s how to update an iPhone, Android, Mac, or PC.

Advantages of Cash App

You might start using Cash App because your group of friends, family or colleagues is already using it; alternatively, you might be interested in using it on your own. Regardless of what brings you to Cash App, there are many reasons to be attracted to this app:

• In addition to simple peer-to-peer cash transfers, you can use Cash App as a bank account. Cash App gives you a routing and account number to enable direct deposits, so your paycheck can be sent directly to Cash App. Likewise, you can make payments from Cash App.
• A debit card is available for making purchases at brick-and-mortar stores using your Cash App account. 
• There are no fees for making payments when you connect Cash App to a bank account or debit card.  
• If you are so inclined, you can invest in both stocks and cryptocurrency using your Cash App account. 
• Cash App transactions are encrypted and safe.

Quick tip: If you’re going to set up an account, here’s how to start sending money with Cash App. 

Disadvantages of Cash App

While Cash App can take the place of a traditional bank account, you should be aware of the service’s primary shortcomings:

• First and foremost, money held in your Cash App account is not FDIC insured, which means that your entire balance is vulnerable if Cash App were to lose your money or shut down unexpectedly. 
• Unlike traditional bank accounts, Cash App balances do not earn interest. 
• If you use a credit card to make a transaction, you’re charged a 3% fee. 
• Cash App’s debit card can be used at ATMs, though there is a $2 transaction fee. 
• There are some limits on Cash App transactions – you can only withdraw up to $310 per transaction from an ATM, for example, and no more than $1,000 in a seven-day period. 

Tips for protecting yourself on Cash App

Like many banking and payment services, Cash App is relatively safe as long as you are careful, stay vigilant for potential fraud and scams, and follow basic security best practices.

Here are some ways to protect yourself when using Cash App.

• Enable security features in the app. Tap your profile icon on Cash App’s home screen, select Privacy & Security, toggle on the Security Lock button, and enter a PIN or enable a Touch ID, depending on your device. 
• Don’t store large amounts of money. Again, your balance in the app is not federally insured, so it’s best to not use it as a bank account substitute. 
• Only send money to users you know and trust. Don’t send money to accounts you don’t know personally, and make sure to verify the account information of your recipients.
• Be aware of potential transaction scams. Cash App warns its users against several common forms of transaction scams that involve scammers promising money, goods, or services in return for Cash App payments. 
• Watch out for customer support scams. You won’t ever be contacted by Cash App technical support or customer service. “Since Cash App does not provide a direct line to customer care, scammers impersonate them to obtain access to mobile devices and steal personal details,” said Chris Taylor, the marketing director at Profit Guru.

Cash App and taxes

If you use Cash App as part of your business, you’ll have to report those earnings for goods and services if those come to $600 or more. 

Cash App is required to provide you with IRS form 1099-K in those cases. That will show your total annual earnings via the app and the IRS will then be aware of those earnings — so you’ll have to pay taxes on them, as you would with any other earnings.

Cash App doesn’t have to report transactions for personal accounts.

How Cash App protections compare to other payment apps

Cash App has a lot in common with other peer-to-peer payment services like PayPal, Venmo, and Zelle. They all allow you to easily send payments to friends, family, colleagues, and businesses, and none of them charge fees when you’re using a payment source other than a credit card. In addition, they’re all highly secure with encryption to protect your transaction and various security tools like Face or Touch ID and PIN codes to prevent other people from gaining access. 

However, there are significant differences in how Cash App works compared to these other apps, specifically regarding how money in your account is protected and insured. 

• Fraud protection: Cash App and Zelle do not offer fraud protection for authorized payments. While you can file a claim on Cash App for purchases which you can prove you did not authorize, if you don’t receive the goods on an authorized payment, you don’t have recourse like you do with PayPal and Venmo. 
• FDIC insurance: Cash App positions itself as a bank account alternative, though your balance isn’t federally insured. In fact, no non-bank entity (including Venmo and PayPal) will be covered by FDIC insurance. But as long as your money stays in your linked (covered) bank account, you’re golden. The one notable app here is Zelle, because it doesn’t allow you to store money in the app itself, so your money is never in a non-FDIC insured account.

