House committee launches investigation into Republican lawmaker amid domestic abuse allegations – live

US secretary of state Marco Rubio ⁠said ​there has been ⁠progress made in discussions with Iran ⁠and Oman ​on ‌getting ‌more ships through ‌the strait of Hormuz but no final agreement has been ‌reached.

“There’s been progress made ​in those talks, but not finality yet. ⁠We’re hoping that ​will happen ​very ​shortly,” Rubio ​told reporters ‌at ​the ​State Department.

As a reminder, my colleague Lucy Campbell is covering the latest developments in the Middle East. The live updates can be found here:

Embattled GOP representative Max Miller is calling for a House investigation into himself amid domestic abuse allegations made against him by his ex-wife, Emily Moreno, daughter of Republican Ohio senator Bernie Moreno.

Miller is seeking a House ethics investigation into his own conduct as he faces growing calls to resign, including from his own party, in light of the accusations.

In light of all the renewed interest in my family affairs I am going to file my own paperwork for an ethics investigation into myself to clear my name from these horrific attacks on myself and family,” the Ohio representative said in a post on social media. “I have absolutely nothing to hide. We will be providing the committee all necessary documents needed for a detail examination. The accusations continue to change, but my facts stay the same. I am looking forward to my colleagues reading everything for themselves.”

Max Miller, a Republican representative from Ohio, is facing a rising groundswell of resignation calls from his own party over domestic abuse allegations after his ex-father-in-law, Bernie Moreno, a GOP senator, said he was unfit to serve in Congress.

With a deadline looming for party leaders to choose a potential replacement, Miller, a former White House aide, also came under pressure from Donald Trump on Monday after the president reportedly called and told him “things aren’t looking good” for his re-election campaign against his Democratic opponent, Brian Poindexter.

Pleas for Miller to step down intensified after Moreno – father of Miller’s former wife, Emily Moreno – broke his silence on Sunday after months of refraining from comment on allegations concerning the alleged abuse of his daughter.

“If there are any basic standards of character required to hold elected office, Max Miller fails them,” Moreno, an ally of Trump, posted. “He should not serve in the House of Representatives.”

Moreno’s comments came after Miller posted a livestream video defending himself against the abuse accusations and saying his former wife had “significant mental-health challenges”.

A series of public statements from Moreno’s fellow Republican senators indicate that their sympathies are with him.

“[Miller] should resign. He should quit,” Roger Marshall, a senator from Kansas, told Politico. “I don’t know Mr Miller’s story, but I trust Bernie [Moreno] so much as a good friend, and his family has such high values.”

The West Virginia senator Shelley Moore Capito said: “I don’t know [Miller]. I haven’t read a whole lot about him, but if [Moreno] thinks he ought to resign, I’m supportive of that.”

The artificial intelligence company Open AI and the justice department reached a settlement in a case involving allegations that the company discriminated against US workers in favor of temporary visa holders during its Permanent Labor Certification (PERM) recruitment process.

The justice department alleged that OpenAI omitted the job listings from its public career website that it sought to fill through the PERM process, which allows employers to hire foreign workers to work permanently in the US. DoJ also alleged the company required paper applications sent by mail and ran recruitment ads on late-night radio to keep US candidates from applying for these positions.

OpenAI and its subsidiary Statsig Inc were accused of violating the Immigration and Nationality Act and will pay a combined $3,200,000.

“It is illegal to discriminate against US workers by preferring temporary visa holders for jobs,” said assistant attorney general Harmeet K Dhillon of the DoJ’s Civil Rights Division. “This substantial settlement ensures that OpenAI redresses harm and changes its recruitment practices so that US workers receive a fair opportunity for highly sought-after technology positions.”

Democrats have continued to express their concerns over Blanche’s agreement, warning that it doesn’t go far enough to prevent the Trump administration from claiming more immunity from tax audits or compensating Trump allies, including people who attacked the Capitol on 6 January 2021.

Illinois senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, the top Democrat on the senate justice committee, said that the fund “can easily be revived with a new order from the Department of Justice 15 minutes after Mr. Blanche is confirmed as attorney general.”

Meanwhile, on Monday, California senator Adam Schiff said on social media that the deal “doesn’t prevent payouts to violent insurrectionists in the future.” California’s Alex Padilla made similar remarks, saying that “nothing here stops DOJ from using taxpayer money to pay off January 6th insurrectionists. And it leaves the IRS shield protecting Trump and his family from past audits fully intact.”

Senator John Cornyn said there is “no alternative but to take his word” regarding Todd Blanche’s decision to rescind a controversial “anti-weaponization” fund.

“As to the idea it could be revived in the future, I think it’s highly unlikely that could happen without the cooperation of the department of justice,” Cornyn told reporters. “And I think Mr Blanche gave us the assurances that it was dead and would not be revived, and in this case we have no alternative but to take his word for that.”

