WhatsApp banned from phones of House of Representative members
The US House of Representatives has banned WhatsApp on mobile devices for its members, citing "high risk" due to potential security concerns, lack of data transparency, and absence of stored data encryption.
A memo from the Office of Cybersecurity outlined the ban and recommended alternative messaging platforms including Microsoft Teams, Amazon Wickr, Apple iMessage, FaceTime, and Signal.
Meta, WhatsApp 's parent company, strongly disagreed with the ban, asserting that WhatsApp provides a higher level of security than other approved applications.
The ban follows a previous incident, dubbed "Signalgate," where a journalist mistakenly accessed a Signal group chat with high-ranking administration officials, leading to the sharing of sensitive military operations information.
The "Signalgate" incident resulted in a federal lawsuit against several cabinet members for alleged violation of federal law regarding message preservation, with Trump blaming a "lower level" employee.
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The Independent
16 minutes ago
- The Independent
What's in the latest version of Trump's big bill now before the Senate
At some 940-pages, the legislation is a sprawling collection of tax breaks, spending cuts and other Republican priorities, including new money for national defense and deportations. Now it's up to Congress to decide whether President Donald Trump 's signature's domestic policy package will become law. Trump told Republicans, who hold majority power in the House and Senate, to skip their holiday vacations and deliver the bill by the Fourth of July. Senators were working through the weekend to pass the bill and send it back to the House for a final vote. Democrats are united against it. Here's the latest on what's in the bill. There could be changes as lawmakers negotiate. Republicans say the bill is crucial because there would be a massive tax increase after December when tax breaks from Trump's first term expire. The legislation contains roughly $3.8 trillion in tax cuts. The existing tax rates and brackets would become permanent under the bill. It temporarily would add new tax breaks that Trump campaigned on: no taxes on tips, overtime pay or some automotive loans, along with a bigger $6,000 deduction in the Senate draft for older adults who earn no more than $75,000 a year. It would boost the $2,000 child tax credit to $2,200 under the Senate proposal. Families at lower income levels would not see the full amount. A cap on state and local deductions, called SALT, would quadruple to $40,000 for five years. It's a provision important to New York and other high tax states, though the House wanted it to last for 10 years. There are scores of business-related tax cuts. The wealthiest households would see a $12,000 increase from the legislation, which would cost the poorest people $1,600 a year, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office analysis of the House's version. Middle-income taxpayers would see a tax break of $500 to $1,500, the CBO said. Money for deportations, a border wall and the Golden Dome The bill would provide some $350 billion for Trump's border and national security agenda, including $46 billion for the U.S.-Mexico border wall and $45 billion for 100,000 migrant detention facility beds, as he aims to fulfill his promise of the largest mass deportation operation in U.S. history. Money would go for hiring 10,000 new Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, with $10,000 signing bonuses and a surge of Border Patrol officers, as well. The goal is to deport some 1 million people per year. The homeland security secretary would have a new $10 billion fund for grants for states that help with federal immigration enforcement and deportation actions. The attorney general would have $3.5 billion for a similar fund, known as Bridging Immigration-related Deficits Experienced Nationwide, or BIDEN, referring to former Democratic President Joe Biden. To help pay for it all, immigrants would face various new fees, including when seeking asylum protections. For the Pentagon, the bill would provide billions for ship building, munitions systems, and quality of life measures for servicemen and women, as well as $25 billion for the development of the Golden Dome missile defense system. The Defense Department would have $1 billion for border security. How to pay for it? Cuts to Medicaid and other programs To help partly offset the lost tax revenue and new spending, Republicans aim to cut back some long-running government programs: Medicaid, food stamps, green energy incentives and others. It's essentially unraveling the accomplishments of the past two Democratic presidents, Biden and Barack Obama. Republicans argue they are trying to rightsize the safety net programs for the population they were initially designed to serve, mainly pregnant women, the disabled and children, and root out what they describe as waste, fraud and abuse. The package includes new 80-hour-a-month work requirements for many adults receiving Medicaid and food stamps, including older people up to age 65. Parents of children 14 and older would have to meet the program's work requirements. There's also a proposed new $35 co-payment that can be charged