Here’s a quick overview of the various apps to help you weigh your options:

	Cash App	PayPal	Venmo	Zelle
Encrypted?	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Security features	PIN entry, Touch ID, or Face ID verification	Unique one-time pin for each login attempt; key pinning	Ability to add a PIN to your account	Facial or fingerprint recognition (depending on device) for logins; doesn’t require you to share any sensitive account details for transactions
Fraud protection for authorized payments?	No	Yes	Yes	No
FDIC insured?	No	No	No	Yes (in effect)

How to contact Cash App customer service

If you need to contact Cash App support, you can do so through the app, on the website, or by phone. You can also contact them via their various official social media accounts, such as Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok.

Then-US President Donald Trump greets the crowd at the “Stop The Steal” Rally on January 6, 2021 in Washington, DC.

Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images

• After months of debate, lawmakers are poised to pass major changes to the Electoral Count Act.
• The reforms are included in a sweeping government funding bill that is expected to pass this week
• Among the changes would be a clarification that no vice president could unilaterally change a state’s results.

Congress is poised to pass its most sweeping post-January 6 actions later this week, a host of steps that would rule out a future rogue vice president unilaterally casting aside election results, among other reforms.

After months of debate, lawmakers are expected to pass changes to the nearly 135-year-old Electoral Count Act and much more recent provisions governing presidential transitions. The reforms, written by Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, and Sen. Joe Manchin, a West Virginia Republican, have broad bipartisan support. 

Lawmakers were unable to pass the legislation by itself, leading the bill to be attached to the sweeping $1.7 trillion deal that would fund the federal government for most of next year, a common way to pass legislation unrelated to government funding.

Effectively, these changes to the ECA are aimed at ensuring that formal counting of the Electoral College votes remains a rather ceremonial and perfunctory occurrence. The new law comes after President Donald Trump and his allies tried to argue that ambiguities in existing laws, including the Electoral Count Act, would have essentially allowed a combination of Vice President Mike Pence and Republican state legislatures to override the will of millions of Americans in the 2020 election. Pence refused to do so, insisting that it would be unconstitutional, following his own review of the founders’ statements as well as the research complied by his legal team.

“Most people agree with Vice President Pence that the Constitution and the 12th Amendment didn’t allow him to disregard electoral votes, or to ignore how electoral votes are counted, or make decision about these alternative slate of electors,” Derek T. Muller, a University of Iowa law professor and election law professor, told Insider. “The Constitution didn’t allow it. The Electoral Count Act didn’t allow it.”

Nonetheless, Mueller, who worked with senators to draft the legislation, said it is aimed at closing off any existing ambiguities. He also added that lawmakers aimed to make changes that will outlast the current moment that is dominated by Trump.

“I know people are obsessed with Trump and what happened in 2020 and what could happen in 2024, but this is a bill that has been around for close to 135 years,” Muller said. “It’s not something that you amend lightly and it’s something that you want to last for the next 100 years.”

Among the key changes are:

• Raising the threshold necessary for a member of Congress to object to a state’s electoral votes from one member in each house to at least 1/5th of each house, 87 House members and 20 senators provided there are no vacancies 
• Clarifying the vice president’s status overseeing the joint session of Congress is purely ceremonial
• Removing an old provision that suggested state legislatures could have overridden the popular vote after an election
• Allowing for multiple candidates to have access to presidential transition funding

The House January 6 committee has pushed for these changes, though senators were already considering the legislation before the panel formally endorsed the efforts.

How Trump and his allies’ mischief got us here

To understand the changes, it is important to remember how Trump and his allies tried to argue their case after multiple federal courts dismissed their claims of widespread voter fraud.

Conservative attorney John Eastman and other Trump attorneys pushed Pence to consider two avenues that would have been unprecedented in their scope. They wanted the vice president to either delay the January 6 joint session of Congress and/or unilaterally find that the certified results of states in disputes were not legitimate. Under this second scenario, Pence would have then moved to count pro-Trump electors, changing a state’s election results and potentially keeping Trump in the White House. On Tuesday, the House January 6 committee recommended to the Justice Department that Eastman face criminal charges related to his conduct. 

Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine and Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia talk in a Senate elevator. The pair are the main author’s of changes to the Electoral Count Act.

Anna Rose Layden/Getty Images

Pence rejected these pleas repeatedly. He and virtually every major legal scholar viewed these to be illegal actions. Pence has also said that morally speaking it would be antithetical to the American ideal to effectively allow one person to decide an election.

Since this was already the established legal view, some lawmakers have questioned whether it was really necessary to declare that no vice president could ever do what Trump pressured Pence to do. 

“It is wholly unnecessary,” Sen. Kevin Cramer, a North Dakota Republican, told Steve Scully earlier this month. “I know people want clarification of the vice president’s role but I am not confused by the vice president’s role. I think Vice President Pence … did exactly the right thing and previous vice presidents have done the same. I don’t even know why we’re having this discussion.”

