President Biden to unveil new minimum tax on billionaires in budget … The White House will unveil a new minimum tax targeting billionaires as part of its 2023 budget Monday, proposing a direct tax on the richest 700 Americans for the first time, according to five people with knowledge …

Ginni Thomas' West Wing contacts raise new questions for another Trump ally: John Eastman  —  Ginni Thomas' unfettered access to Donald Trump's chief of staff — and potentially others in his West Wing — raises new questions about another figure at the center of Trump's gambit to subvert the 2020 election: attorney John Eastman.

Russian general Yakov Rezantsev killed in Ukraine  —  Ukraine's defence ministry says another Russian general, Lt Gen Yakov Rezantsev, was killed in a strike near the southern city of Kherson.  —  Rezantsev was the commander of Russia's 49th combined army.

Biden Condemns Putin, Saying He ‘Cannot Remain In Power’  —  WARSAW — President Biden delivered a forceful denunciation of Vladimir V. Putin's invasion of Ukraine, declaring “for God's sake, this man cannot remain in power” and casting the war as the “test of all time” in a decades-long battle to defend democracy.

Rep. Jeff Fortenberry resigns after being found guilty of lying to FBI … Rep. Jeff Fortenberry (R-Neb.) said Saturday he will resign from Congress after he was convicted Thursday on three felony counts for lying to federal investigators about illegal campaign contributions from a foreign billionaire.

In Georgia, a Campaign Fueled by Trump's Revenge Sputters  —  The former president plans to rally Republicans on Saturday in an attempt to jump-start David Perdue's campaign to unseat Gov. Brian Kemp.  — Give this article- - - Read in app  —  ATLANTA — When Donald Trump recruited David Perdue …

The Making of Vladimir Putin  —  Tracing Putin's 22-year slide from statesman to tyrant.  — Give this article- - - Read in app  —  PARIS — Speaking in what he called “the language of Goethe, Schiller and Kant,” picked up during his time as a K.G.B. officer in Dresden …

Graham: Judicial confirmation process could get even more toxic … Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) looked briefly into the future and saw a calamitous confirmation process for Supreme Court justices and other federal judge nominees: a near total blockade.  —  With Republicans needing …

Exclusive: Jan. 6 Committee ‘Locked In’ on Proud Boys  —  The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol building has been examining the role far-right militant groups played in efforts to overturn President Trump's election loss and the violence that erupted that day.

Russia's failures in Ukraine imbue Pentagon with newfound confidence  —  For more than a decade, the Pentagon, pinned down in Afghanistan, followed China's rise as a global power and Russia's ambitious military modernization program with growing alarm.  The consensus in Beijing …

The rise of the heterosexual ‘queer’  —  Why are so many straight people desperate to be recognised as something they're not?  —  I remember the surrealist comedian Spike Milligan, many years ago, asking ‘Did you hear the one about the Irish queer?’  The punchline?  ‘He slept with women.’