Biden news: Trump ally subpoenaed, as president pledges ‘once-in-a-generation’ infrastructure plan

Gretchen Whitmer has responded to comments last week from state GOP chair Ron Weiser, who referred to her and two other female officials as “witches” during an address at the North Oakland Republican Club in White Lake last Friday.

“Our job now is to soften up those three witches, and to make sure that when we have good candidates to run against them, that they are ready for the burning at the stake,” Weiser said, mocking Whitmer and secretary of state Jocelyn Benson and attorney general Dana Nessel.

James Crump has more.

Graeme Massie has this on a surprise admission from the former Alaska governor and veep candidate, last heard from being ridiculed by Piers Morgan on Good Morning Britain over her support for Trump’s Big Lie.

For Indy Voices, here’s our latest Washington column from Andrew Feinberg.

That’s according to The Washingtonian, which reports that the new portrait will be the latest addition to the museum's “America’s Presidents” gallery, a permanent exhibition.

A spokesperson for the institution told the paper that the Trump portrait unveiled initially will only be temporary, however, as the final “work of art” is still in development.

The Information Superhighway has, of course, hardly been shy of making suggestions about what the final work might look like, with the below summing up the general mood rather nicely.

You can following the very latest from the trial of the former Minneapolis police officer accused of killing George Floyd with my colleague James Crump via the link below.

The US Government Accountability Office (GAO) has released a new report criticising the implementation of legislation supporting a flagship policy project spearheaded by Ivanka Trump.

The eldest daughter of the former president led the Women’s Global Development and Prosperity Initiative, a federal plan to empower women, while working as an adviser to her father from 2017 to January 2021.

It was set up to financially support the women’s programmes of 10 US government agencies as part of the Women’s Entrepreneurship and Economic Empowerment Act signed into law by President Trump.

After being launched in 2019, the project mandated the US Agency for International Development (USAID) to allocate $265m a year to support 19 women empowerment enterprises.

Half of the money was required to go to women and the other half to the very poor, with an overlap between the two groups expected, according to Politico.

But the GAO has criticised the implementation of the funds in a report released on Wednesday, writing that it found that USAID had not kept track of the money sent to the micro, small and medium enterprises chosen.

James Crump has more.

This is, shall we say, not a good look from the now-perennially-under-fire New York governor, who was regarded as a hero this time last year for his no nonsense leadership through the first onslaught of the pandemic, when the Big Apple became the global epicentre of the outbreak.

Namita Singh has this report.

Morries Hall, a friend of the murdered nightclub bouncer who was in the car with him at the moment of his arrest, has told a Minneapolis court he will refuse to testify if he’s called to the witness stand in the ongoing trial of ex-police officer Derek Chauvin.

Hall announced his decision in a court filing on Wednesday night, citing his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

Josh Marcus has more.

Rules banning trans and non-binary people from serving in the US military brought in by the previous administration were reversed on Wednesday.

US defence secretary Lloyd Austin said the change allowed the country to “avail ourselves of the best possible talent that America has to offer, regardless of gender identity”.

Gino Spocchia has the full story.

Good grief.

“I’m a five-foot-tall, 100-pound woman. The only way I’m safe to walk around any dangerous liberal city is with an equaliser. Gun control is anti-woman,” says the Republican congresswoman who owns a firearm-themed restaurant in the town of Rifle, Colorado (I’m not joking).

Clara Hill has this one for Indy100.