Trump himself has suggested that by clarifying the Electoral Count Act, senators are implicitly suggesting that Pence could have had this power.

“I don’t care whether they change The Electoral Count Act or not, probably better to leave it the way it is so that it can be adjusted in case of Fraud, but what I don’t like are the lies and ‘disinformation’ put out by the Democrats and RINOS,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth on Tuesday. “They said the Vice President has ‘absolutely no choice,’ it was carved in ‘steel,’ but if he has no choice, why are they changing the law saying he has no choice?”

Pence was not the lone figure on January 6, 2021. In order for pro-Trump lawmakers to throw the election to the vice president, they still needed to file objections to the results. Under current law, this process has an extremely low threshold. Only one member from each house needs to support an objection for the joint session to be suspended and for both respective chambers to then vote on upholding an objection.

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani speaks during a news conference in New York on June 7, 2022.

Mary Altaffer/Associated Press

Democrats filed objections in 2001, 2005, and 2017. As Politifact previously pointed out, the losing candidates in each election did not support this protest. In all instances, the losing Democratic candidate had also conceded the presidential election. Democrats only met the threshold for sustaining an objection in 2005, when then-Sen. Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat, joined then-Rep. Stephanie Tubbs in objecting to the certification of Ohio’s results. Their objection failed.

It is worth noting that under the new requirements, none of the objections on January 6, 2021 would have met the initial threshold. While 147 Republicans voted to overturn either Arizona or Pennsylvania’s results or both, only six senators objected to Arizona and seven to Pennsylvania.

The legislation would also make a major change to how presidential transitions are carried out

One of the other more consequential changes within the legislation is how it treats state legislatures. Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and other Trump attorneys argued that state legislatures could appoint their own electors. Under this scenario, Republican state lawmakers could have effectively changed the election by appointing pro-Trump electors in states Biden won. The new provisions, Muller said, would make it clear a state only gets one election.

Outside of the elections itself, the bill would also make a key change to presidential transitions. If passed, the federal government could allow competing candidates to receive transition funding and conduct basic business as results are certified.

This became a major point of contention in 2020.

Under the current law, the General Services Administrator declares the apparent winner of the election. Administrator Emily Murphy, a Trump appointee, waited for days after major news organizations declared Biden the projected winner to sign off on his transition funding.  The changes would allow for multiple candidates to receive funding, potentially avoiding such drama in the future. New provisions would also force an administrator to declare an apparent winner in certain circumstances.

The Biden administration on Wednesday unveiled new curbs on technology exports to Russia’s Wagner military group, in a bid to further choke off supplies to the contractor over its role in the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The Wagner group, which was added to a trade blacklist in 2017 after Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimea region, will now be labeled a military end user and face tough new curbs on access to technology made anywhere in the world with U.S. equipment.

“The Wagner Group is one of the most notorious mercenary organizations in the world and is actively committing atrocities and human rights abuses across Ukraine,” said Under Secretary of Commerce for Industry and Security Alan Estevez. “Today we are sending a clear message to non-state actors seeking to pick up the baton of brutality from Putin’s faltering military that the Department of Commerce will not hesitate to act against them.”

The move, first reported by Reuters, is a show of support for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who visited the White House on Wednesday and received renewed assurances of U.S. support amid Russia’s continued onslaught on Ukraine. read more

The United States has backed Kyiv with billions of dollars worth of weapons shipments and tough sanctions on Russia since Moscow invaded Ukraine in February in what it describes as a special operation.

The Wagner group, a private military contractor with close ties to the Kremlin, was founded in 2014 after Russia seized and annexed Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula and sparked a separatist insurgency in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region.

Its forces are known to be fighting in parts of Ukraine, including during a brutal, long-running battle for the small city of Bakhmut.

The U.S. State Department also designated Wagner in November for operating in the defense sector of the Russian economy, and accused the group of seeking to purchase Iranian drones, likely to support its operations in Ukraine.

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Christmas Day used to be predictably low-key for Tamar Manasseh, who grew up Jewish on Chicago’s South Side. As she put it, she “used to watch old movies, day drink and eat Italian food. Chinese ain’t my thing.”

Then in 2016, she found herself with leftover gifts from an annual holiday party she spearheads as the founder of the anti-violence group Mothers Against Senseless Killings.

And a new tradition was born.

