Measles is spreading among children in Ohio two months after cases were first detected. As of Thursday morning, there are at least 82 cases of measles in central Ohio, officials said, all of which are children.

Columbus Public Health first announced an investigation into the outbreak on Nov. 9 after four confirmed measles cases were linked to a child care facility in Franklin County. All of those cases were among unvaccinated children with no travel history, officials said, as Columbus Public Health Commissioner Dr. Mysheika Roberts urged parents to vaccinate their children.

By the end of the month, cases were linked to several more sites, including Polaris Mall, a church and a grocery store.

The number has since spiked, and as of Thursday morning, Columbus Public Health reported at least 82 cases, including 32 hospitalizations. All of those cases are among children 17 and younger, with nearly 94% of those cases infecting infants, babies and children up to the age of 5, health data shows. No children have so far died in the outbreak.

It so far appears that all of the children impacted by the outbreak are at least partially unvaccinated, meaning they have only received one dose of the necessary two for the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine, known as MMR, although four children still have an unknown vaccination status. Children are recommended to get their first dose between 12 and 15 months of age and the second between the age of 4 and 6.

The House Ways and Means Committee on Friday released Donald Trump’s tax returns, dealing yet another setback to the former president and 2024 White House candidate as he faces multiple federal and state investigations.

The Democratic-led panel released the financial documents for six years, capping a protracted legal and political battle that could have been prevented had Trump followed presidential precedent and released his returns voluntarily.

Democrats have pushed for more than three years to make Trump’s tax returns public, and the documents were finally made available to the Ways and Means Committee late last month after the Supreme Court denied a last attempt by Trump to withhold the records......

“The American people want to have trust that the most powerful individual in this country, who has vested in them all the powers of the executive branch, is making decisions based on the interest of American people and not their own self financial interest,” Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-Calif.), who sits on the Ways and Means Committee, said in an interview.

Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY), who has for the last two weeks been relentlessly ridiculing scandal-plagued Rep.-elect George Santos (R-NY), proposed new legislation on Thursday night that's named after his embattled soon-to-be colleague.

However, the legislation in question is not meant as an honor.

Writing on Twitter, Torres announced that he is proposing new legislation requiring people who run for office to swear to their past education, work, and military histories under oath so that there can be a mechanism to punish candidates who flagrantly lie to win elections.

The kicker, however, lays in the title, as Torres writes that "it will be called the Stop Another Non-Truthful Office Seeker (SANTOS) ACT."

Although many politicians in both parties have embellished their resumes or told fictional stories about their past deeds, Santos' deception stands out as historically audacious.

Among other things, Santos lied about graduating from college, about working for major investment banks, and even about his ethnic heritage, as he falsely claimed to be Jewish during his campaign for New York's 3rd Congressional District.

House Republicans are fuming over a recent White House move that will slow roll their investigations, but leaders say it doesn’t change their game plan.

While the House GOP has spent weeks detailing its planned investigations into the Biden administration now that the party has a majority, the White House has stayed mostly silent on strategy. That changed Thursday morning, when White House Special Counsel Richard Sauber announced he plans to effectively reset the clock come Jan. 3 and ignore the long list of investigative requests already sent by Republican Reps. James Comer of Kentucky and Jim Jordan of Ohio — the incoming chairs for the Oversight and Judiciary Committees, respectively.

It’s an explosive start to a chapter that won’t even officially begin until next week. The relationship between House Republicans and the Biden White House seemed doomed to go sour from the start, but it’s an unmistakable signal that Biden’s administration won’t quietly go along with investigations — some of which it has openly deemed little more than political noise.

“At every turn the Biden White House seeks to obstruct congressional oversight and hide information from the American people,” Comer said in a statement.

