DoJ files charges against man accused of spraying substance at Ilhan Omar
The Justice Department has filed charges today against the man who allegedly tried to spray Democrat representative Ilhan Omar with a “mixture of water and apple cider vinegar” from a syringe during a town hall in Minneapolis on Tuesday.
The affidavit alleges that Anthony Kazmierczak “forcibly assaulted, opposed, impeded, intimidated an officer and employee of the United States” while she was engaged in official duties.
Omar, who has repeatedly criticized the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota, had just finished calling for the resignation of Kristi Noem when Kamierczak appeared to say, “She’s not resigning. You’re splitting Minnesotans apart” after spraying her, according to the FBI.
This morning, Omar appeared on CNN to reiterate her stance against the Trump administration’s aggressive approach to immigration. “The difference between the president and I is that I was raised to be a decent human being, and my faith teaches me to have compassion,” she said. “He lacks both of those things.”
Key events
Dara Kerr
Chris Van Hollen, a democratic senator from Maryland, promoted a bill on Thursday that addresses the rising electricity costs AI data centers are bringing to the public. During a press conference, he said the legislation sets out to make sure “rate payers should not have to foot the bill of some of the richest companies on earth”.
The top companies driving data center growth are Amazon, Microsoft, Google and Meta.
Van Hollen cited a Department of Energy report that says it expects power consumption from data centers to more than double by 2028 because of the rise in AI. He also pointed to a report by the Natural Resources Defense Council, which estimates average households in the 13 states in the “Pennsylvania-New Jersey-Maryland” region could see their energy bill grow by $70 per month, or $840 per year, because of pass-on costs from tech companies to consumers.
Van Hollen’s “Power for the People Act” comes after Donald Trump announced earlier this month that he was partnering with tech companies to ensure they didn’t drive up electricity costs for households. “Big Technology Companies who build them must ‘pay their own way,’” Trump wrote on Truth Social. Microsoft was the first company to lay out a plan, and OpenAI made a similar announcement days later.
Van Hollen called Trump’s announcement “a nice set of principles”, but said it’s not enforceable and not complex enough to address strain-on-the-grid issues, such as black outs and brown outs.
DoJ files charges against man accused of spraying substance at Ilhan Omar
The Justice Department has filed charges today against the man who allegedly tried to spray Democrat representative Ilhan Omar with a “mixture of water and apple cider vinegar” from a syringe during a town hall in Minneapolis on Tuesday.
The affidavit alleges that Anthony Kazmierczak “forcibly assaulted, opposed, impeded, intimidated an officer and employee of the United States” while she was engaged in official duties.
Omar, who has repeatedly criticized the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota, had just finished calling for the resignation of Kristi Noem when Kamierczak appeared to say, “She’s not resigning. You’re splitting Minnesotans apart” after spraying her, according to the FBI.
This morning, Omar appeared on CNN to reiterate her stance against the Trump administration’s aggressive approach to immigration. “The difference between the president and I is that I was raised to be a decent human being, and my faith teaches me to have compassion,” she said. “He lacks both of those things.”
Today’s cabinet meeting has just ended after going on for over an hour. Trump notably did not take questions from the press.
Senate Democrats block vote to allow government funding as shutdown looms
Moments after Trump said ‘we’re getting close’ on a deal to avert a US government shutdown, Democrats voted to block legislation to fund the Department of Homeland Security and several other agencies as they continued to negotiate with Republicans and the White House on new restrictions for Trump’s surge of immigration enforcement.
Thursday’s 45-55 test vote came as Democrats have threatened a partial government shutdown when money runs out on Friday.
As the country reels from the deaths of two protesters at the hands of federal agents in Minneapolis, Senate Democrats laid out a list of demands on Wednesday, including that officers take off their masks and identify themselves and obtain warrants for arrest.
If these demands are not met, Democrats say they are prepared to block the wide-ranging spending bill, denying Republicans the votes they need to pass it and triggering a shutdown.
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer has said that Democrats won’t provide the needed votes until the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is “reined in and overhauled” and that this is “a moment of truth.”
Trump: Putin agrees to not fire on Kyiv for a week due to weather
Trump said that Russian president Vladimir Putin agreed to not fire on Kyiv for a week due to cold weather.
“I personally asked President Putin not to fire into Kyiv and various towns for a week, and he agreed to do that,” Trump said at the Cabinet meeting, citing “extraordinary cold” in the region.
“It was very nice. A lot of people said, ‘Don’t waste the call, you’re not going to get that.’ And he did it,” Trump added.
Joseph Gedeon
Trump also said the US “had zero illegal aliens being admitted into our country for the last eight months”.
“That’s hard for even me to believe,” he quipped. According to the department of homeland security’s own 2025 year-end review, border crossings dropped by 93% year-over-year.
Trump claims ‘we’re getting close’ on a deal to avert US government shutdown
Speaking on the possibility of a government shutdown, Trump said: “Hopefully we won’t have a shutdown and we’re working on that right now. I think we’re getting close. The Democrats, I don’t believe, want to see it either. So we’ll work in a very bipartisan way, I believe, not to have a shutdown. We don’t want to shut down.”
Talks of a government shutdown have been looming since Senate Democrats demanded a series of reforms on federal agents involved in Trump’s mass deportation campaign, including a prohibition on wearing masks, the imposition of a code of conduct and independent investigations of violations.
Trump says airspace over Venezuela to reopen as US oil companies in country scouting locations to drill
Speaking on Venezuela, Trump said: “We have the major oil companies going to Venezuela now, scouting it out and picking their locations, and they’ll be bringing back tremendous wealth for Venezuela and for the United States. And the oil companies will do fine to Venezuela, will actually make for themselves more money than they’ve ever made before. And that’s a good thing.”
He continued: “I just spoke to the president of Venezuela, informed her that we’re going to be opening up all commercial airspace over Venezuela. American citizens will be very shortly able to go to Venezuela, and they’ll be safe there.” He also added that he has “instructed Sean Duffy and everybody else concerned, including the military, that if you would, by the end of today, I’d like you out of the airspace over Venezuela”.
Trump holds Cabinet meeting amid looming shutdown and Minnesota crisis
Donald Trump has begun speaking at this afternoon’s Cabinet meeting. We will bring you lines from the meeting as they come.
Since returning to office, Trump has used his cabinet meetings to review his administration’s accomplishments and provide Cabinet members with an opportunity to shower him with compliments.
Richard Luscombe
There’s news of shifting sands in Florida, where Alex Vindman, a key player in Donald Trump’s first impeachment, announced Tuesday he was running as a Democrat for a US Senate seat.
The army veteran’s campaign says it raised a record $1.7m in the 24 hours after launching his candidacy, and it was given a further lift Thursday when Sabato’s Crystal Ball, the respected political forecasting arm of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, nudged the race in his favor.
Vindman still has a mountain to climb to topple the incumbent Republican, Ashley Moody, in November. But the shift from “safe” Republican to “likely” Republican is still a notable development in the former swing state that has become reliably red in recent election cycles.
It follows other small but significant Democratic advances during the second Trump administration, including pushing two Republican candidates close in a special congressional election in April, and Eileen Higgins’s stunning upset win in Miami’s mayoral run-off last month.
Vindman, a retired Lt Col, and his brother Eugene, now Democratic congressman for Virginia, served the national security council in Trump’s first term, and raised concerns that sparked an investigation into the president’s demands for Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden.
Florida has not elected a Democratic senator since Bill Nelson in 2012.
