Closing summary
This concludes our live coverage of the day in US politics, but our colleagues in Australia will be back soon with updates on the final day Donald Trump’s visit to Beijing. Here are the latest developments:
Democrats on the House oversight committee called on Howard Lutnick to resign, following the commerce secretary’s testimony about his ties to Jeffrey Epstein, the late sex-offender Donald Trump socialized with for nearly two decades.
Lawmakers in Louisiana voted to eliminate a majority-Black congressional district, giving Republicans a chance to win an additional House seat in midterm elections.
California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, denounced the redistricting in the former confederate states. “This is Jim Crow 2.0, it’s sick. Stone-cold racism on a scale I never thought I’d see in my lifetime,” Newsom said. “It was jaw-dropping” what Louisiana’s governor did, he added. “He suspended a primary election where tens of thousands of people had already voted. Why? To redistrict two districts, to eliminate Black representation.”
The US House ethics committee announced an investigation of alleged sexual harassment by a Republican congressman from North Carolina, Chuck Edwards.
A war powers resolution, directing the US president, Donald Trump, “to remove the United States Armed Forces from hostilities against the Islamic Republic of Iran”, failed to pass the House of Representatives on Thursday by a single vote.
The US supreme court upheld nationwide access to mail-order mifepristone, an abortion medication, in a shadow-docket decision on Thursday.
FBI director Kash Patel took what government officials described as a “VIP snorkel” tour of the USS Arizona memorial at Pearl Harbor during what was presented as a work trip to Hawaii, emails obtained by the Associated Press show.
FBI director Kash Patel took undisclosed 'VIP snorkel' tour of Pearl Harbor memorial during Hawaii trip - report
Two days after the FBI director, Kash Patel, deflected questions about his reported alcohol abuse by falsely accusing a US senator of drinking to excess, the Associated Press reports that Patel took what government officials described as a “VIP snorkel” tour of the USS Arizona memorial at Pearl Harbor last year during what was presented as a work trip to Hawaii.
As the AP notes, the FBI insisted at the time that the director was not on vacation, highlighting his walking tour of the bureau’s Honolulu field office and meetings with local law enforcement.
But government emails obtained through the Freedom of Information Act revealed the previously undisclosed tour of the sunken battleship, which holds the remains more than 900 sailors and marines.
With few exceptions, snorkeling and diving are off-limits around the USS Arizona, the AP explains.
The battleship, now a military cemetery reachable only by boat, has stood as one of the nation’s most hallowed sites since Japan bombed and sank it in 1941. Marine archaeologists and crews from the National Park Service make occasional dives at the memorial to survey the condition of the wreck. Other dives have been conducted to inter the remains of Arizona survivors who wanted to rest eternally with their former shipmates.
Hack Albertson, a US Marine veteran who is part of a select group from the Paralyzed Veterans of America trained to dive on the Arizona annually to check on the condition of the wreck, told the AP it was inappropriate for Patel and other political figures to snorkel or dive at the memorial.
“It’s like having a bachelor party at a church. It’s hallowed ground,” he said. “It needs to be treated with the solemnity it deserves.”
In an interview with CNN on Thursday, a former FBI director, James Comey, seemed taken aback by the reporting. “You said snorkeling?” Comey asked the host.
He added that while he had “visited the Pearl Harbor memorial with the admiral in charge of the Pacific command on a Navy boat,” as director, he “never got in the water.”
