Senator Bob Menendez is set to announce his re-election bid on Monday, doubling down on his defense as fellow Democrats are calling on him to resign after he was charged with accepting bribes for favors.

The Democratic senator will hold a press conference in his home state of New Jersey, speaking publicly for the first time since he and his wife Nadine Arslanian Menendez were indicted by a federal grand jury over corruption allegations in an investigation that focused on a luxury car, $400,000 in gold bars and cash, plus payments toward a home mortgage allegedly received by the couple.

Menendez, who is up for re-election in 2024, is expected to announce he will run for a fifth term. He will speak at 11:30 am at Hudson County Community College. Hudson County is where he got his start in politics, serving as mayor of Union City.

But support for the embattled Democrat is waning. More than two dozen Democrats in New Jersey have called on him to resign.

And, Rep. Andy Kim, who cleaned up the Capitol after the rioters left on Jan. 6, 2021, announced he’s running for Senate, setting up a tough primary challenge for Menendez. 

‘This is not something I expected to do, but I believe New Jersey deserves better,’ Kim said in a statement. ‘We cannot jeopardize the Senate or compromise our country´s integrity. I believe it´s time we restore faith in our democracy, and that´s why I am stepping up and running for Senate.’ 

It is the second round of bribery charges for Menendez.  A 2015 case ended in mistrial after a jury failed to reach a verdict on all counts and a judge acquitted him on some charges.

But, in contrast to eight years ago, when many in the party stood by him, multiple Democrats – including New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy and Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman – have called on Menendez to resign. 

‘The alleged facts are so serious that they compromise the ability of Senator Menendez to effectively represent the people of our state,’ Murphy said. As governor, he would appoint a senator to replace Menendez should he resign.

Notably, New Jersey’s other Democratic Senator, Cory Booker, has been silent on Menendez. 

Menendez himself has remained defiant – although he has stepped down from his position as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Menendez called the investigation ‘an active smear campaign of anonymous sources and innuendos to create an air of impropriety where none exists.’

‘The excesses of these prosecutors is apparent,’ Menendez said. ‘They have misrepresented the normal work of a Congressional office. On top of that, not content with making false claims against me, they have attacked my wife for the longstanding friendships she had before she and I even met.’

He also claimed he is being ‘falsely accused’ because he is a ‘Latin American’ who rose from a humble childhood to the United States Senate.

‘Those behind this campaign simply cannot accept that a first generation Latin American from humble beginnings could rise to be a U.S. senator,’ he said. 

Republicans see an opening to win a Senate seat if Menendez stays on the ballot.

But former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has ruled out a run, sticking with his campaign to be the Republican presidential nominee.

‘I have no interest in being in the United States Senate,’ Christie told Meet the Press host Kristen Welker in a Sunday morning interview.

The 27-page indictment, unsealed on Friday, claims that Bob and Nadine Menendezt had an improper relationship with three New Jersey businessmen: Wael Hana, Jose Uribe and Fred Daibes, who allegedly paid the couple in exchange for Menendez to use his influence in Washington D.C. to their benefit.

The couple face three criminal counts each: conspiracy to commit bribery, conspiracy to commit honest services fraud, and conspiracy to commit extortion under color of official right. The three businessmen face charges of conspiracy to commit bribery and conspiracy to commit honest services fraud

The indictment also charges the senator with providing ‘sensitive U.S. Government information and took other steps that secretly aided the Government of Egypt.’ 

David Schertler, a lawyer for Nadine Menendez, said she ‘denies any criminal conduct and will vigorously contest these charges in court.’ 

The indictment outlines a series of texts, payments and actions the couple allegedly took to help the three businessmen, actions from which they financially benefited.

The probe listed several ‘bribes’ paid to them. ‘Those bribes included cash, gold, payments toward a home mortgage, compensation for a low-or-no-show job, a luxury vehicle, and other things of value,’ the indictment said.

A June 2022 raid on their New Jersey home found ‘over $480,000 in cash – much of it stuffed into envelopes and hidden in clothing, closets, and a safe,’ the indictment notes, adding Nadine had over $70,000 in a safe deposit box. 

