2019 Day 729: Trump directed Michael Cohen to lie to Congress; Democrats vowed to investigate the report; meanwhile, Trump's nominee for attorney general testified that it would be a crime if "the president tried to coach somebody not to testify, or testify falsely"; and Trump accused Cohen of "lying to reduce his jail time." Jan 18, 2019
2021 Day 1460: Trump is expected to pardon or commute the sentences of more than 100 people on his final full day in the White House; the FBI is vetting all 25,000 National Guard troops in Washington tasked with securing the inauguration; the director of the Census Bureau resigned after whistleblower complaints warned that political appointees were pressuring staff to release "statistically indefensible" data on the number of unauthorized immigrants in the country; the National Security Agency moved to install a former GOP political operative and White House official as its general counsel; at least five anti-vaccine organization received more than $850,000 in loans from the federal Paycheck Protection Program; and, by the time you read this, the number of coronavirus deaths in the U.S. will have surpassed 400,000 and more than 2 million people worldwide will have been killed by the virus Jan 18, 2021
2022 Day 364: The Senate started debate on voting rights legislation even though the measure appears all but dead; top career officials at the Census Bureau warned of “unprecedented” meddling by Trump's political appointees in 2020; a fourth Covid-19 vaccine dose may not be sufficient at preventing breakthrough Omicron infections; the Biden administration accused Russia of sending a group of saboteurs into eastern Ukraine to execute "an operation designed to look like an attack on them or Russian-speaking people in Ukraine"; and 47% of Americans prefer the Republican Party, while 42% prefer the Democratic Party. Jan 18, 2022
2023 Day 729: George Santos reportedly scammed a disabled veteran out of $3,000 by using a fake animal charity to raise money for the veteran's service dog's cancer treatment; immigration records contradict George Santos’s claim that his mother died on Sept. 11, 2001 in New York City; Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis rejected an AP African-American Studies course on the grounds that it violates state laws against the teaching of critical race theory; Ron DeSantis called on the Republican-controlled Legislature to permanently ban Covid-19 health measures; Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign asked Facebook to reinstate his account; and parts of Greenland are now hotter than at any time in the past 1,000 years. Jan 18, 2023
2024 Day 1094: The House and Senate passed a stopgap spending bill to prevent a partial government shutdown this weekend; a Justice Department investigation into the 2022 school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, found "cascading failures" and "no urgency" by law enforcement before, during, and after the attack that killed 19 children and two teachers; Texas refused to comply with a cease-and-desist letter from the Biden administration demanding that Texas National Guard stop blocking U.S. Border Patrol agents from accessing a public park; and Florida House Republicans introduced legislation that would ban flags that depict a “racial, sexual orientation and gender, or political ideology viewpoint” in government buildings and schools. Jan 18, 2024