On Christmas morning, Manasseh and dozens of volunteers — many who are Jews from Chicago’s suburbs — fill their cars with children’s toys. They then form a caravan that drives through the city’s South and West sides to hand out toys out to children who might not otherwise receive gifts for the holiday. They also distribute them to parents and other relatives who may not be able to afford gifts for their young family members.

“We do this in some of the poorest neighborhoods, outside of dollar stores, grocery stores, in housing projects, and on corners where people congregate,” Manasseh said. “It’s so beautiful how many Jews — over 100 — come out from all over Chicagoland to do a mitzvah. They bring their children and it’s inspiring to see kids giving gifts to others.”

The caravan has grown from a handful of cars to 60 last year. Manasseh rides in the lead, playing Motown Christmas hits from a speaker affixed to the back of her truck. With her is Chicago’s official Black Santa, Dreezy Claus. Like the jingle of an ice cream truck, the spectacle attracts children and their families for a flurry of gift-giving.

Donations come in many forms: from people buying items on MASK’s Amazon Wishlist to others dropping them off at the nonprofit’s headquarters and those who fill their cars themselves before heading out. Some caravan members bring their children and grandchildren along.

The spirit of generosity is contagious, Manasseh said. “During the route, so many people will ask how they can join, and say they want to help.”

Manasseh, the first woman ordained to the rabbinate at Chicago’s Beth Shalom B’nai Zaken Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation in July 2021, is intentional about inclusion in MASK’s work. She says about 70% of the caravan participants are white Jewish suburban residents, many of whom work with MASK throughout the year.

One is Laura Frisch, who lives in suburban Morton Grove and attends Makom Solel Lakeside in Highland Park. Frisch has worked with Manasseh at MASK for years; passing out food, holding street corner Yom Kippur observances for people killed by gun violence, and teaching in MASK’s summer academy.

“I had nothing to do on Christmas Day,” Frisch recalled of first hearing about the leftover toy giveaway six years ago.

“Now I’ll bring gifts from my friends who can’t go,” she said. “It feels good. I feel like it’s all part of tikkun olam. It’s all part of healing the world. When you see something that needs to be fixed or healed, you do it.”

“Once upon a time, I was one of those kids who needed toys. For me to be able to be an adult that can give to a kid is an amazing feeling.”

There are also Black caravan gift-givers — some Jewish like Manasseh — and some who are neither Black nor Jewish. That describes Jared Honn. A resident of a predominately white and more affluent neighborhood on the city’s North Side, Honn has also been involved with MASK since its early days.

“When MASK started, Tamar welcomed everyone who wanted to participate, and we just stuck around to support in whatever ways we could,” he said.

“This provides opportunities for folks to experience the South Side as a place that is full of beauty and character instead of how the media tends to frame it as this big scary place.

“It’s another way of activating folks on the North Side to show solidarity with our neighbors on the South Side in a reparational and restorative manner,” he continued. “It’s all about community building—when you’re participating together you can get a lot more done.”

The largely Black West Side is also included. This year, the caravan will add a stop at a West Side corner where 15 people were shot on Halloween.

“You want to go somewhere like that to show young people there that there is still love and goodness,” Manasseh said. “Even if you haven’t seen much of it, it’s still here.”

As Manasseh coordinates a growing number of gifts, volunteers and cars for the caravan, she considers the multi-generational aspects of the project. “Once upon a time, I was one of those kids who needed toys. For me to be able to be an adult that can give to a kid is an amazing feeling,” she said.

“This is the definition of everybody looking out for and being there for each other, taking care of each other on that day. That’s the most Jewish thing you can do.”

The post ‘It’s all part of healing the world’ appeared first on The Forward.

Since the 1970s, U.S. presidential candidates have voluntarily released their tax information, as a way to show voters they paid taxes and let voters evaluate how their personal finances may influence their decisions in office.

Donald Trump broke that tradition when he ran for office in 2016. Now, for the first time, the American public will have access to Trump’s tax returns from 2015 through his presidential term, after a years-long legal battle culminated in a House committee vote on Tuesday to release the records.

When he was a candidate in 2016, Trump told reporters he would release his returns, but never did it. He repeatedly said that his returns were under audit while he was running, which the House Ways and Means Committee, in a report released Tuesday night, says wasn’t the case. In fact, the committee found that Trump’s returns weren’t under audit until years later, in 2019, and that the IRS during Trump’s first two years in office failed to follow its own manual which requires auditing the President and Vice President’s tax returns each year. Only one year of Trump’s taxes was selected for audit, the report found, and that audit wasn’t completed until after Trump left office.

