Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
The president does not just share Irish roots with John, Robert and Ted Kennedy – he also wants to lead America in the world
It was a popular Washington sport: find the past president who best explained Donald Trump. There was a touch of Andrew Jackson’s populism, a dash of Richard Nixon’s skulduggery, a sprinkling of Ronald Reagan’s myth-making. But now all that is over, who are the closest matches to Joe Biden?
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris offered solace to Asian Americans and a reeling nation on Friday as they visited Atlanta just days after a white gunman killed eight people, most of them Asian American women. The visit, during a nationwide spike of anti-Asian violence, has added resonance with the presence of Harris, the first person of South Asian descent to hold national office
As unaccompanied children reach the US, Republicans seek political gain. The White House has a fight on its hands
Lauded for his human touch, Joe Biden is facing an early political and moral test over how his government treats thousands of migrant children who make the dangerous journey to America alone.
President and vice-president address nation reckoning with ‘heinous act’ that killed eight, including six women of Asian descent
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have condemned a “heinous act of violence” during a trip to Atlanta, hoping to console a city and Asian American communities rocked by the attack this week that left eight people dead and one injured.
Delivering remarks on Friday evening at Emory University after a day spent meeting with Asian American community leaders and politicians, the president and vice-president spoke out forcefully against the shooting, in which six of the victims were women of Asian descent, as well as the rise in anti-Asian violence.
The US president stumbled while boarding Air Force One on his way to visit to Atlanta, Georgia, to meet with Asian American community leaders. Biden tripped on the steps up to the plane, before recovering and carrying on unaided, turning to salute at the top. The 78-year-old fractured his right foot in November 2020 while playing with his dog Major
Joan Biskupic, CNN’s legal analyst has an interesting piece this morning arguing that the Supreme Court’s conservatives want to topple abortion rights – but can’t seem to agree on how. She writes:
The aims of individual justices, based on their recent writings, range from reversing Roe v. Wade to forbidding clinics from challenging restrictions on behalf of women to relaxing the standard that states must meet to limit women’s access to the procedure.
New internal tensions in the age-old controversy have emerged, as the six Republican-appointed justices on the right wing diverge on curtailing precedent and more sharply clash with the court’s three remaining Democratic-appointed liberals. The justices could move a step closer to their next chapter as they meet privately on Friday to consider whether to take up Mississippi’s ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.
After four years of racist, chaotic, anti-immigration policies by the Trump administration – as well as growing desperation fuelled by the pandemic and extreme climate events – the number of people seeking to enter the US is rising.
Russian president Vladimir Putin shrugged off accusations from Joe Biden that he was a 'killer', saying: 'It takes one to know one.' Putin then said he wished Biden health 'without any irony or joke'. Biden made his comment after an assessment by US intelligence agencies that Moscow was continuing to meddle in American democracy and had tried to help Donald Trump win last year’s US election.
Joe Biden said the US will have successfully administered 100m vaccine doses by 19 March – his 58th day in office. ‘That’s weeks ahead of schedule, and even with the setbacks we faced during the winter storms,’ he said. Upon taking office, Biden set his administration the target of reaching the number in his first 100 days.
Illinois and Maryland recently announced that within the next two months, all adults will be eligible to receive the Covid-19 vaccine, joining at least seven other states who said they can open up eligibility in March and April.
Illinois governor JB Pritzker said today that all residents 16 and older will be eligible to receive the vaccine starting 12 April. Meanwhile, Maryland’s governor, Larry Hogan, said on Tuesday that all adults should be eligible by 27 April.
The Senate just confirmed William Burns to be director of the CIA. Burns is the former deputy secretary of state in the Obama administration and has held multiple roles within the State Department.
While Burns’ nomination received widespread support from Democrats and Republicans, senator Ted Cruz had temporarily blocked what would have been a quick confirmation as Cruz was hoping to send a message to Biden over the Russia-Germany natural gas Nord Stream 2 pipelines, a controversial energy project that critics fear will give more political power to Russia.
Officials in Moscow go on offensive after Biden says Russian president will pay price for election meddling
Russian relations with the US have entered a new post-Trump period of smouldering hostility after Vladimir Putin shrugged off accusations from Joe Biden that he was a “killer”, saying: “It takes one to know one.”
The Russian president responded in characteristically icy fashion to Biden’s remark, which followed an assessment by US intelligence agencies that Moscow was continuing to meddle in American democracy and had tried to help Donald Trump win last year’s US election.
Joe Biden has condemned Vladimir Putin, saying he thinks the Russian leader is a killer and that he told him he did not have a soul. Biden’s remarks were made on ABC News in an interview with George Stephanopoulos. The interview coincided with the release of a declassified US intelligence report that bolstered allegations Putin was behind Moscow’s interference in the 2020 election. When pressed on the allegations against Russia, Biden said Putin ‘will pay a price’ for the attempts to swing the vote in Donald Trump’s favor
Kamala Harris said the Atlanta massage parlour shootings were ‘tragic’ and spoke to the larger issue of violence in American society. ‘We must ... never tolerate it and always speak out against it,’ Harris said. Joe Biden said violence against Asian Americans was ‘very, very troubling’, but said was making ‘no connection at this moment of the motivation of the killer’.
