State funeral will be attended by almost 100 presidents and heads of government
Joe Biden and his wife Jill arrived in the UK on Saturday to attend the funeral of Queen Elizabeth, who the US president has described as “more than a monarch” and a woman who “defined an era”.
The Queen’s state funeral on Monday is to be attended by almost 100 presidents and heads of government, and the Bidens were traveling without any former US presidents.
Continue reading...Attacks against civilians ‘abhorrent’, says Jan Lipavský, of Czech Republic, which holds EU presidency
The EU presidency has called for the establishment of an international tribunal for war crimes after new mass graves were found in Ukraine.
“In the 21st century, such attacks against the civilian population are unthinkable and abhorrent,” said Jan Lipavský, foreign minister of the Czech Republic, which holds the EU’s rotating presidency.
Continue reading...President appears at Detroit auto show, where EVs are this year’s stars – but the road to electrification promises to be a bumpy one
Fresh off signing legislation aimed at propelling the nation’s electric vehicle (EV) transition, Joe Biden was in Detroit last week to reaffirm his support for electrification ahead of the opening of the US’s largest annual car show.
“The great American road trip is going to be fully electrified, whether you’re driving along the coast, or on I-75 here in Michigan,” he declared as the first North American International Auto Show since 2019 prepared to open its doors.
Continue reading...Judge appoints special master to weed out documents under legal privilege rules but DoJ is expected to appeal the decision
Speaking of conservative media, Ramon Antonio Vargas tuned into conservative stalwart Fox News to see what their political coverage looks like ahead of the midterms:
With most US voters indicating that the preservation of abortion rights is their chief focus as midterm elections loom, the face of Fox News and Republican politicians appear to be trying to shift attention to crime, a progressive media watchdog has warned.
As a kid, he always knew he wanted to be a doctor (“Fisher Price play kit,” he muses). But it wasn’t until he was an undergraduate at Columbia University that he experienced an epiphany.
He was working on a big display of the AIDS memorial quilt, he says, and was tasked with flying to San Francisco to bring back a “roll of carpet that looked like a body in a shroud.” On the day the exhibit opened for the finished quilt, he watched as men his age — people who should have been enjoying their 20s — walked in, coughing and raging with a disease very likely to kill them.
Continue reading...The aid is expected to contain munitions including HIMARS ammunition and funding for military education and training
The Biden administration announced a new $600m arms package to help the Ukrainian military battle Russia, as the US rushes more weapons to fuel Kyiv’s successful counteroffensive in the country’s east.
The package will include more of the same types of ammunition and equipment that have helped Ukrainian forces beat back the Russian forces in portions of the east and south.
Continue reading...President also urges Congress to do more to force social media companies to address spread of hate through their platforms
Joe Biden vowed to combat the “venom and violence” of white supremacy in America and decried Donald Trump’s reluctance to condemn the rightwing racism on display in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, which spurred Biden to run against him for the presidency.
The US president also called afresh for Congress to do more to force social media companies to address the spread of hate through their platforms.
Continue reading...Biden has begun speaking at the White House about the agreement reached to head off a rail workers strike.
You can watch it below:
Continue reading...President is in Detroit to promote the Inflation Reduction Act, which includes incentives for buying electric cars
A presidential run may be Mike Pence’s best hope of getting back into the White House. The Guardian’s Martin Pengelly reports that Donald Trump has thoroughly disavowed his former vice president:
Donald Trump will not pick Mike Pence as his running mate if he runs for the presidency again, according to an interview with the authors of a new book on his time in the White House.
Continue reading...Indiana to ban abortion on Thursday
As the news cycle today has focused on senator Lindsey Graham’s proposals for a national abortion ban from 15 weeks, its worth remembering that Republican-controlled Indiana will bring in its almost total ban on Thursday.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Labour peer calls on US president to follow UK in banning firm over misconduct in South Africa
Joe Biden should follow the UK in banning the global management consultancy firm Bain & Company from future government contracts, the Labour peer Peter Hain has said.
In a letter shared with the Guardian, the former minister and anti-apartheid campaigner urged the US president to “act on this matter and establish a clear precedent that will signal to all US global companies, consultancies, lawyers, auditors and financial advisers that collusion with corrupt politicians and their business cronies in other countries will not be tolerated”.