It also found two one-kilogram gold bars and eleven one-ounce gold bars.

The indictment alleges that Menendez tried to disrupt a federal criminal prosecution of Fred Daibes in exchange for the money and other items of value. Daibes is an old friend of Menendez, has fundraised for his Senate campaign, and allegedly has ties to the Genovese mob family.

The indictment charges Menendez ‘promised to and did use his influence and power’ to pressure President Joe Biden to nominate a U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey who Menendez ‘believed could be influenced by Menendez with respect to the federal criminal prosecution of Fred Daibes.’

Menendez recommended and Biden later nominated Phillip Sellinger as U.S. Attorney for New Jersey, the top federal prosecutor in the state. 

Daibes has been under investigation before. New Jersey authorities have tracked high-ranking mobsters meeting with Daibes repeatedly over the last decade, the Daily Beast reported. 

Daibes provided the couple with gold bars and envelopes of cash, the indictment states. 

‘Multiple gold bars provided by Daibes were found during the court-authorized June 2022 search; of the couple’s home, the indictment states. It also says the senator performed a web search for ‘how much is one kilo of gold worth’ and that the envelopes of cash had the fingerprints of Daibes and his driver. 

The investigation also focused on 40-year-old New Jersey businessman, Wael Hana, who has known Nadine since before she started dating Menendez.

Hana, who is originally from Egypt, operated the company IS EG Halal in New Jersey and it soon became the sole entity authorized to certify that any halal food product imported into Egypt from anywhere in the world had been prepared according to Islamic law. 

According to the indictment, Menendez ‘improperly advised and pressured an official at the United States Department of Agriculture for the purpose of protecting a business monopoly granted to Hana by Egypt and used in part to fund the bribes being paid to Menendez through Nadine Menendez.’ 

The designation of IS EG Halal surprised U.S. agriculture officials. Previously, several other companies had been doing that certification, but they were dismissed by Egyptian agriculture officials in favor of IS EG Halal, which had no previous experience in the field.

The indictment charges Menendez with using the power of his position on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to influence the State Department regarding policy in Egypt and with sending Nadine ‘highly sensitive’ about Egypt that he got in Senate briefings that she, in turn, gave to Hana.

As a senator, Menendez could put a ‘hold’ on State Department funding to the country. 

In a text to his wife, Menendez tells her: ‘I am going to sign off this sale to Egypt today. Egypt: 46,000 120MM Target Practice Rounds and 10,000 Rounds Tank Ammunition: $99 million.’

Nadine then forwarded it to an Egyptian official who replies with the thumbs up emoji.

When he first addressed his new group of US activists, the UK climate crusader Roger Hallam unveiled plans for a huge ‘civil disobedience campaign’ of blocked highways and mass disruptions in mid-August.

Instead, the summer of chaos that Hallam promised has fizzled and flopped — a lame sequel to his Extinction Rebellion (XR) rallies that put tens of thousands of protestors on the streets of London, effectively shutting down the British capital.

This week, the US franchise that Hallam co-founded in 2022, Declare Emergency, struggled to get even a handful of activists to don goofy dinosaur outfits and stage an ‘extinction’ protest on Washington DC‘s subway.

Members of the US climate group have privately said it’s been difficult to recruit on this side of the pond, where people are less keen on green issues and don’t want to travel to rallies.

‘We have been understaffed and funded, so haven’t been able to follow the plan fully,’ one of Declare Emergency’s organizers told DailyMail.com.

We have decided not to name the member, in case he faces blowback from the group.

‘When it comes to organizing movements, it’s hard to compare the US with any European country,’ he added.

‘We’re too dispersed here, geographically.’

Other climate campaigners spoke of the difficulty in staying cohesive. 

Too often, they say, activists get bogged down in ‘ideological purity’ tests and petty squabbles instead of taking their message to the streets.

For Hallam, 56, the so-called ‘Week of Action’ that officially started on August 21 can only have been a let-down.

