Mounting scandals fuel uncertainty over Cawthorn’s reelection

BY TAL AXELROD

© Greg Nash

The flood of controversies surrounding Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.) shows no sign of ceasing just weeks before his May 17 primary, raising questions as to whether he can avoid a runoff despite being one of the highest-profile freshmen in the House.  

Cawthorn in the past week alone has been hit with a slew of bad headlines and is now facing calls for an ethics investigation into alleged insider trading by Republican Sen. Thom Tillis (N.C.), who is also backing a primary challenge against Cawthorn. 

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Cawthorn hit with new ethics complaint filed by rival PAC

BY EMILY BROOKS

Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.) has been hit with a new ethics complaint by a political action committee seeking to unseat him that hits the embattled lawmaker with a host of accusations.

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Pelosi says audio recordings show McCarthy ‘inconsistent’ on lawmaker safety

BY MYCHAEL SCHNELL

The Red Cross and Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said that efforts are underway to evacuate civilians from the Ukrainian city of Mariupol as officials heed the humanitarian organization’s warnings, which have underscored the necessity to get Ukrainians out of the besieged city.

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Vulnerable Democrats press Pelosi to reverse rejection of gas tax holiday

BY MIKE LILLIS

Embattled Democrats are pushing back on Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) decision to reject a gas tax holiday, urging party leaders to reconsider a proposal as lawmakers take a beating over sky-high gas prices.

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Greene spars with CNN’s Acosta on Trump texts: ‘You’re a liar’

BY RACHEL SCULLY

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) clashed with CNN anchor Jim Acosta this week over questions about her text messages calling for former President Trump to declare martial law after rioters stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

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Biden eyes long-awaited student debt relief starting at $10,000 per borrower

BY HANNAH TRUDO, AMIE PARNES AND ALEX GANGITANO

President Biden plans to move forward with student loan debt forgiveness, with two sources telling The Hill he is considering action to expunge at least $10,000 per borrower.

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New texts highlight Hannity’s close communication with Meadows

BY REBECCA BEITSCH

Newly released texts between former President Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows and Fox News host Sean Hannity flesh out the degree of coordination between some of the network’s hosts and the White House as Trump struggled to challenge President Biden’s electoral victory.

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Dow plunges 900 points, Nasdaq suffers worst month since 2008

BY SYLVAN LANE

Stocks took steep losses Friday, closing a brutal month with a deep selloff driven largely by falling shares of technology companies.

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IRS faces new pressure to develop free online tax-filing system

BY TOBIAS BURNS

Following two chaotic tax filing seasons resulting in tens of millions of unprocessed returns, the IRS is being urged to develop more free online tax filing tools instead of doubling down on a decades-old program that prevented the agency from competing with private tax preparers.

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Pentagon spokesman chokes up while talking about Ukraine

BY ELLEN MITCHELL

The Pentagon’s top spokesperson became emotional Friday after he was asked whether he believes Russian President Vladimir Putin to be a “rational actor.” 

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Manchin-Murkowski meeting could be the start of a bipartisan energy bargain

BY SASHA MACKLER

OPINION | Due to its longstanding leadership both supporting advanced energy technologies like wind and solar and helping to unleash the natural gas fracking boom across the country, Congress should be well-positioned to build on its historically bipartisan actions to enact the logical next wave of federal policy.

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Elon Musk’s Twitter ‘free speech’ mirage

BY MARC GINSBERG

OPINION | By every measure, Elon Musk is a brilliant entrepreneur, but a trustworthy arbiter of free speech? I think not. Musk boasts his purchase of Twitter is designed to return Twitter to its glory days as a 280-character free speech fortress, where users could post whatever their whim, with no consequences to them or to Twitter. Easy to promise, impossible to deliver. 

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