2019 Day 721: Mitch McConnell blocked two bills to re-open the government; the Pentagon is preparing to build the wall as Trump continues to threaten a national-emergency declaration; Michael Cohen agreed to publicly testify about his time working for Trump; and Mueller met directly with one of Trump's campaign pollsters, a former associate of Paul Manafort. Also the oceans are dying faster than we thought. Jan 10, 2019
2020 Day 1086: Nancy Pelosi will transmit articles of impeachment against Trump to the Senate next week; the operation that killed Gen. Qasem Soleimani in Baghdad was more ambitious and multifaceted than the Trump administration has disclosed; the Trump administration announced new economic sanctions on Iran for "destabilizing activities"; Iran accused western governments of "psychological warfare"; and the Trump administration is preparing to expand its travel ban. Jan 10, 2020
2022 Day 356: More than 5,400 K-12 schools stopped in-person instruction at some point last week due to the coronavirus pandemic; the Biden administration will require private health insurers to reimburse people for up to eight over-the-counter Covid-19 tests per month; Trump, Rudy Giuliani, and Rep. Mo Brooks asked a federal judge to dismiss three lawsuits alleging that they incited the Jan. 6 Capitol riot; and the past seven years have been the warmest on record “by a clear margin” and 2021 was the fifth-hottest ever. Jan 10, 2022
2023 Day 721: House Republicans pushed through a rules package for the new Congress over concerns about the concessions Kevin McCarthy made to 20 far-right conservatives in order to secure his job; in effort to equate it to the 320 classified documents the FBI seized from Trump's residence, House Republicans requested a national security “damage assessment” of the 10 potentially classified documents found in Biden's private office from his time as vice president; two House Democrats filed an official complaint with the House Committee on Ethics about George Santos; former Trump Organization finance chief Allen Weisselberg was sentenced to five months in jail for multiple tax crimes he committed at the company over more than 15 years; the Education Department proposed new federal student loan payment rules that would reduce the monthly bills for some borrowers and completely pause payments for others; and the last eight years were the eight warmest on record. Jan 10, 2023
2024 Day 1086: House Republicans revolted against a bipartisan spending deal, openly criticized their new speaker, and blocked a procedural vote on an unrelated bill; Hunter Biden made a unannounced appearance at the House Oversight Committee’s meeting on whether to hold him in contempt of Congress; Trump will not be allowed to personally make a closing argument at his New York civil fraud trial after refusing to abide by the judge’s restrictions; and Trump, forgetting that his own mother was born in Scotland, baselessly promoted a false "birther" conspiracy theory that Nikki Haley is ineligible to be president because her parents were not U.S. citizens when she was born. Jan 10, 2024
2025 Day 1452: Trump was sentenced to no punishment for orchestrating an illegal conspiracy to influence the 2016 presidential election by falsifying business records; a federal appeals court ruled that special counsel Jack Smith’s report on Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election can be released; the Biden administration extended Temporary Protected Status for nearly one million immigrants; Earth experienced its hottest year on record in 2024; the U.S. added 256,000 jobs in December 2024 while the unemployment rate fell to 4.1%; and Americans rate Biden’s presidency less favorably than Trump’s or Obama’s at the end of their terms, with only about a quarter viewing Biden as a “good” or “great” president. Jan 10, 2025