On Monday, about 10 activists sat themselves on a crosswalk at a busy intersection in downtown Washington DC. 

They caused tailbacks in the rush hour traffic as motorists honked their horns in frustration.

Three women activists refused police requests to leave and were handcuffed and led away.

On Tuesday, about five campaigners donned gaudy dinosaur costumes and staged a ‘die-in’ on the Washington DC subway and at L’Enfant Plaza, a shopping mall.

A mature woman activist in a T-Rex costume tried to engage workers on their lunch breaks.

‘Do you know what happened to the dinosaurs?’ she asked a reluctant woman at a food counter.

‘We’re afraid we’re going to go extinct, just like the dinosaurs, because of climate change.’

The woman said nothing, nodded, and looked away.

The protests have not yet reached New York, the other city organizers aimed to target.

The week of action is not yet over, but what’s been staged so far falls short of what Hallam announced in his online planning session in June, which DailyMail.com was able to attend.

Back then, he spoke of creating a ‘large-scale civil disobedience campaign on the climate catastrophe in the United States.’

The farmer-turned-activist told members he’d raised $1 million in just a week to kick-start the American movement.

That money would fund weekly recruitment and training sessions and the group would swell to 1,000 members, he said.

That would include an elite hardcore that was willing to go to jail for the cause.

It would, Hallam said, replicate XR’s week-long rallies in London, where coordinated units of activists closed down roads and bridges, shuttering much of the city center and causing millions of dollars of losses.

There, activists have planted trees in Parliament Square, superglued themselves to the gates of Buckingham Palace and other landmarks, vandalized artworks in major galleries, and shut down runways used by private jets.

Hallam said such a massive disruption was possible in the US, citing the decades of civil rights protests that shifted attitudes on gay rights and led to the mass racial justice protests over the murder of George Floyd in 2020.

The seasoned activist, speaking from the UK, said his organizational tactics were ‘not that complicated, have worked in many countries, and we see no reason why they shouldn’t work in the US.’

At an online gathering the following week, US Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib gave members a pep talk, telling them to be ‘much more aggressive’ as they geared up for the looming week of disruption.

Two months later, and it’s clear that despite the money, political support, and a recruitment drive, Declare Emergency has struggled to get off the ground.

The member who spoke privately with DailyMail.com complained that the US market was saturated with competing campaign groups. 

‘There are more environmental and social movements than cereal options in a grocery store aisle,’ he told DailyMail.com.

‘Protestors are spread thin,’ he added. ‘Maybe next season.’ 

Another outfit, the youth-led Climate Defiance, is also small, but has made more headlines by disrupting events with such luminaries as Vice President Kamala Harris and Senator Amy Klobuchar.

For some, the lack of enthusiasm for Hallam’s group in the US is perplexing, given the alarming number of extreme weather events. 

July saw some of the hottest days ever recorded, wildfires have torn through Canada and blanketed cities as far away as New York in smoke, and Storm Hilary unleashed record-breaking downpours across Southern California.

But Americans are less worried about climate change than their European counterparts.

While 31 percent in the US want to rapidly switch to renewable energy sources, another two thirds want to continue using oil, coal and natural gas as well as the cleaner alternatives, according to Pew Research Center polling.

Declare Emergency wants President Joe Biden to declare a national climate crisis and use his executive powers to sharply cut emissions of planet-heating gases.

UN experts say pollution is making the Earth dangerously hot, but the US, China, and other governments have set ambitious targets to limit the risk by switching to clean energy sources over the coming years.

Though many people support efforts to tackle global warming, others eschew the tactics of XR and other hard-line outfits, which have shuttered roads, highways, airports, offices, and other public venues.

A former Trump administration official this weekend floated the possibility of Michelle Obama succeeding President Joe Biden as the 2024 Democratic nominee, warning that the former first lady would be a formidable opponent to the GOP. 

‘If [Democrats] were to run Michelle Obama, that would put us in a very difficult position,’ former Trump aide Monica Crowley said at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando on Saturday.

‘They’d reach for a candidate who is completely plausible, very popular, and immune to criticism.’

