U.S. Politics

A former Massachusetts town official seen on surveillance video marching through the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, has been sentenced to 15 days in prison for her role in the riot. Suzanne Ianni was also sentenced on Friday to 30 days of probation. The 60-year-old Ianni organized a bus trip to Washington, D.C., for fellow members of the right-wing group Super Happy Fun America. She pleaded guilty in September to a misdemeanor charge of disorderly conduct in a Capitol building. Her attorney said Monday that she wants to move on with her life.

The extended Senate campaign in Georgia gives Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and Republican challenger Herschel Walker a second chance to persuade voters to send them to Washington. But without party control of Congress at stake and without other candidates on the ticket, the runoff looks different from the November general election. The results of AP VoteCast illustrate some of the challenges each candidate faces on Tuesday. Walker will need to turn out a GOP base that wasn’t enamored with him to start with, and do it without the more popular Gov. Brian Kemp on the ballot. Warnock must get his coalition of some lower-propensity voting groups to turn out.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken says the U.S. will not shrink from its unwavering support for Israel despite stark differences with Prime Minister-elect Benjamin Netanyahu and concerns the Biden administration may have about members of his incoming right-wing government. Blinken said Sunday that the United States will remain a stalwart friend of Israel even as it pursues goals that Netanyahu has opposed, including a two-state resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and a restoration of the languishing 2015 Iran nuclear deal. Blinken also said the Biden administration would engage with Netanyahu's government based on its policies and not on personalities. But he also warned that the U.S. would object to policies that marginalize the Palestinians.

The Supreme Court is about to confront a new elections case that could dramatically alter voting in 2024 and beyond. A Republican-led challenge is asking the justices for a novel ruling that could significantly increase the power of state lawmakers over elections for Congress and the presidency. The court is hearing arguments Wednesday in a case from highly competitive North Carolina, where Republican efforts to draw congressional districts heavily in their favor were blocked by a Democratic majority on the state Supreme Court. The question for the justices is whether the U.S. Constitution’s provision giving state legislatures the power to make the rules about the “times, places and manner” of congressional elections cuts state courts out of the process.

The CIA Officers Memorial Foundation provides college tuition and other expenses to children of fallen officers. Unsurprisingly, much of the charitable work to support those families goes on in private. The leaders want to change that by holding gatherings for the children of fallen officers and gradually telling more of their stories publicly. The foundation recently hired the daughter of one of seven officers to die in a December 2009 attack on the CIA's base in Khost, Afghanistan. Calista Anderson wants to help other children of fallen officers and shares her memories of her mother, Jennifer Matthews.

An Iranian lawmaker has said that Iran’s government was “paying attention to the people’s real demands” a day after a top official suggested that the country’s unpopular morality police has been shut down following months of protests. The comment regarding the force's purported suspension or abolition came after months of deadly anti-government protests. The Associated Press has been unable to confirm the current status of the religious force. The Iranian morality police was established in 2005 with the task of arresting people who violate the country’s Islamic dress code. Nationwide anti-government protests were sparked by the death of a women three days after her arrest by Iran’s morality police.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa looked relaxed and shared a joke with journalists as the African National Congress party’s national working committee is discussing his political fate. Ramaphosa’s future hangs in the balance as he faces calls from within the ANC and from opposition parties to step down from his position amid a scandal involving the theft of a large sum of cash from his farm in 2020. Ramaphosa was recused from Sunday’s meeting of the ruling ANC, which came days after an independent parliamentary panel issued a report that suggested he may have broken anti-corruption laws. The president has denied any wrongdoing in the matter.