Continue reading...Gabriel Debenedetti, author of book on Biden’s relationship with Obama, reports call on night of 2018 midterms
On the night of the 2018 midterm elections, as a wave of anti-Trump sentiment swept Democrats to take control of the House, top Republican Mitt Romney urged Joe Biden to run for president.
“You have to run,” said Romney, the Republican presidential nominee Biden and Barack Obama defeated in 2012, speaking to the former vice-president by phone.
Continue reading...Steve Bannon has now been formally indicted, the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports.
Bannon was charged with money laundering and conspiracy in connection with his role in a fundraising effort to privately underwrite the construction of the US-Mexico border wall, according to the indictment unsealed on Thursday.
Continue reading...Biden administration says undoing the protocol would not be ‘conducive’ to a trade deal between the UK and US
The Biden administration has sent Liz Truss a message on her second day in office warning against “efforts to undo the Northern Ireland protocol”.
The warning came from the lectern in the White House briefing room, where spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre was asked about new British prime minister Truss’s first phone call with Joe Biden and whether a US-UK trade deal was discussed.
Continue reading...Report appears to confirm security officials’ worst fears about the nature of the material Trump refused to hand back
Former Trump administration defense secretaries Jim Mattis and Mark Esper have joined a group of retired military officers who have written an open letter warning of an “extremely adverse environment” for the military – a thinly-veiled attack on the former president’s efforts to use servicemen and women to advance his political goals.
“Military officers swear an oath to support and defend the Constitution, not an oath of fealty to an individual or to an office,” the letter, published by the online security analysis website War on the Rocks, states.
Continue reading...The new British prime minister also spoke to Volodymyr Zelenskiy on her first day in office, pledging UK ‘assistance for the long term’
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the ensuing global energy crisis have emerged as a leading foreign policy priorities for Britain’s new prime minister Liz Truss, as she and her US counterpart Joe Biden promised to strengthen their relationship in face of Vladimir Putin’s aggression.
Truss’s call to Biden on Tuesday night followed a conversation with Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and focused on what she called “the extreme economic problems caused by Putin’s war”. Biden and Truss “reinforced their commitment to strengthening global liberty, tackling the risks posed by autocracies and ensuring Putin fails in Ukraine”, according to Downing Street.
Continue reading...US midterms campaigns kick into high gear after Labor Day as Senate returns from month-long break
Legal pressure on Jeffrey Clark, the former justice department lawyer who schemed with Donald Trump and others to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia and other states, is expected to rise with the cooperation of another ex-DoJ lawyer who worked with him, say former prosecutors.
The cooperation from the ex-lawyer, in tandem with other evidence obtained by prosecutors, could help spur charges against Clark – a close ally of then president Trump – and benefit prosecutors as they go after bigger targets.
Continue reading...President again pledges to be ‘most pro-union president’ in history during speech in Milwaukee
Joe Biden used a Labor Day speech in the battleground state of Wisconsin to endorse the expansion of unions, reiterating his election promises to be the “most pro-union president” in American history.
The US president argued in Milwaukee that a skilled, unionised workforce would help the US regain its place as a world leader in infrastructure and manufacturing.
Continue reading...A string of favorable outcomes for the party, coupled with backlash from supreme court’s abortion ban, could galvanize Biden supporters
Joe Biden travels to the battleground states of Wisconsin and Pennsylvania on Monday, determined to reframe America’s midterm elections as a defining choice between democracy and the extremism of Donald Trump.
Fighting for every vote, the US president will mark Labor Day with growing confidence as opinion polls suggest that, while Republicans still have the lead, Democrats now have the momentum heading into the home stretch.
Continue reading...Biden speaks at White House and takes swipe at former president, but says not all Trump supporters are threat to America
At the White House press briefing just now, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre spoke on Joe Biden’s speech last night where he warned that Donald Trump and “MAGA Republicans” are a threat to democracy.
“The president was trying to give the American people a choice: how do we move forward in this inflection point?” Jean-Pierre said. “When it comes to the soul of the nation, that is something the president has talked about for years… He has been concerned about where our democracy is going.”
Continue reading...In a rare primetime address, Biden pitched the midterms as a battle for the nation’s soul and directly called out Trump
Joe Biden – who usually makes couched references to “the former guy” and his “predecessor” – explicitly named and called out Donald Trump during his speech. The president warned that Trump and the “Maga (Make America great again)” Republicans “represent an extremism that threatens the very foundation of our republic”.
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