Crowley, who was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Public Affairs under Donald Trump, appeared at a panel discussion alongside former White House physician-turned-House Rep. Ronny Jackson, conservative activist Jack Posobiec and California lawyer Kurt Schlichter during the multi-day event.

After tossing the popular Democratic first lady’s hat in the ring, Crowley explained how Obama would have been positioning herself to mount a White House bid in the years after her husband Barack Obama left the White House in early 2017.

‘When you think about her positioning, she spoke as a [Democratic National Convention] keynote speaker in 2020,’ Crowley claimed.

‘She wrote her autobiography and did a 50-city tour, she has massive Netflix and Spotify deals, and she’s got a voting rights group alongside Stacey Abrams.’

Obama’s memoir ‘Becoming’ sold more than two million copies in various forms within 15 days of publication, quickly becoming a bestseller.  

It’s a testament to the Harvard-educated lawyer’s popularity, particularly among Democrats. 

She was voted as the top most admired woman in YouGov’s global survey three years in a row, most recently winning the number one spot in December 2021. 

And while Obama has publicly dismissed the idea of running for her husband’s old job, a recent Hill-HarrisX poll placed her high on the list of potential candidates in 2024 should Biden choose not to run.

The president, who’s so far said he’s running for re-election, would be 81 years old at the start of his second term.

The late November 2021 survey found Obama second in a list of likely Democrat candidates, just behind Vice President Kamala Harris.

But on Saturday, former Trump aide Crowley highlighted Harris’ gaffe-laden first year. She suggested Obama would be a good alternative so as not to alienate black women, among the Democratic Party’s most loyal voters, according to Business Insider. 

Obama has long been admired by Democrats and even Independents, and would have immediate name recognition should she cast a 2024 bid.

Despite her insistence that she won’t run, Crowley warned her crowd at the Republican event to be ready for it and compared Obama’s profile-enhancing activism that put her back into the public eye after leaving the White House to the actions of Hillary Clinton — another rumored potential 2024 candidate.

‘For all of these people who say, “Michelle Obama isn’t political, they’re making too much money now,” keep a very close eye on her because her trajectory is exactly what Barack Obama did before he ran for president and what Bill and Hillary Clinton both did,’ Crowley said.

She reasserted:  ‘I think if she were to run, that would be a very difficult situation for us.’

Obama famously said during a leadership conference in Boston in 2018 that to run for president, ‘my sense is that, first of all, you have to want the job.’

She went even further to say that she ‘never had the passion for politics,’ adding: ‘I just happened to be married to somebody who has the passion for politics, and he drug me kicking and screaming into the arena.’

But despite her claimed distaste for running for office, Obama has waded into the political arena several times — to a warm reception.

Obama was seen as a key asset for her husband’s successful 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns, including a highly praised speech at the 2008 Democratic National Convention.

She also delivered an impassioned speech endorsing Biden in 2020, claiming he was the only one who could ‘put an end to this chaos’ of the Trump administration.

Most recently, Obama waded into November’s midterm elections, throwing her weighty influence and her group When We All Vote behind an effort to register 1 million new people for the ballot box this year.

In late December, a potential Obama 2024 campaign got backing from an unlikely ally — podcast host Joe Rogan.

‘She’s great, she’s articulate, she’s intelligent, she’s the wife of the best president that we have had in our lifetime,’ Rogan said. ‘She can win.’ 

Meanwhile, former President Donald Trump laid down a marker to other possible Republican 2024 runners by winning 59 percent support of CPAC attendees.

The annual straw poll is seen as a key indicator of who is favored by the party base.

Trump’s win was no surprise — but he took five percentage points more than last year — with Governor Ron DeSantis, who gave a rousing speech at the gathering on Thursday, in second with 28 percent. 

That left the rest of the field as rank outsiders, with former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo taking two percent and Vice President Mike Pence one percent – along side Nikki Haley, Governor of South Dakota Kristi Noem, and Senators Ted Cruz and Rand Paul.

