Category Archives: Joe Biden

Biden administration angered by Opec+ oil output cut

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Senior figures see decision as a slight on the US and a sign that the oil producers club is aligning with Russia

The Biden administration and its supporters have reacted angrily to the Opec+ decision to cut oil production, seeing it as a rebuff to the US president’s efforts to improve relations with Saudi Arabia.

The White House made clear that it viewed the decision by the oil production cartel, in which the plus sign represents the inclusion of Russia, to reduce daily production by 2m barrels, as a geopolitical move, and a slight to Biden who is seeking to cut Russian revenues and keep the petrol price down before November’s congressional elections.

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Biden pledges $60m to stormproof Puerto Rico during visit

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The US territory has been frequently battered by hurricanes but is often overlooked by the federal government when it comes to aid

Joe Biden announced on Monday that his administration will allocate $60m in funding for Puerto Rico specifically to help coastal areas become more storm-resilient, as he admitted, following the hit from Hurricane Fiona last month, that the island territory had faced much in the last five years and had not received enough timely assistance.

The US president said the new funding would go toward strengthening flood walls, creating a new flood warning system and other projects.

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Biden pledges support to hurricane-hit Puerto Rico: ‘All of America is with you’ – as it happened

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As Puerto Rico prepares for Joe Biden’s visit this afternoon, a grassroots collective known as Queremos Sol (we want sun) has published an open letter (in Spanish) in the La Perla online daily urging the president to not waste federal taxpayer dollars on rebuilding the storm vulnerable fossil fuel dependent grid.

“As you know, the absence of electricity after Hurricane Maria caused thousands of deaths. Now, two weeks after Hurricane Fiona, several deaths related to the lack of electricity have been documented. To a large extent, these deaths could have been prevented.

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Venezuela swaps prisoners with US in hint of thawing relations

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Exchange of Maduro nephews for seven Americans is unusual gesture of goodwill from socialist president but Washington denies any change in policy

Venezuela has freed seven imprisoned Americans in exchange for the US releasing two nephews of President Nicolás Maduro’s wife who had been jailed for years on narcotics convictions.

The swap of the Americans, including five oil executives held for nearly five years, follows months of back-channel diplomacy by senior US officials – secretive talks with a major oil producer that took on greater urgency after sanctions on Russia put pressure on global energy prices.

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Russia-Ukraine war live: Putin annexes Ukrainian regions; Kyiv applies for Nato membership – as it happened

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Volodymyr Zelenskiy makes the announcement hours after Russia declares annexation of Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk and Luhansk. This blog is now closed

Kyrylo Tymoshenko, an adviser to the Ukrainian presidency, has said of the attack on the civilian convoy: “The terror continues. The killings continue. Sixteen missiles were launched using S-300 air defence.”

Confirming the number, he said four missiles hit near a car parts market where the convoy had gathered.

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Senate passes short-term deal to avoid government shutdown – as it happened

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Top Democrat says he hopes to finalize deal to fund government until mid-December by the end of today

With a speech on the Capitol steps, top House Republican Kevin McCarthy was stumping again today for his party’s Commitment to America platform and plans for “firing Nancy Pelosi”.

McCarthy last week debuted the plan, which offered a broad if vague outline of what the party would do should they take Congress’s lower chamber in the 8 November midterms:

Kevin McCarthy’s pitiful display this morning is only further proof that the MAGA cult in his conference has him in a chokehold. House Republican Leaders spent their morning detached from reality: bragging about their dangerous, extreme, unpopular agenda to ban abortion in all fifty states, send prescription drug costs soaring and steal your right to choose your leaders. Truthfully, a desperate press conference is about par for the course for an uninspiring and incoherent politician like the Minority Leader, whose only real accomplishment to date is typing up a radical right-wing wish list that sends a clear message to the American people that House Republicans have gone off the deep end.

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Biden takes aim at food insecurity with first hunger conference in 50 years – as it happened

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Biden releases national hunger and nutrition strategy, which includes a slate of goals to help end food insecurity

Biden is going into the main pillars of the national hunger and nutrition strategy released on Tuesday, which includes a slew of goals to help end food insecurity, give people more information and options to eat more healthily, and help folks take up regular physical activity.

Unfortunately, the goals are more a call to action, as Congress has ended Covid-era policies like the universal free school meals program and the expanded child tax credits which had massively reduced food insecurity and child poverty in the US.

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January 6 committee postpones Wednesday hearing over hurricane – as it happened

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Panel cites threat of Hurricane Ian bearing down on parts of Florida, and says the ‘investigation goes forward’

As the January 6 committee enters what is likely to be the home stretch of its investigation, a new poll has found it hasn’t meaningfully shifted beliefs about what happened that day.

Monmouth University finds that around four in 10 Americans hold Donald Trump responsible for the insurrection at the Capitol, slightly less than in late June, while three in 10 believe the election was stolen from him, a figure that’s moved little since November 2020.

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US launches effort to end hunger by 2030 by expanding benefits and access to healthy foods

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Plan includes multiple ambitious proposals, such as expanding benefits like free school meals and food stamps

The Biden government has launched a new strategy to end hunger in the US by 2030 through the expansion of benefits such as free school meals and food stamps.

One in 10 households struggled to feed their families in 2021 due to poverty – an extraordinary level of food insecurity in the richest country in the world which has barely budged in the past two decades amid deepening economic inequalities and welfare cuts. Of those, children in 274,000 households went hungry, skipped meals or did not eat for entire days because there was not enough money to buy food.