House Republicans were quick to clarify that their investigative plans, which have been in the works for months and have included strategy meetings with Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, are moving forward regardless of the White House’s position. Comer said in an interview that he had already planned to reissue all of his information requests quickly in the new Congress, including for interviews and documents related to Hunter Biden’s business deals, last year’s Afghanistan withdrawal and the administration’s handling of the pandemic. The White House’s newly articulated position would be little more than a short delay of that process, he noted.

On Thursday's edition of CNN's "The Situation Room," former federal prosecutor Elie Honig tore into former President Donald Trump's associates for doing everything in their power to hunt for voter fraud, despite the fact that there wasn't any and they appeared to know there wasn't any.

This came after the release of a transcript from Christina Bobb, a Trump attorney, who revealed a damning conversation Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) had with her.

"According to this new transcript from a Trump lawyer, Senator Lindsey Graham ... said 'Just give me five dead voters,'" said anchor Wolf Blitzer. "That's a direct quote. How desperate were Trump's allies to find anything to back up their false claims of voter fraud?"

"Well, Wolf, one thing that jumps out to me from these transcripts is they knew they had nothing," said Honig. "Whether it's Lindsey Graham, Donald Trump Jr., these transcripts show us that in the hours and days after the votes were actually cast in November, they realized they had lost, they realized their only hope was to conjure up these claims of voter fraud, and they just couldn't find any."

But the Republican quintet — Reps. Jim Banks of Indiana, Rodney Davis of Illinois, Jim Jordan of Ohio, Kelly Armstrong of North Dakota, and Troy Nehls of Texas — continued to take an interest in the investigation, despite watching it unfold from afar, and yesterday the group even took the unusual step of releasing a report.

Politico reported yesterday that the document is largely an underwhelming effort to blame congressional Democratic leaders for the pro-Trump attack on the Capitol.

The GOP report primarily consists of long-public information about debates within the Capitol Police and among security officials about how to prepare for Jan. 6.

The cover of the document describes it as a “report of investigation,” which is a bit of a stretch. No meaningful investigation took place among the five Republicans who were on the outside looking in as the actual Jan. 6 committee did real work.....

Politico’s Kyle Cheney went on to note that the Republicans’ document “omits crucial, widely known evidence, and distorts some of its key findings in ways that aren’t backed up by evidence.”

Stepping back, let’s not forget that it was a year and a half ago when McCarthy pulled the plug on participating in the real Jan. 6 investigation. Soon after, assorted GOP leaders and their allies set out to find facts that would exonerate Trump and cast the attack in a more flattering light for the right.

All presidents admit to being frustrated by the limitations placed on the office, and few would subscribe to the strict constructionist views held by William Howard Taft, who believed presidents can act only when expressly granted the authority to do so. Today’s presidents side with Teddy Roosevelt, who believed it is the president’s “duty to do anything that the needs of the nation demanded unless such action was forbidden by the Constitution or by the laws.” Action-oriented presidents, like Roosevelt and Kennedy, test the strictures of the office and, like the voters they serve, want results.

Joe Biden’s presidency has been one of results. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the Chips and Science Act, the Inflation Reduction Act, the PACT Act, the first major gun control legislation in 30 years and the Respect for Marriage Act all contain Biden’s distinctive signature on their legislative parchments. Key provisions in these laws will be implemented in the years ahead......

In 2022, Biden also correctly read the public mood. His legislative accomplishments gave quivering Democrats a platform. And Republicans also gave Biden a powerful assist, thanks to the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade and Donald Trump’s continuing attacks on our democracy and the Constitution. When the ballots were counted, Democrats added one Senate seat and gained three governorships, marking the first time since 1934 that a Democratic president has gained seats for his party in his first midterm contest. Instead of measuring yards of drapery for their new offices, Republicans will remain a minority in the Senate while holding the slimmest of majorities in the House.

Joe Biden has understood that results, not political posturing and bickering, are why a Trump-weary public hired him. At a 2021 Cabinet meeting, Biden told his department heads: “The American people sent us here to deliver. They sent us here to make government work. And they sent us here to make a difference in their lives.”