The Senate voted on Tuesday to confirm Antony Blinken as the next secretary of state.
Blinken, a longtime adviser to President Biden, was approved by a 78-22 vote, reports The New York Times. He has indicated he will move to undo many policies instated under former President Donald Trump, especially those focused on Trump's "America first" approach. Blinken has signaled he will rejoin global alliances, eventually including an effort to limit Iran's nuclear program. He also promised a tougher approach to Russia's cyberattacks and election interference.
Though he breaks with his predecessor, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, on many fronts, Blinken told lawmakers he believes the Trump administration "was right" in "basic principle" on its tough approach on China. Read more at The New York Times.
Two college students from California were found guilty on Wednesday of killing an Italian policeman in 2019 and sentenced to life in prison.
Finnegan Lee Elder, 21, and Gabriel Natale-Hjorth, 20, were accused of stabbing to death 35-year-old Vice Brig. Mario Cerciello Rega while they were vacationing in Rome. On the night of July 25, the men — friends from high school — had been ripped off by a drug dealer, and they stole the backpack of a middleman who gave them an over-the-counter pain medicine instead of cocaine. Elder and Natale-Hjorth set up a meeting to give the man his backpack in exchange for their money, but instead encountered Cerciello Rega and his partner, Andrea Varriale.
Elder said he thought Cerciello Rega was a drug dealer who was trying to "strangle or choke me," but Varriale testified that both officers showed Elder and Natale-Hjorth their badges. Cerciello Rega was stabbed 11 times, and Varriale said that blood was pouring out of his body like "a fountain."
In a statement, Elder apologized to Cerciello Rega's family and friends, adding that if he could "go back and change things, I would do it now, but I can't." Elder's attorney, Renato Borzone, has promised to appeal, saying it is "unheard of" to give two young men life sentences. "Italy's justice is strong with the weak, and weak with the strong," Borzone added. Catherine Garcia
The Republican Party is at a turning point, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) writes in an opinion article published in The Washington Post on Wednesday evening, and members must "decide whether we are going to choose truth and fidelity to the Constitution."
Cheney is receiving backlash from the GOP for voting to impeach former President Donald Trump for his role in inciting the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, as well as pushing back against his false claims of election fraud. Trump, she writes, is "seeking to unravel critical elements of our constitutional structure that makes democracy work — confidence in the result of elections and the rule of law. No other American president has ever done this."
Cheney, the No. 3 House Republican, called herself a "conservative Republican," and said the "most conservative of conservative values is reverence for the rule of law." The Electoral College "has spoken," she added, and "more than 60 state and federal courts have rejected the former president's arguments, and refused to overturn election results. That is the rule of law; that is our constitutional system for resolving claims of election fraud."
Republicans now have to decide whether to join "Trump's crusade to delegitimize and undo the legal outcome of the 2020 election, with all the consequences that might have," Cheney said. He has "never expressed remorse or regret for the attack of Jan. 6 and now suggests that our elections, and our legal and constitutional system, cannot be trusted to do the will of the people," she continued. "This is immensely harmful, especially as we now compete on the world stage against Communist China and its claims that democracy is a failed system."
The path forward is clear, Cheney said. Republicans need to back the Justice Department's criminal investigations of the Jan. 6 attack, support a bipartisan review by a commission with subpoena power, and "stand for genuinely conservative principles, and steer away from the dangerous and anti-democratic Trump cult of personality." Trump is trying to "undermine the foundation of our democracy," Cheney said, and with history and our children watching, "we must be brave enough to defend the basic principles that underpin and protect our freedom and our democratic process." Read more at The Washington Post. Catherine Garcia
Your favorite pandemic hate watch is back for season two.
The first time around, Netflix's Emily in Paris was met with disdain for the titular character, confusion around the title itself, and a real-life scandal involving the Golden Globes and an alleged trip to Paris for Hollywood Foreign Press Association members. The show's creator, Darren Star, claims season one was not a faux pas, but the first step in character development. In season two, "Emily will embrace the city a little bit more," Star told Variety. "I think she will be more assimilated, in terms of living in Paris and stepping up to the challenges of learning the language," he said.
Whether viewers are ready or not, Emily in Paris is back — filming began Monday in France. À bientôt! Taylor Watson
This is a case for the FBI: The government wants Kim Kardashian to forfeit an ancient Roman sculpture that was smuggled out of Italy, but she claims innocence.
Fragment of Myron's Samian Athena, a limestone statue from the 1st or 2nd century, was purchased in Kardashian's name and detained by U.S. Customs and Border Protection in 2016, and is still in their custody, reports ArtNet. In 2018, Italy's Ministry of Cultural Heritage determined the statue was "looted, smuggled, and illegally exported from Italy."
A civil forfeiture complaint was filed Friday, but a Kardashian rep told Page Six she did not purchase the sculpture and this is the first time she's heard of it (though it definitely matches her decor). It might be time for Kim to put her law school skills to the test.
Read more at Page Six and ArtNet. Taylor Watson
The cast of Succession's next season just keeps getting better.
Adrien Brody has joined the HBO show's third season, The Hollywood Reporter revealed on Wednesday. The Oscar-winning actor will reportedly have a recurring guest role as Josh Aaronson, a billionaire activist investor "who becomes pivotal in the battle for the ownership of Waystar," the Reporter says.
Brody's casting comes just days after it was reported that Alexander Skarsgård is also joining the new season of Succession. Skarsgård, according to Variety, will be playing a "successful, confrontational tech founder and CEO."
The third season of Succession, which follows the Murdoch-esque Roy family and has been off the air since 2019 thanks to COVID-19 delays, is set to involve "a bitter corporate battle" that "threatens to turn into a family civil war," HBO says. The show picked up a whopping 18 nominations at the 2020 Emmys, scoring the top prize of Outstanding Drama Series — and based on the casting unveiled in the last two days alone, it may have an even stronger showing next time. Brendan Morrow