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The committee also released summaries of what it learned about Trump’s tax returns after the Supreme Court allowed the IRS to hand them over to Congress in November, after three years of Trump’s objections in court. The summaries showed that Trump declared millions of dollars in losses in 2020, 2017, 2016, and 2015, and paid just $750 in taxes in 2017 and 2016. The committee voted on Tuesday night to release redacted versions of six years of Trump’s taxes, and those documents may be made public in the coming days.

It was the first time that a presidential candidate forcibly had tax information released by Congress; the previous releases had all been voluntary. Trump’s refusal proved it was politically possible to buck tradition and still get elected, and may have deeply politicized the practice.

Presidential candidates from both parties releasing their tax returns began in the 1970s, when Richard Nixon decided to release his tax returns in the wake of press reports about his tax filings. Nixon encouraged Congress to look at whether he’d misused public funds. A joint congressional committee in 1974 determined Nixon owed back taxes. When that news came out, Nixon delivered the now-iconic line, “I am not a crook.”

Since then, every major presidential candidate and sitting President except Trump has made tax information public. (Gerald Ford issued summaries of his taxes, but not the actual returns.)

Already, at least one other Republican candidate has shown signs of following Trump’s lead. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who is widely seen as a potential challenger to Trump in the 2024 presidential race, released his tax returns in 2018, but hasn’t for other years, even when other candidates in Florida’s governor’s race did so. DeSantis did release a financial disclosure form including less detail than a tax return that shows a summary of his financial holdings in 2021.

“President Trump’s unwillingness to abide by the norms that all of his predecessors since the late 70s have respected, has brought us to this point,” says Timothy Naftali, a presidential historian at New York University and a former director of the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum. “Donald Trump felt he was above it all.”

Trump’s norm-breaking refusal to voluntarily release his tax information launched the process into the political arena, and already lawmakers are warning of the implications. The House Ways and Means Committee decided to release Trump’s returns by a party line vote on Tuesday, just two weeks before Republicans are set to take control of the chamber. Texas congressman Kevin Brady, the top Republican on the committee said he was concerned that releasing Trump’s tax information “will set a terrible precedent” and it would unleash “a dangerous new political weapon.”

While the imminent release of Trump’s tax returns will end that battle for now, new investigations into the matter could begin next year. The IRS manual requires that the President and Vice President’s tax returns are audited each year. The presidential audits are an internal agency requirement and not codified in law. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal, a Democrat from Massachusetts, has written a bill that would put more legal force behind the IRS’s mandatory audits of sitting Presidents. Not even starting an audit into Trump’s taxes for the first two years of his presidency was “a major failure of the IRS under the prior Administration,” Neal said.

Figuring out exactly how those lapses happened could be taken up by the Senate, which will stay in Democrats’ hands next year. Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon, has also written legislation that would require presidential candidates to make their tax returns public. Wyden has indicated that his committee could take up the investigation into the decision by Trump’s Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to not comply with a request from Congress for Trump’s tax returns.

-With reporting from Mini Racker/Washington

A massive winter storm that could bring “life-threatening” conditions is set to sweep across the U.S. this week, threatening to affect travel for millions of Americans ahead of the holidays. Weather forecasts predict heavy snow, frigid winds, and bitter cold temperatures. Almost 50 million people nationwide are under winter storm advisories, watches and warnings and more than 50 million face wind chill alerts.

Meteorologists are tracking the storm and predict that its effects will begin to be widely felt by Wednesday night and quickly intensify over the next few days. It’s expected to peak on Friday with snowstorms in the Great Lake states and high winds along much of the east coast. The Great Lakes region will likely bear the brunt of the storm, but meteorologists are also keeping a close eye on Texas, where the forecast predicts an icy windchill.

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Minnesota meteorologist Sven Sundgaard advises locals to continue checking the latest weather forecasts ahead of travel plans. “It’s one thing to travel during a snowstorm that’s already treacherous, but then you add in these extreme wind chills and cold air and it can really become a dangerous situation,” he says.

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Sundgaard’s sister is no exception to his advice. She had planned to travel on Friday from Milwaukee to the Twin Cities with her husband and two children, but will now most likely delay their five hour drive to Christmas Eve to avoid the height of the storm.

Here’s what to know:

Who’s likely to be affected?