to patients using Medicaid services. Some 80 million people rely on Medicaid, which expanded under Obama's Affordable Care Act, and 40 million use the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program. Most already work, according to analysts. All told, the CBO estimates that under the House-passed bill, at least 10.9 million more people would go without health coverage and 3 million more would not qualify for food stamps. The Senate proposes a $25 billion Rural Hospital Transformation Fund to help offset reduced Medicaid dollars. It's a new addition, intended to win over holdout GOP senators and a coalition of House Republicans warning that the proposed Medicaid provider tax cuts would hurt rural hospitals. Both the House and Senate bills propose a dramatic rollback of the Biden-era green energy tax breaks for electric vehicles. They also would phase out or terminate the various production and investment tax credits companies use to stand up wind, solar and other renewable energy projects. In total, cuts to Medicaid, food stamps and green energy programs would be expected to produce at least $1.5 trillion in savings. Trump savings accounts and so, so much more A number of extra provisions reflect other GOP priorities. The House and Senate both have a new children's savings program, called Trump Accounts, with a potential $1,000 deposit from the Treasury. The Senate provided $40 million to establish Trump's long-sought 'National Garden of American Heroes.' 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What's the final cost? Altogether, keeping the existing tax breaks and adding the new ones is expected to cost $3.8 trillion over the decade, the CBO says in its analysis of the House bill. An analysis of the Senate draft is pending. The CBO estimates the House-passed package would add $2.4 trillion to the nation's deficits over the decade. Or not, depending on how one does the math. Senate Republicans are proposing a unique strategy of not counting the existing tax breaks as a new cost because those breaks are already 'current policy.' Senators say the Senate Budget Committee chairman has the authority to set the baseline for the preferred approach. Under the Senate GOP view, the tax provisions cost $441 billion, according to the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation. Democrats and others say this is 'magic math' that obscures the true costs of the GOP tax breaks. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget puts the Senate tally at $4.2 trillion over the decade.
Daily Mail
19 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Tom Brady lifts the lid on his Las Vegas Raiders role after NFL skepticism
The addition of Tom Brady to the ownership board of the Las Vegas Raiders led to many raised eyebrows across the league. Now, the former champion is clarifying his role. Brady, the seven-time Super Bowl champion, had a deal finalized last year to join the team's ownership group under majority owner Mark Davis. However, it came after Brady agreed to being a color commentator for Fox Sports - which would typically give him access to privileged information from players and coaches to use on broadcasts. This could, in theory, have given Brady an unfair advantage. But now, in an interview with Paul Gutierrez on the Raiders' team website, Brady downplayed his role within the organization. 'Well, I'm just a limited partner, so Mark's the boss,' Brady said in an interview with Paul Gutierrez of the team's website. 'And then [head coach] Pete [Carroll] does his job and Spy [GM John Spytek] does his job and, I think, we trust them to make the right decisions. 'I'm there as a great sounding board for anything they want to do.' What remains to be known is Brady's day-to-day with the team, with the former Patriots and Buccaneers quarterback not revealing what he does daily. Brady re-iterated that he is 'just trying to contribute in the ways that I can to help the team be the best they can be, on and off the field' while praising the staff in the franchise 'We've got a great group of people. I love Mark. He's done an incredible job getting the team to Vegas, getting the stadium built. 'Pete is new this year; he's got a big role to play,' Brady added. 'And so does John Spytek. And we're trying to do the right things every day. So that's what we're trying to do.' He also gave insight into the working relationship between Carroll, a Super Bowl winning coach with five decades of experience, and Spytek, a longtime scout and executive in his first GM role. 'They've worked together very well, and there's a lot of decisions that are made,' Brady said. 'Winning games in September starts with what happens in February, March, and April, when no one's really watching. They've been hard at work. 'And our goal is to, you know, win a lot of football games. You've got to work hard at it, and it's all earned, and we've got a tough division. There's a lot of good opponents we face. But it's going to be up to the guys and their daily commitment to doing the right things.' Last season, the Raiders went 4-13 in a hyper-competitive AFC West division.
The Independent
36 minutes ago
- The Independent
Protesters line highway in Florida Everglades to oppose 'Alligator Alcatraz'
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