But CPAC’s status as a gathering of hardline conservatives tends to skew the results towards the Trumpist wing of the party.

If Trump were not running, DeSantis takes 61 percent.

And the Republican Party is already cashing in on the chances of Michelle Obama being their opponent.

Two January fundraising emails from the National Republican Senatorial Committee were sent to donors touting the possibility of another Obama in the White House.

‘Left-wing Democrats KNOW they are going to LOSE their Majority in Congress this November, so they want to bring out an OBAMA to save them in 2024,’ one email obtained by Punchbowl News read. 

The second stated: ‘Rumors are spreading like wildfire that a certain someone, someone who already spent 8 YEARS in the White House, is thinking of running for PRESIDENT in 2024.’ 

NYC Mayor Eric Adams is eyeing up a 2024 White House bid as an anti-woke Democrat if Joe Biden decides not to run for a second term, it is claimed.  

Adams, 61, – who once referred to himself as the ‘Biden of Brooklyn’ – has ‘repeatedly’ told confidantes that he is considering running for the highest office and thinks he could ‘win,’ sources told the New York Post. 

‘Eric has told me repeatedly that he thinks that he has a platform to run for national office, for president in 2024,’ a source close to the mayor told the Post. ‘He thinks New York is a national platform [and] he thinks the national party has gotten too far to the left and he thinks he has a platform to win.’ 

A Brooklyn Democratic official, who was not identified, told the Post Adam’s advisor Ingrid Lewis-Martin was ‘running point’ on the matter and he’d only stake his claim on the presidency if Biden, 79, declined to run again. 

There have been conflicting reports about whether Biden will seek a second term. He is already the oldest president to ever hold office, and his year-and-a-half in office has been marred with what critics claim are cognitive slips.

Ahead of the 2020 election, Biden himself had reportedly conceded he’d be a single-term president who hoped to reunite the US in the wake of Donald Trump’s divisive presidency.

But there is no obvious Democrat candidate to succeed him, with Vice President Kamala Harris’s personal approval ratings stubbornly low, and Biden is now said to be touting a 2024 run. 

While only five months into his first term in office, Adams has pleased many centrist Democrats – and conservatives – by avoiding progressive or extreme stances on economic and social issues.  

However, Adam’s advisor Evan Thies dismissed rumors, saying: ‘The mayor has not had any conversations with anyone about running for president. He is 100 percent focused on lowering crime and improving the economy in New York, and bringing this city back.’

The mayor does seem to have some backing, though, as CEO of Tusk Strategies Chris Coffey told the New York Post: ‘He is one of the best-known black elected officials in the country. The play works if Adams makes progress on crime and the president decides not to run. I think he would be crazy not to consider it.’ 

Even a GOP lawmaker told the Post he thought the Big Apple mayor could have a chance if he solved the crime riddling the City That Never Sleeps.  

The unidentified lawmaker said: ‘I said you really have to consider that you are young enough where you will have a life after the mayoralty and if you solve the crime problem there would be a lot of interest in a big city Democrat, African American with progressive values but who mediated the crime problem in a major city.’ 

Adams had been faced with rising crime rates as the city plunges into a wave of violence, leaving citizens on edge. 

Although crime rates are starting to slow down, overall violent crime is still up 40 percent across all five boroughs. Shootings, stabbings, and gun violence has run rampant through the streets – even prompting Adams to wear an ‘end gun violence’ suit jacket to the Met Gala earlier this month. 

He has blamed many of the problems he faces on former Mayor Bill de Blasio, condemned as the city’s wokest-ever leader.  

With Adams and Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg’s lax bail reform, career criminals have been running the streets, breaking into businesses, and terrorizing citizens. 

Despite Adams’ confidence, New Yorkers have declining faith him, new polls are showing. Crime is 49 percent of citizens’ biggest concerns, followed by affordable housing and homelessness. 

The Bronx and Staten Island citizens rated him the worst at 61 and 71 percent, respectively. And his overall approval in the city sits at 43 percent approving and 37 percent disapproving, the New York Post reported. 

