Russell Vought, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, declined to give senators an estimate of the cost of the military operations against Iran when pressed on the issue during a hearing Thursday. Vought said the White House is working on a request for additional defense funding but declined to offer an… Source link
Authored by Jacob Burg via The Epoch Times, Four U.S. senators from both sides of the aisle are planning to visit Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea within the coming days to strengthen U.S. alliances that they see as critical to challenging China’s sphere of influence. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), who serves as the ranking Democrat member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, announced the trip on March 28. Sens. John Curtis (R-Utah), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), and Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) will join her on a trip to Taipei, Taiwan; Tokyo; and Seoul, South Korea, ahead of U.S. President Donald Trump’s May summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Beijing. The trip could cause friction with Chinese leadership, which opposes other countries having relations with Taiwan and sees such activities as a challenge to Beijing’s claim of sovereignty over the independent island. While Taiwan is backed by the United States for its democracy, Trump’s recent floating of potential arms sales to Taiwan in discussions with Xi has highlighted implications about the future of U.S. policy toward the …
Authored by Micah Zimmerman via BitcoinMagazine.com, Republican Senators Bill Cassidy and Cynthia Lummis introduced legislation Monday aimed at reshaping the U.S. digital asset mining sector, tightening supply chains, and embedding bitcoin into federal reserve strategy. The proposal, titled the “Mined in America Act,” would establish a federal certification program for domestic crypto mining operations while phasing out reliance on foreign-manufactured hardware. It also seeks to codify Donald Trump’s executive order creating a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, placing the policy on statutory footing, according to a release on the matter. “Digital asset mining is a big part of our economy. We should be doing it here in America,” Cassidy said in a statement, framing the bill as a supply chain and manufacturing initiative. Lummis tied the legislation to a broader push to position the United States as a global hub for digital assets. “The Mined in America Act brings this industry home through forward-thinking initiatives to secure our financial future,” she said. The bill directs the Department of Commerce to create a voluntary “Mined in America” certification for mining facilities and pools that …
Because US Congress is perfectly functional, and all domestic issues have been resolved (one would very ironically think), the FT reports that a bipartisan pair of US senators are set to introduce legislation calling for sanctions to be imposed on senior Hungarian officials involved in obstructing aid to Ukraine. If passed, the Block Putin act would require President Trump to impose financial sanctions and visa bans on Hungarian government officials involved in the country’s purchases of Russian oil and gas, and who have sought to block support for Ukraine. The introduction of the bill comes as Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has held up a €90bn EU loan to Ukraine as he faces a tough re-election campaign ahead of parliamentary elections next month. Opinion polls indicated Orbán, who has served as prime minister since 2010, could lose power. The opposition Tisza party’s lead stood at 23% points on Wednesday, according to pollster Median. Pro-government polls show a slight lead for Orbán’s ruling Fidesz. Orbán, historically aligned with Vladimir Putin, has accused Kyiv of disrupting the flow …
In a bipartisan team-up, Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Republican Sen. Josh Hawley are demanding more transparency regarding the energy use of data centers. The pair sent a letter to the Energy Information Administration on Thursday, urging the EIA to “establish a mandatory annual reporting requirement for data centers.” Wired reported the news earlier. Data centers have become a major topic of debate, as tech giants like Amazon Web Services, Google, Meta and Microsoft continue to buy massive amounts of land to house artificial intelligence data centers. While some landowners are taking the payouts, others — like a Kentucky woman and her mother, who turned down $26 million to sell their land — are holding out because of their opposition to data centers. The interested buyer in Kentucky remains anonymous, but the landowner told WLKY they were described as a “major artificial intelligence company.” Not only do data centers need large plots of land for their infrastructure, but they also require substantial water and electricity to operate. The exact amounts are not always known, which is why the senators are urging …
Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren and Republican senator Josh Hawley are urging the US’s central energy information agency to provide better information on how much electricity data centers actually use. In a joint letter sent to the Energy Information Administration Thursday morning, seen by WIRED, Hawley and Warren press the agency to publicly collect “comprehensive, annual energy-use disclosures” on data centers. This information, they write, is “essential for accurate grid planning and will support policymaking to prevent large companies from increasing electricity costs for American families.” As the data center boom spreads across the country, there have been widespread worries from voters about how their massive energy needs may increase consumers’ electric bills; this concern helped shape some midterm elections in data-center-heavy states, including Virginia and Georgia. Last month, Hawley cosponsored a bill with Democratic senator Richard Blumenthal that would require data centers to supply their own power sources in order to protect consumers. Earlier this month, Donald Trump convened a group of executives from big tech companies at the White House to sign a nonbinding …
March 25 (Reuters) – A bipartisan group of U.S. senators has reached a deal on capping the price of a month’s supply of insulin at $35, Semafor reported on Wednesday, citing an interview with New Hampshire Democrat Senator Jeanne Shaheen. Shaheen is making an urgent push to pass legislation to reduce the cost of insulin before her retirement from Congress, teaming with Senators Susan Collins, Raphael Warnock and John Kennedy, according to the Semafor report. (Reporting by Rishabh Jaiswal in Bengaluru; Editing by Andrew Heavens) Copyright 2026 Thomson Reuters. Photos You Should See – March 2026 Source link
Donald Trump is taking a new tack in pressuring Republican senators to pass the controversial SAVE America act. Ahead of Congress’ planned Easter recess., Trump asked GOP lawmakers to force a vote on the voter identification law “for Jesus.” “Don’t worry about Easter – going home. In fact, make this one for Jesus, okay? Make this one for Jesus, that’s what I tell them,” he said at an event in Memphis, Tennessee on Monday. “It would be a damn good thing.” Trump: So I’m tying homeland security into voter identifications with picture and proof of citizenship in order to vote. Don’t worry about Easter, going home. Make this one for Jesus, ok? pic.twitter.com/JNAaEQtk6q — Acyn (@Acyn) March 23, 2026 The act would require voters to register to vote in federal elections in person with proof of citizenship, such as a passport or birth certificate. Voters would also be required to show a photo ID to vote in person in federal elections. Under the law, mail-in ballots would need to include a photocopy of suitable identification. …
A group of U.S. senators from both parties is targeting sports-related prediction markets, introducing a bipartisan bill that would outlaw the contracts altogether. The move ramps up an ongoing clash over whether these platforms function as legitimate financial tools or simply unregulated gambling in disguise. Early reaction from the advocacy group Gambling is Not Investing was blunt. “Clearly something needs to be done. Prediction market platforms have unilaterally made sports gambling available on every phone in the country, regardless of local laws and in disregard for consumer protections and safeguards that legal sportsbooks implement,” said Mick Mulvaney, the group’s executive director in a statement to ReadWrite. .@EndBackdoorBets executive director @MickMulvaney responds to @SenAdamSchiff and @SenJohnCurtis bipartisan bill that would ban sports betting on prediction market platforms pic.twitter.com/sWRXJMOo8x — Suswati Basu (@suswatibasu) March 23, 2026 He also pushed back on federal regulators’ role in the space. “The CFTC is attempting to sow confusion about who regulates sports gambling in this country, but the law is clear: sports betting is a state issue. I’m glad to see …
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard told lawmakers Wednesday that the regime in Iran “appears to be intact but largely degraded” after almost three weeks of war in the Middle East, but she faced intense scrutiny over the Trump administration’s preparation for the conflict and how she advised the president about the risks it posed. Source link
