The Latest: Senate Gives Initial Ok To Final Budget Changes

Gov. Gavin Newsom posted on social media that California is preventing insurance companies from being able to cancel or not renew the policies of Southern California wildfire victims on Friday. Via GVWire: On Thursday, the California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara has issued a mandatory one-year moratorium on insurance cancellations and non-renewals for Southern California homeowners affected by wildfires. The measure, stemming from Gov.

UPDATE: Scrubbed due to last-minute problems. Jeff Bezos founded Blue Origin, and the rocket company is poised for its most defining moment to date: sending a vehicle to orbit for the first time. Via CNN: Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket is set to make its inaugural launch attempt as soon as 1 a.m.

The wildfires sweeping through LA are a heartbreaking reminder of our times. I spoke with one of my best friends Adam Roth, who lives in Pasadena, about what it’s been like on the ground. He and his family had to abandon their home, not knowing what they’d return to. Thankfully, as of now, his house is ok.

On this day in 1962 Chubby Checker's song "The Twist" (which is credited with starting the dance craze of the same name) went to #1 in the charts two years after first reaching number one spot. The Rectification of Names: The Emperor's New Foreign Policy Digby's Hullabaloo: Mindful Vs. Mindless. driftglass: Orly Taitz Died For Your Sins: Part Two -- Locking Shields. Attention space nerds!

Here we go again. CNN's Jake Tapper allows another Republican senator to dance around his questions and lie to his face. This time it was Alabama Sen. Katie Britt. We all remember Britt from her infamous SOTU response which was trolled perfectly by Scarlett Johansson on Saturday Night Live. Britt was a guest on this Sunday's State of the Union, and was asked by Tapper about her support for corrupt Trump nominee to be Attorney General, Pam Bondi, and Britt responded by ignoring Bondi's election denialism, pretending there's any reason to believe she won't politicize the department, and continuing to spreading the lie that the DOJ was politicized under Biden. TAPPER: You're on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Attorney general nominee Pam Bondi will testify before your committee later this week.

This article is part of The D. C. Brief, TIME’s politics newsletter. Sign up here to get stories like this sent to your inbox. President Joe Biden is down to his last week in the White House and he’s about to discover how little his half-century of service to the Democratic Party gets him once he is back on the outside.