In addition, 86 percent of New Yorkers want more transit police in the subway system, but despite the promise of adding more officers to the system, most stations go empty. The former transit cop, himself, even encouraged citizens to send his office pictures of officers who are too busy on their phones or chatting with coworkers to keep a vigilant eye out for crime. 

If Adams does stake his bid for presidency, he will be following in the footsteps of his predecessors, such as Bill de Blasio, Michael Bloomberg, and Rudy Giuliani.

However, no NYC mayor has ever made it into the White House. 

But it seems the current mayor has already been making moves to be viewed as a national leader, as he’s been seen making his way across the country at events. 

He’s recently been seen Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills, California earlier this month and at a cryptocurrency conference in Miami and side-by-side with Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot to protest gun violence in March.  

Class-action style legal proceedings have been brought against Amazon and Apple, alleging the tech giants unlawfully colluded to increase the price of the iPhone maker’s products.

The claim, filed at the competition court in London, seeks redress of at least £500million for the ‘millions of UK consumers who bought Apple and Beats products since October 2018’.

Any consumer in the UK who purchased new Apple or Beats products since October 2018 is an eligible member of the claimant class, unless they opt out.

According to lawyers leading the litigation against the two US tech giants, Amazon restricted sales of popular Apple products by independent merchants on its online marketplace. 

In return, it is alleged, Apple offered Jeff Bezos’s firm preferential wholesale prices on all Apple and Beats products, which it could sell directly to customers via its own retail business.  

The deal, allegedly struck in October 2018, is said to have covered iPhones, iPads, Beats headphones and MacBooks.

The legal action has been filed on behalf of UK consumers by Professor Christine Riefa, a consumer law expert who teaches at the University of Reading. Professor Riefa is being represented by Hausfeld & Co LLP. 

A spokesperson for Amazon told This is Money: ‘This claim is without merit, and we’re confident that this will become clear throughout the process. 

‘As a result of our agreement with Apple, customers can find the latest Apple and Beats products on our store, and they benefit from an expanded range with better deals and faster shipping.’

Apple declined to comment but has previously noted that certain agreements reached in 2018 were aimed at fighting counterfeit and safety concerns on Amazon marketplace. 

Professor Riefa, the proposed class representative in the action, said: ‘Millions of consumers in the UK enjoy the services and products of Apple and Amazon. 

‘They do not suspect that those companies collude to make them pay more for their electronics and reduce their choice. I believe that big businesses like Apple and Amazon should behave fairly and compete on merits, not by using underhand tactics.

‘Each company has an effective stranglehold over its market, and they are misusing that advantage to shut out competition from independent merchants – unlawfully lining their wallets at the expense of consumers. It’s a betrayal of their customers’ loyalty.’

She added: ‘At a time when families are under huge financial pressure from high inflation, mortgage and energy costs, it is more important than ever for consumers to be treated fairly. 

‘I decided to bring the claim because consumers individually would never have been able to and the two Tech giants would have continued to line their pockets with their unlawful behaviours going unchecked.’

Wessen Jazrawi, a partner at Hausfeld & Co LLP, which is leading the litigation, said: ‘Apple and Amazon have worked together to exclude competitors on the Amazon platform and to reduce the availability of discounted products, at their customers’ expense. 

‘We look forward to working with Christine Riefa to return money to those who have lost out and to making these companies accountable for their unlawful conduct.’

In a statement, Hausfeld & Co, added: ‘Because of the market power enjoyed by the two Tech giants, and the drastic reduction of discounted offerings on Amazon’s platform, more than 7million British customers have paid (and continue to pay) higher prices for Apple and Beats products when purchasing them from Amazon. 

‘The claim estimates that the compensation owed to these customers is almost £500million. 

‘The claim also alleges that a further 29million British customers have paid higher prices for Apple and Beats products when purchasing them from other retailers (e.g., Apple, Curry’s, etc.) either online or in-store, with total compensation for such customers to be quantified in due course.’

Earlier this week, a separate legal filing in London accused Apple’s App Store of being an unfair ‘monopoly.’ 

