EXCLUSIVE Kimberly Guilfoyle's 'Belle of the Mediterranean' dream revealed... and the intimate grilling that could end in humiliation
Kimberly Guilfoyle is preparing to face an intense grilling from Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which will decide if she becomes the next US ambassador to Greece.
Those close to the former Fox News star and familiar with the Senate proceedings say they wouldn't be surprised if the hearing were to veer off-topic into her personal life.
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The Guardian
43 minutes ago
- The Guardian
EU ‘cannot linger at the margins' of Gaza conflict, says former top diplomat
The EU must come up with a more assertive response to the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza and the violations of international law, the bloc's former chief diplomat has said. In a strongly worded article, Josep Borrell said the EU had a 'duty' to intervene and must come up with its own concerted plan to end the war instead of relying on the US. 'Europe can no longer afford to linger at the margins,' he said in the article that was co-authored with Kalypso Nicolaïdis, an occasional adviser to the EU and professorial chair in international affairs at the Florence school of transnational governance at the European University Institute. 'The EU needs a concerted plan. 'Not only is Europe's own security at stake, but more important, European history imposes a duty on Europeans to intervene in response to Israel's violations of international law,' they say, adding: 'Europeans cannot stay the hapless fools in this tragic story, dishing out cash with their eyes closed.' Their intervention in Foreign Affairs magazine comes as EU member states continue to struggle to unite on action. Last week Borrell's successor, Kaja Kallas, said it was 'very clear' that Israel had breached its human rights commitments in Gaza but said the 'concrete question' was what action the member states could agree on. Her remarks were made after a review of the EU-Israel association agreement, a trade and cooperation pact, was triggered last month by 17 member states in protest at Israel's blockade of humanitarian aid to Gaza. Last month Borrell launched a blistering attack on Israel accusing it of 'carrying out the largest ethnic-cleansing operation since the end of the second world war'. The authors say there are ways and lessons from the past to guide EU member states who want to take action without having to get buy-in from countries reluctant to do so, for historical reasons, including Germany, Hungary and Austria. They suggest a number of actions, from using the EU's financial leverage, to suspending Israel's presence in EU programmes such as the Erasmus+ student exchange. They also suggest EU member states could explore using article 20 of the EU's treaty to 'allow for at least nine member states to come together to utilise certain foreign policy tools not related to defence'. 'Because such an action has never been taken before, those states would have to explore what [it] … would concretely allow them to do,' the article said. Borrell and Nicolaidïs argue that the disunity in the EU has reduced what should be a powerful mediating voice in the Middle East into a bit player. 'Some EU leaders cautiously backed the international criminal court's investigations, while others, such as Austria and Germany, have declined to implement its arrest warrants against Israeli officials,' they say. 'And because EU member states, beginning with Germany and Hungary, could not agree on whether to revisit the union's trade policy with Israel, the EU continues to be Israel's largest trading partner. 'As a result, the EU, as a bloc, has been largely relegated to the sidelines, divided internally and overshadowed in ceasefire diplomacy by the United States and regional actors such as Egypt and Qatar. Shouldn't the EU also have acted as a mediator?'
The Sun
an hour ago
- The Sun
Most Brits think Labour has done a bad job in its first year of government, damning poll finds
MOST Brits think Labour has done a bad job in its first year of government, a damning poll has found. Fifty-four per cent believe Sir Keir Starmer's party has flopped since it stormed into power with a huge majority last July. 1 And even a third of those who voted for Labour at the election now think the party is doing a bad job, compared to 37 per cent saying it has done well. More people, 29 per cent, think the previous Tory government was doing a better job than Labour, while 26 per cent believe the reverse. Sir Keir's approval rating remains low at -35 per cent, behind Tory leader Kemi Badenoch on -24 per cent and Reform UK's Nigel Farage on -9. The survey was carried out by pollsters Opinium this week. James Crouch, their head of policy and public affairs, said: 'As Labour marks its first year in office, the public's mood is pessimistic. 'A majority believe the government has underperformed There is a sense of little to no visible progress on their key promises to rebuild Britain.'
The Independent
an hour 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.' There's a new excise tax on university endowments, restrictions on the development of artificial intelligence and blocks on transgender surgeries. A $200 tax on gun silencers and short-barreled rifles and shotguns was eliminated. One provision bars money to family planning providers, namely Planned Parenthood, while $88 million is earmarked for a pandemic response accountability committee. Billions would go for the Artemis moon mission and for exploration to Mars. The bill would deter states from regulating artificial intelligence by linking certain federal AI infrastructure money to maintaining a freeze. Seventeen Republican governors asked GOP leaders to drop the provision. Also, the interior secretary would be directed to sell certain Bureau of Land Management acreage to provide for housing. The sale of public lands would cover at least 600,000 acres and up to 1.2 million acres, according to a projection from the Center for Western Priorities, a conservation group. 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.