The storm began moving through the Northwest on Monday night, bringing snow to Washington, more than a foot in the Olympic and Cascade Mountain regions. By early Thursday morning, the storm will likely move to the Midwest, where it’s expected to cause 6-12 inches of snowfall. Snow is expected to pile up on highways in the region, so officials are advising against driving. Public transportation will also likely suffer from snow and ice.

Parts of the East coast could experience record-low colds and will likely get some freezing rain. “When you get to the Southeast along the East coast, at least initially, it’s gonna get pretty warm. There’s going to be some rain, gusty winds and maybe even some thunderstorms, but by the time we get to Friday night, it’s going to get real cold,” John Grushiak, a senior meteorologist at Accuweather, tells TIME.

High winds that threaten to knock over trees could cause hundreds of thousands of power outages, particularly in Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York.

Weather officials assured Texans that although this year’s storm will bring freezing temperatures to cities like Houston and Austin, it won’t be as long or snowy as the weeklong storm in Feb. 2021 that resulted in massive power grid failure.

“When it gets really cold down there, they have problems with the electrical grid, and people trying to heat their homes, demanding more and more electricity,” Grushiak says. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas has said that it has upgraded since the last storm and “expects sufficient generation to meet forecasted demand.”

As of Wednesday, the National Weather Service had weather advisories and storm watches in effect in every state except for South Carolina, Nevada and Arizona.

Where will the storm be the worst?

In the Midwest, particularly by the Great Lakes, the snow combined with high winds will bring blizzard-like conditions. Fueled by extreme cold in the Northern plains and pushed by an arctic cold front, weather conditions are subject to change rapidly. If the storm gains enough strength quickly and its barometric pressure drops enough, it’ll qualify as a “bomb cyclone,” which rarely occurs on land.

“One of the big things about the storm and following it is going to be the cold,” Grushiak says. “It’s going to be one of the coldest Christmases that has ever occurred in a lot of places.”

In the Dakotas, Montana and Minnesota, wind chill may be around negative 40 degrees Fahrenheit and Wyoming’s wind chill could be as low as negative 70 degrees Fahrenheit. Denver could have its coldest day in 32 years, if the temperature reaches negative 14 degrees Fahrenheit on Friday like forecasters predict.

Some communities, including Portland, Oregon, Buffalo, New York and Cincinnati, Ohio, are opening up warming centers—short-term, emergency shelters for unhoused people to spend the storm in.

By Saturday, the storm will likely pass into eastern Canada but its impact may continue through Christmas day with more snow and wind. Wind chill will make the cold feel even stronger and severe wind chill can cause frostbite in as little as five minutes, according to the National Weather Service.

Travel amid the storm

Weather conditions of this magnitude will require adjusting travel plans as necessary. Jalyn Souchek, a PR manager for Memphis Tourism, was expecting to drive eight hours north on Thursday to Cedar Rapids, Iowa to see her family, but has since made arrangements with her job to leave a day early to ensure her safety.

Kareem George, a travel advisor for Culture Traveler, tells TIME that safety comes first while traveling through such conditions, but there are a few ways travelers can prepare for the inevitable delays.

“We always advise our travelers to purchase travel insurance. Depending on the travel insurance policy that a client may have, there are provisions for delays where funds can be allocated to cover additional costs for penalties or for hotels or various different costs that are associated with having to reschedule,” George says.

He explains that travel insurance can make the ordeal a lot easier, at least in terms of being reimbursed. George emphasizes the need to save your receipts and document delays, which is useful even for those without travel insurance, in case transportation companies offer refunds. Many major airlines—including United Airlines, Southwest Airlines, American Airlines, Jetblue and Spirit Airlines—have already begun issuing waivers that allow travelers to change their itineraries ahead of the storm.

Travel blogger Andrea Litwa, who lives in Carmel, Indiana, advises flexibility for a safer travel experience, even if it means changing or canceling your flight or driving arrangements for after the holidays, into January. “It’s so stressful when things don’t go as planned, but if you can get ahead of it, set your expectations, and know that you may have to pivot, that will help,” she says.

Nearly three million people are expected to travel for the holidays through Chicago, a busy airport hub. “In a major city like Chicago, there are several hotels that are within shuttle ride [distance],” George says. He suggests researching accommodation options beforehand or staying in touch with friends and family nearby in case you have a lengthy delay.

“Traveling carry-on only is something I often recommend whenever that’s possible,” George says. “You can have all of your appropriate items with you, whether that be medications or just toiletries and clothes, so you can be as comfortable as possible if you’re going to have to stay longer than anticipated in the airport.”