The White House has opened the door to an audacious plan to block sunlight from hitting the surface of the Earth in a bid to halt global warming. 

Despite some scientists warning the effort could have untold side effects from altering the chemical makeup of the atmosphere, President Joe Biden‘s administration have admitted they’re open to the idea, which has never been attempted before. 

In a report released Friday by the White House, officials suggested limiting sunlight to rapidly cool the planet, a process known as solar radiation modification (SRM). 

The administration added a note of skepticism to the report by noting that Congress ordered it, insisting it has not made any decision on ‘geoengineering’ policy. 

The report noted several ways authorities could look to achieve SRM, all of which come with potentially devastating consequences if they backfire. 

One method would be to significantly increase the amount of aerosols in the stratosphere, which would reflect the sun’s rays from the planet. 

Other ideas floated included increasing cloud coverage over oceans, or reducing the amount of cirrus cloud formations, which reflect solar radiation back to the Earth. 

The report noted that undertaking the mammoth task could have severe ramifications weather patterns and food supplies, which would in turn impact biodiversity, geopolitics, and health. 

It also suggested that committing to the idea then backtracking and changing course could lead to abrupt warming as the suns rays suddenly heat the Earth once more. 

While insisting that it was not definitively moving ahead with the plan, the Biden administration insisted in its report that the idea appeared promising.

It said a ‘program of research’ into the practice would ‘enable better-informed decisions about the potential risks and benefits’ of blocking the sun. 

The White House added that exploring the idea would also allow a better understanding of ‘the foundational elements of greenhouse gas emissions mitigation and adaptation.’ 

‘SRM offers the possibility of cooling the planet significantly on a timescale of a few years,’ the report claimed. 

In a statement accompanying the report, the administration said ‘there are no plans underway to establish a comprehensive research program focused on solar radiation modification.’ 

Scientists have been split over the potential benefits of the risky plan, with some warning it could result in a catastrophic change in the earth’s atmosphere. 

Others, however, claim it could be used as a last resort if fears over climate change are realized in the coming years and decades. 

‘The fact that this report even exists is probably the most consequential component of this release,’ said Shuchi Talati, the executive director of the Alliance for Just Deliberation on Solar Geoengineering, to Politico. 

‘This report also signals that the U.S. government is supportive of well-governed research, including outdoor experimentation, which I think is quite significant.’

The Biden administration made climate policy one of its central policy platforms in recent years, inserting the issue into other sectors including infrastructure and transportation. 

This marked a significant shift in policy from Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump, who famously once described climate change as a hoax created by the Chinese. 

In its report, the White House doubled down on its commitment to tackling climate issues. 

‘Climate change is already having profound effects on the physical and natural world, and on human well-being, and these effects will only grow as greenhouse gas concentrations increase and warming continues,’ the report stated. 

‘Understanding these impacts is crucial to enable informed decisions around a possible role for SRM in addressing human hardships associated with climate change.’ 

Do Man City really want Declan Rice?! Eni Aluko makes surprising suggestion that Mikel Arteta ‘asked Pep Guardiola to put a £90m bid in to push Arsenal’s owners’ – and says she ‘did it all the time’ as a sporting director

• Manchester City put in a £90m bid for Arsenal target Declan Rice on Monday
• Eni Aluko has suggested that Pep Guardiola’s side don’t want to sign Rice 
• Click here to view all the latest transfer news and gossip in Mail Sport’s live blog 

By Kieran Lynch For Mailonline

Published: 09:43 EDT, 27 June 2023 | Updated: 09:43 EDT, 27 June 2023

Democratic state senator Sarah McBride, 32, launches bid to be the first transgender member of Congress in Biden’s home state Delaware

• ‘My commitment is to the people in Delaware who aren’t seen,’ she said as she touted her efforts to secure paid family and medical leave
• The state senator has close ties to President Biden and his Delaware-based family 

By Morgan Phillips, U.S. Political Reporter For Dailymail.Com

Published: 10:27 EDT, 26 June 2023 | Updated: 10:50 EDT, 26 June 2023

Five men aboard the Titan submersible died after a ‘catastrophic implosion’ due to immense pressure in the ocean’s depths, authorities say.

