House Oversight Chair James Comer (R-Ky.)is moving to hold FBI director Christopher Wray in contempt of Congress, escalating a fight over Biden bribery allegations that Republicans acknowledge have not been verified.
Why it matters: Comer's stated desire to lead bipartisan, substantive investigations is increasingly under strain, with his own public statements handing ammunition to Democrats as they seek to paint his probes as overtly partisan.
Trump pollster Tony Fabrizio is telling GOP donors that it's a "myth" that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is more electable than the former president, according to a private memo obtained by Axios Thursday.
Why it matters: DeSantis and his super PAC have used surveys showing that he polls better than Trump against President Biden as a key argument in his race to become the Republican nominee.
Arizona has paused approval for new housing subdivisions in the Phoenix area that would have relied on groundwater alone, a move that's likely to limit expansion in fast-growing parts of the west and southeast Valley.
State of play: Gov. Katie Hobbs (D) announced the policy Thursday in response to a new report from the Arizona Department of Water Resources (ADWR) showing the Phoenix area faces a projected 4% shortfall in groundwater demand, or nearly 4.9 million acre-feet, over the next century.
Mandy Cohen,the former head of the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, is expected to become the next director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, two sources familiar with the move confirmed to Axios.
Top California leaders released a letter Thursday cautioning educators in the state against book bans and highlighting constitutional protections against such actions.
The big picture: The move comes amid an unprecedented wave of book bans in other states, particularly in Florida, and reflects the ongoing culture war between liberals and conservatives about the role public institutions play in the lives of children.
The White House on Thursday announced several measures designed to combat racism in the home appraisal process, targeting algorithmic bias and underrepresentation in the profession.
Why it matters: Homeownership is essential to wealth accumulation for many Americans, and below-market home appraisals can reduce access to home loans, limit refinancing options and hurt selling prices.
Twitter has not removed recent posts from verified subscribers that violated the social media platform's hateful conduct policy, according to a new report released on Thursday by the Center for Countering Digital Hate.
Why it matters: The findings suggest the company has either disregarded or overlooked posts from Twitter Blue subscribers — who pay the company $8 a month or $84 a year — that contained hateful content, even though such posts are prioritized in conversations and searches on the platform.
Hunter Biden’s lawyer on Wednesday deposed John Paul Mac Isaac, the Delaware computer repair shop owner who says Biden left behind a laptop in 2019 that later became public, according to two people familiar with the deposition.
Why it matters: The deposition is the latest move by Hunter Biden and new members of his legal team to fight more aggressively against conservatives and those who spread his personal data across the Internet.
His previous legal team largely did not respond publicly to media reports and Republican attacks concerning the laptop during the first two years Hunter's father, Joe Biden, was president.
Mac Isaac owned a repair shop where he claimed Hunter dropped off his computer in April 2019 and never returned to pick it up.
While Mac Isaac has claimed the laptop became his property after 90 days because Hunter signed a form with such language, Hunter’s lawyers dispute that. The lawyers also have argued that the language on Mac Isaac’s form did not give him the right to the data on the hard drive.
Hunter Biden changed his legal team handling GOP investigations last December, and his new lawyers countersued Mac Issac in March — alleging the shop owner had invaded Hunter's privacy by distributing nude photographs and financial documents.
Hunter and his lawyers have never confirmed that he left behind a laptop at Mac Isaac’s shop.
A lawyer for Mac Isaac did not respond to a request for comment. Through a spokesperson, Lowell declined to comment.
Zoom out: Lowell has been increasingly important to Hunter Biden's inner circle, and has expanded his portfolio beyond GOP investigations to include helping Hunter's local counsel in Arkansas in an ongoing paternity suit.
Lowell was hired after Hunter Biden clashed with top aides to his father over his legal strategy, as Axios has reported.
What’s next: Hunter Biden’s legal team wrote in March that it intended to seek depositions of several others in the laptop case, including former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Steve Bannon, a former adviser to Donald Trump.
Giuliani and Bannon were key figures in how the hard drive ultimately made its way to a New York Post reporter in the final stretch of the 2020 presidential campaign.
Since then, the hard drive‘s contents have been a roadmap for House Republicans investigating the Biden family's finances, and whether Joe Biden’s policy positions were influenced by financial deals.
Media organizations such as The Washington Post have since verified the authenticity of some of the materials on the hard drive.
With a 314-117 House vote to lift the debt ceiling until 2025, Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) proved he could harness his narrow majority to force President Biden to make policy concessions on issues that are deeply important to both parties.
Why it matters: Now Biden and McCarthy will have to decide whether their debt deal will be the first of their political compromises — or their last.
Some presidential candidates struggle to nail their message. Ron DeSantis is struggling to nail his NAME. In the early days of his campaign, DeSantis has gone back and forth between pronouncing his name Dee-Santis and Deh-Santis.
Why it matters: DeSantis' dissonance on how to say his name — for years an issue of confusion for his campaign teams — is a curiosity as many GOP leaders and donors wonder whether the Florida governor is ready for the scrutiny of a presidential campaign.
The House voted Wednesday to pass a bill raising the debt ceiling until 2025 in exchange for measures to cut the budget deficit.
Why it matters: The bill's passage puts the U.S. on track to avert a debt default — which Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen projected could happen in a matter of days.
Editor's note: This story has been updated to include denials by McCarthy's and Jeffries' offices of any deal in exchange for Democratic support for the procedural vote.
Spokespeople for House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) disputed four Democratic sources who told Axios the two leaders had cut a deal for Democrats to help advance the debt ceiling bill to a final vote.
Why it matters: The 52 Democratic votes on a measure to bring the debt ceiling bill to the floor were necessary for the bill's survival after 29 Republicans had voted against moving it forward Wednesday afternoon. The bill eventually was approved on a 314-117 vote.
Solomon Peña, an unsuccessful New Mexico Republican candidate accused of shootings at Democratic officials' homes in the state, now faces federal charges.
Driving the news: Prosecutors accuse the 40-year-old Peña of organizing the shootings at the homes of two Bernalillo County commissioners and two New Mexico state legislators following his November state House election loss, per a Department of Justice indictment that was unsealed Wednesday.
The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday approved Pfizer's vaccine against respiratory syncytial virus for people aged 60 and older, making it the second RSV shot authorized for use in the U.S.
Why it matters: With the earlier approval of GlaxoSmithKline's RSV vaccine, older adults could soon have a choice of shots against the virus.