Blanche struck the deal with key Republican Senate holdouts, Cornyn and Thom Tillis, to secure support for his nomination. Under the agreement, Blanche formally rescinded the fund and clarified that the broad tax immunity the justice department granted to Trump only applied retroactively to the president, his sons, and businesses.

The US Senate judiciary committee voted along party lines to advance Todd Blanche’s nomination for attorney general after he confirmed in writing that a planned $1.8bn slush fund for Donald Trump’s allies was dead. Experts say, however, that Trump could easily reverse the deal.

His nomination will now proceed to the full Senate, where it will probably face intense skepticism from Democrats.

Blanche, one of Donald Trump’s most trusted legal aides and formerly his personal defense lawyer, has faced questions over his suitability to lead the Department of Justice, which is supposed to operate independently of the White House.

He signed an order scrapping the so-called Anti-Weaponization Fund – a roughly $1.8bn pool of money created in May as part of a settlement ending Trump’s lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service – in a bid to defuse a Republican rebellion over his nomination.

Read the full story by Joseph Gedeon and Sam Levine:

Commissioners for Tarrant County, which contains Fort Worth, Texas, will vote on Tuesday on a proposal to cut the number of polling locations by nearly half for the November election.

The proposal has drawn sharp criticism from civil rights leaders and democracy activists.

“Let’s call this what it is: voter suppression,” said NAACP president and CEO Derrick Johnson. “Cutting nearly half the places where people can cast a ballot doesn’t save democracy money, it costs voters their voice. Tarrant County is home to a significant number of Black and Latino voters and is a majority people-of-color county. There is no question that this plan strips away polling access on a scale that will hit Black and Brown voters hardest. That is not a coincidence. It’s an intentional assault on our ability to make our voices heard and we will push back with every tool available.”

The commissioners court for Texas’ third-largest county has a Republican majority. Donald Trump won the county by a 52-47 margin in 2024, with more than 823,000 votes cast. The hearing began at 10am CST.

The midterm election in Texas for the US Senate between Texas’ Republican attorney general Ken Paxton and the Democratic nominee, State Rep. James Talarico of Austin, is unusually tight for Texas politics. Talarico held a five-point lead in the most recent poll.

The proposal reduces polling places in Tarrant County from 316 locations to 176 for this year’s election, and cuts the number of early voting polling places from 50 to 42.

US Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, ranking member of the senate judiciary committee, said he could not take acting US attorney general Todd Blanche at his word that the Trump administration would not reinstate a $1.8bn fund at issue in Blanche’s nomination.

”We have learned that simply his word is not enough for most of us, not even for some of my Republican friends,” Durbin said. “Even his word under oath is not credible enough.”

Blanche, who negotiated the creation of the fund as part of a settlement with the IRS over a leak of the president’s tax returns, is Donald Trump’s former criminal defense attorney. Trump’s public commentary defending the settlement undermines Blanche’s assertion that the fund will no longer move forward, Durbin said, noting that Trump had not signed the order Blanche issued on Sunday that terminated the fund.

”Trump responded as we might have guessed, as he always does, by doubling down on his position and personally attacking our colleagues,” Durbin said. “To state the obvious: Mr Blanche’s statement on the slush fund and the IRS immunity agreement are not signed by the parties to the settlement agreement and are therefore unenforceable. The parties could still enforce the agreement, and the cop-beaters fund can easily be revived with a new order from the Department of Justice 15 minutes after Mr Blanche is confirmed as attorney general. Indeed, the president himself has loudly telegraphed that’s his plan.”

US Senator John Cornyn of Texas said at the confirmation hearing for acting US attorney general Todd Blanche’s nomination that he is now satisfied by Blanche’s assurances that the $1.8bn “anti-weaponization” fund at issue is now dead.

”I’ve been very clear, as others have, that in other order to support Mr Blanche’s nomination, I needed specific assurances in writing about a release signed by the acting attorney general … that clarifies the scope of the parties to the IRS audit agreement and it permanently ends the [anti-weaponization] fund,” Cornyn said. “While this may sound like nitpicking to some, it’s critically important not only to me but to other members of the Senate. What Mr Blanche said under oath in his nomination hearing on these topics was important.”

Cornyn and other Republicans have been holding up the nomination of Donald Trump’s former criminal defense attorney in order to obtain sufficient assurances that the fund proposed in a settlement to the president’s lawsuit stemming from the agency’s leak of his tax records would not go forward. Critics suggested that the “anti-weaponization” money would be used to reward January 6 rioters for their loyalty to the president.

The Department of Justice issued a written order formally withdrawing the fund late on Sunday after negotiations between the Justice Department and outgoing Republican senators Cornyn and Thom Tillis of Kentucky.

“They’ve been consistent about their assertion on behalf of the United States of America that the weaponization fund is dead,” Cornyn said. “Of course, I expect them to live up to that in any future litigation.”