The US Coast Guard last night announced the devastating news that robotic search devices had found a ‘debris field’ close to the Titanic wreck in the Atlantic. 

The Titan submersible, operated by US firm OceanGate, started its dive to Titanic on Sunday morning but all contact with its mothership was lost shortly after.

During early search efforts, banging noises were detected in 30-minute intervals by underwater sonar devices called ‘sonobuoys’. 

It had been speculated that the banging was SOS noises made by the men inside the sub, giving hope that they were still alive and waiting to be rescued. 

But experts say the men would have been crushed as soon as the sub encountered trouble – so what were the banging noises? 

According to experts, the ‘banging’ could have been from search equipment in the area, marine life such as whales or even just sounds from the depths of the Atlantic. 

Dr Jamie Pringle, Reader in Forensic Geosciences at Keele University, thinks the sound was ‘manmade’. 

‘The ocean is a very noisy place with passing ships, submarines, fishing vessels, and indeed search vessels in this case,’ he told MailOnline.

‘Noises can come from any source and sound waves don’t always travel radially outwards from a source, as water bodies are most often layered and sound waves travel along these. 

‘Noise from the Titanic wreck at that water depth would also be unlikely to travel to the surface.

‘The fact that it was every 30 minutes suggests a manmade cause and not vessel propellers which are continuous.’

US Coast Guard Captain Jamie Frederick had announced on Wednesday that the ‘banging’ had been detected by sonobuoys, fueling speculation that it was the five men hitting the sub’s titanium hull. 

But even if they hadn’t been killed by the implosion on Sunday, it’s unlikely hitting Titan’s titanium hull by hand would have been picked up, as it wouldn’t have been very loud. 

‘Obviously sources need to be progressively larger to travel further distance and 3.8km [12,000 feet] of water is very deep to propagate to the surface and be able to be measured,’ said Dr Pringle. 

‘Note this is speculation – we don’t have the raw data to analyse.’ 

Matthew Schanck, founder of maritime search and rescue organisation Marsar International, also suspects a manmade origin. 

‘Our understanding is the noise could have a number of sources,’ he told MailOnline. ‘The subsurface of the ocean is a noisy environment.

‘But given the high density of vessels in the area operating their propulsion systems and heavy machinery/equipment in the area, this may have been picked up by sonobuoys.’ 

Ships that deployed remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) in the search – including the mothership Polar Prince – also would have caused underwater noise, Schanck said. 

Schanck doesn’t think the noise would have come from the Titan debris, although it may come from the Titanic ‘if there is loose metal moving around’ – but surface vessels and ROVs deployed in the search were the most likely cause. 

Stefan B. Williams, a professor of marine robotics at the University of Sydney, told Business Insider marine wildlife ‘like whales’ could even have caused the noise. 

The North Atlantic is home to several whale species, including the North Atlantic right whale and the mighty blue whale.  

Jeff Karson, professor of earth and environmental sciences at Syracuse University, already said any interpretation that the banging was coming from the men was ‘wishful thinking’ and was likely ‘junk’, maybe from the Titanic debris. 

‘Is it really banging or just some unidentified sound? I think that is a more accurate description right now,’ he said. 

‘There’s no telling where the sound is coming from or how far away it is.

‘Personally, I’m worried that sound may be coming from something that’s far from where they need to be looking.’

The banging was detected by sonobuoys, devices that were initially developed to detect German U-boats during the Second World War.

Any underwater acoustic signals detected by the hydrophone, caused by a nearby U-boat for example, would then be relayed to the aircraft via the radio transmitter. 

But sonobuoys are now used for a variety of purposes including in search and rescue operations.

They can map the location of an airplane crash site, a sunken ship or survivors at sea, and were used in 2014 during the fruitless search missions to locate missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.

By Max Mathews For Mailonline

Published: 04:15 EDT, 22 June 2023 | Updated: 09:32 EDT, 22 June 2023

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