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Former January 6 committee staffer says texts show evidence of ‘attempted coup’ – live

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Denver Riggleman tells 60 Minutes that texts from Mark Meadows amounted to a ‘roadmap to an attempted coup’

The supreme court’s overturning of Roe v Wade allowed states to curtail abortion rights completely, potentially transformed the midterms and, as Maya Yang reports, complicated access to other medicines in unexpected ways:

A few weeks after the supreme court’s 24 June decision to overturn the nationwide abortion rights established by Roe v Wade, the pharmacy chain Walgreens sent Annie England Noblin a message, informing her that her monthly prescription of methotrexate was held up.

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Iranian authorities must ‘deal decisively’ with protests, says president

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At least 35 dead in eight nights of demonstrations after death of Mahsa Amini in custody, state media report

Iran’s president, Ebrahim Raisi, has said authorities must “deal decisively with those who oppose the country’s security and tranquility”, Iranian state media have reported.

Demonstrators have taken to the streets of Tehran and other major cities for eight straight nights since the death of Mahsa Amini.

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Elton John awarded medal by Joe Biden for his work to end Aids

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Singer moved to tears as US president awards him National Humanities Medal after White House performance

Elton John was moved to tears after being awarded the National Humanities Medal for his work to end Aids by the US president following a special performance at the White House.

The singer performed on the White House lawn for the president and first lady and about 2,000 “everyday history makers” on Friday night.

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Biden’s claim that Covid pandemic is over sparks debate over future

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With more than 400 people dying daily, many experts say his remarks were premature – but it is unclear what impact they may have

Joe Biden’s recent declaration that the Covid-19 pandemic was over was premature, according to several infectious disease experts, but there was not a consensus among them about whether the remarks will cause a significant change in Americans’ attitude towards the virus and lead to worse public health outcomes.

That’s partly because Biden was simply catching up to most of the US population, who see how much lower the case and death counts are than earlier in the pandemic, and as such, have stopped wearing masks in public and now gather regularly indoors, the experts said.

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US intelligence resumes national security review of Mar-a-Lago documents – as it happened

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Joe Biden says attacks Republicans’ midterms agenda, saying real goal is to ban abortion nationwide

The Trump-appointed World Bank president David Malpass is under fire for deflecting on the question of humans causing climate change, and Axios reports the Biden administration is mulling an effort to remove him.

Appointed in 2019, Malpass, a Republican, worked in the Treasury under Trump and also at global financial crisis-casualty Bear Stearns. While Axios reports Biden officials have long been suspicious of him, the uproar began when Malpass replied, “I don’t even know -- I’m not a scientist and that is not a question,” when asked at an event on Tuesday if he believed climate change is manmade.

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Republicans unveil 90s-throwback midterm election agenda

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The House minority leader introduced the Republicans’ ‘Commitment to America’, focusing on Biden and not on Trump

Republicans have unveiled a midterm election agenda heavy on critiques of Joe Biden but light on specific policies – and with a throwback theme to the mid-1990s.

After a primary season dominated by extremist “Make America great again” (Maga) candidates and deniers of the 2020 election result, Friday’s launch also represented an effort to tone down rhetoric and win back independent voters.

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South Korea president criticised over gaffes at Queen’s funeral and UN

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Yoon Suk-yeol accused of discourtesy in London and of swearing after chat to Joe Biden

South Korea’s president has been accused of causing a “diplomatic disaster” after his first major international trip, to the Queen’s funeral and the UN general assembly, was marred by alleged discourtesy and an expletive directed at members of the US congress.

Yoon Suk-yeol, a conservative who was already battling low approval ratings only months after taking office, drew criticism from across the South Korean political spectrum after he failed to attend the Queen’s lying in state despite traveling to London.

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Special master asks Trump team for proof of claims that FBI planted evidence – as it happened

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Special master also gives series of deadlines after judges overturn ruling that temporarily blocked DoJ from the material

The judge who had initially blocked the justice department from reviewing the documents seized from Mar-a-Lago and ordered a special master to weed out privileged materials has revised her ruling, Politico reports.

Federal judge Aileen Cannon’s changes come after an appeals court overturned the part of her opinion that had halted the government’s review of the documents taken from Donald Trump’s resort, hampering the investigation into whether the former president took government secrets with him when he left the White House.

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Senator Joe Manchin unveils bill that would speed fossil fuel projects

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The centrist Democrat believes he has votes to pass the measure, which would also power transmission for renewable energy

The US senator Joe Manchin released an energy permitting bill on Wednesday to speed fossil fuel projects and power transmission for renewable energy.

The bill is expected to be attached to a measure to temporarily fund the government that Congress must pass before 1 October. Manchin’s staff told reporters the senator believed he had the 60 votes needed to pass it.

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New York attorney general says ‘no one is above’ the law as Trump sued for fraud – as it happened

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Letitia James accuses former president and his family of fraudulently inflating their net worth for financial benefits

Biden has kicked off his UN speech with strong rhetoric against Russia, pointed to the global body’s own rules to characterize Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine as illegal and reckless.

“A permanent member of the United Nations Security Council invaded his neighbor, attempted to erase a sovereign state from the map. Russia has shamelessly violated the core tenets of the United Nations Charter,” Biden said, as he accused president Vladimir Putin of causing a “brutal, needless war.”

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Biden denounces Putin’s nuclear threats as ‘reckless’ in UN address

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Volodymyr Zelenskiy also spoke to the UN, saying Ukraine’s forces would continue their counter-offensive

Joe Biden and allied leaders have reacted angrily to Vladimir Putin’s threats to use nuclear weapons and pledged to maintain support for Ukraine’s support in the face of Russia’s partial mobilisation and planned annexation of more Ukrainian regions.

The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, also shrugged off Putin’s moves to escalate the war, saying his country’s forces would continue their counter-offensive, not giving Russia breathing space to mobilise and dig in on Ukrainian soil.

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