President claims sanction for Mohammed bin Salman would have been diplomatically unprecedented but overstates US-Saudi ties
Joe Biden has defended his decision to waive any punishment for Saudi Arabia’s crown prince in the murder of a US-based journalist, claiming that acting against the Saudi royal would have been diplomatically unprecedented for the United States.
In an ABC News interview that aired on Wednesday, the US president discussed his administration’s decision to exempt Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman from any penalties for the October 2018, killing of Jamal Khashoggi. Last month, the Biden administration released a declassified US intelligence report which concluded that the crown prince authorized the team of Saudi security and intelligence officials that killed Khashoggi.
Russia tried to influence the 2020 US presidential election by proliferating “misleading or unsubstantiated allegations” largely against Joe Biden and through allies of Donald Trump, US intelligence officials said on Tuesday.
The assessment was contained in a 15-page report published by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. It underscored allegations that Trump’s allies played into Moscow’s hands by amplifying claims against Biden by Ukrainian figures with links to Russia.
This may not be overtly party political but there is no doubt it’s political. The trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, accused of murdering George Floyd last May, continues with jury selection and legal arguments.
In the arrest of May 6, 2019, a panicking Floyd swallowed several opioid pain-killer pills as police approached. Eric Nelson, Chauvin’s lead lawyer, has argued that the main cause of Floyd’s death a year later, which was ruled a homicide, was the opioid fentanyl found in his blood at autopsy.
“The similarities are incredible, it’s the exact same behavior in two incidents almost exactly one year apart,” Nelson told the court before the resumption of jury selection, noting Floyd called out for his “mama” in both arrests, according to video footage.
More on the coronavirus, as federal leaders and officials warn the country not to relax at what we all hope is the eleventh hour of the main thrust of the pandemic.
The Associated Press reports from North Carolina:
Duke University saw nearly as many cases of the coronavirus last week as it did during the entire fall semester, according to data released today.
The vast majority of the 231 new cases reported from March 8 through Sunday occurred within the university’s undergraduate student population.
welp this was a surprise to no one, given the recent disaffiliation of many fraternities from Duke into their own council, in response to being told to wait until fall 2021 for rush. And instead hold in person parties/rush events and why is Greek life still a thing?? https://t.co/SA1kgZWMh6
There's a strong reaction among Duke students after off-campus fraternity activities led to increased COVID-19 cases and a new stay-in-place order. https://t.co/mO0jdOpSxd
A US Capitol police officer was suspended after antisemitic reading material was discovered near his work area on Monday.
A) USCP: Monday, U.S. Capitol Police Acting Chief Yogananda Pittman ordered an officer to be suspended after anti-Semitic reading material was discovered near his work area on Sunday.
B) USCP: The officer will remain suspended pending the outcome of an investigation by the Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility.
C) USCP: “We take all allegations of inappropriate behavior seriously. Once this matter was brought to my attention, I immediately ordered the officer to be suspended until the Office of Professional Responsibility can thoroughly investigate,” said Acting Chief Pittman.
Analysis: Biden is riding high in polls and his American Rescue Plan is popular with Americans – he must build momentum to avoid the fate of Obama
In the White House Rose Garden, where for four years Donald Trump raucously celebrated political wins with his allies, it was now the turn of Democrats to take a victory lap – masked and physically distanced, of course.
Kamala Harris, the vice-president, heaped praise on Joe Biden for signing a $1.9tn coronavirus relief bill, the biggest expansion of the American welfare state in decades. “Your empathy has become a trademark of your presidency and can be found on each and every page of the American Rescue Plan,” Harris said.
The issues driving families and children to the border in the past decade remain: the climate crisis, violence, unemployment and poverty. Two devastating hurricanes in Honduras in November and the coronavirus pandemic have added to the desperate conditions. And each year migration increases when the weather warms up.
According to Congressional Budget Office estimates, to pay out his coronavirus relief package, president Joe Biden must spend an average of $3.7 billion every day for the rest of this year. That’s $43,000 every second of every day until midnight chimes on 2022.
Josh Boak at the Associated Press reports that the president signed the aid package into law yesterday without a comprehensive plan in place to distribute all of the funds, which will be a core focus of the administration in coming weeks.
President warns Americans ‘this is not the time to let up’ in first prime-time address on pandemic anniversary
Joe Biden has directed states to make all American adults eligible for coronavirus vaccines by 1 May and set an audacious goal of 4 July for gatherings to celebrate “independence” from the deadly pandemic.
But in his first prime-time address, which marked the anniversary of America’s shutdown, the president warned that restrictions could be reinstated if the nation lets down its guard against the virus.