Category Archives: Joe Biden

Richard Trumka, AFL-CIO union president, dies aged 72 – as it happened

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We’re wrapping up today’s live politics coverage. Here’s an updated summary of the day’s key political news:

Los Angeles County public health officials argue indoor mask policy is working

New numbers from the Los Angeles public health department suggest the county’s requirement that people once again wear masks indoors is working, the public health director argued today.

LA County public health director Barbara Ferrer cites these numbers as evidence that LA's mask law is working.

While cases in LA have increased 22%, they increased in the rest of CA by 57% in the same time frame. pic.twitter.com/NHt9wVXi3l

Ferrer also said that the rate of increase in cases in LA has slowed since the mask order went into effect.

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Joe Biden: half of new vehicles sold in US to be electric by 2030 – video

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Joe Biden is setting a goal for half of all new US vehicle sales to be electric by 2030 while at the same time tightening pollution standards for cars and trucks, in a barrage of action aimed at reducing the largest source of planet-heating gases in America.

On Thursday, the White House outlined its plan to tackle the climate crisis by cutting emissions from vehicles. Biden is set to sign an executive order demanding that 50% of all new cars and trucks sold by the end of the decade be powered by electric batteries

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Majority of NY assembly members support impeaching Cuomo if he doesn’t resign – live

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The Mexican government has launched legal action against US gunmakers in an unprecedented attempt to halt the flow of guns across the border, where US-made weapons are routinely used in cartel gun-battles, terror attacks on civilians – and increasingly to challenge the state itself.

The Mexican government is suing six gunmakers in a Massachusetts court, alleging negligence in their failure to control their distributors and that the illegal market in Mexico “has been their economic lifeblood”.

Related: Mexico sues US gunmakers in unprecedented bid to stop weapons crossing border

AP in Washington:

The state department has said that it is looking into the apparent disappearance of a nearly $6,000 bottle of whisky given more than two years ago to then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo by the government of Japan.

In a notice filed in the federal register, the department said it could find no trace of the bottle’s whereabouts and that there is an “ongoing inquiry” into what happened to the booze. The department reported the investigation in its annual accounting of gifts given to senior US officials by foreign governments and leaders.

Related: $5,800 whisky bottle given to Pompeo as gift missing, state department says

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If the US really cared about freedom in Cuba, it would end its punishing sanctions | Helen Yaffe

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Critics dismiss Cuba as a failed state, but don’t accept how badly it’s hamstrung by the US blockade

The violent protests that erupted in Cuba in early July were the first serious social disturbances since the “Maleconazo” of 1994, 27 years ago. Both these periods were characterised by deep economic crises. I was living in Havana in the mid-90s and witnessed the conditions that triggered the uprising: empty food markets, shops and pharmacy shelves, regular electricity cuts, production and transport ground to a halt. Such were the consequences of the collapse of the socialist bloc, which accounted for about 90% of the island’s trade.

Betting on the collapse of Cuban socialism, the US approved the Torricelli Act of 1992 and the Helms-Burton Act of 1996 to obstruct the island’s trade and financial relations with the rest of the world. Meanwhile, more sophisticated and multifaceted “regime change” programmes were developed, from Clinton’s people-to-people programmes to Bush’s Commission for a Free Cuba. From the mid-1990s to 2015, US congress appropriated some $284 million to promote (capitalist) democracy.

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Biden calls on Andrew Cuomo to resign after sexual harassment report – video

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Joe Biden has called on Andrew Cuomo on Tuesday to resign after a report found he sexually harassed 11 women. New York’s attorney general Letitia James unveiled the results of an investigation that showed the governor engaged in unwanted groping, kissing and hugging and made inappropriate comments to multiple women

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Biden calls on Cuomo to quit after damning sexual harassment report

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  • New York governor accused of harassment by 11 women
  • President leads calls from both parties for Cuomo’s resignation

Joe Biden has led calls from both parties for New York governor Andrew Cuomo to resign after an investigation found he had sexually harassed 11 women.

Related: Biden calls on Cuomo to resign after report corroborates harassment allegations – live

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Covid hospitalizations reach highs of last summer as Biden tries to win over unvaccinated – live

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  • More than 51,000 Americans currently hospitalized with coronavirus
  • Sobering news comes as millions of eligible people remain unvaccinated

Richard Luscombe reports for the Guardian:

At least 70% of adults in the US have now received at least one Covid-19 vaccination shot, the White House announced on Monday, reaching a target Joe Biden originally said he had hoped to achieve by 4 July.

Related: US reaches Biden’s 70% first-shot goal as threat to unvaccinated people grows

Greetings from Washington, live blog readers.

Coronavirus hospitalizations continue to climb in the US, now reaching the levels of last summer’s surge in cases, as the highly transmissible Delta variant continues to spread across the country.

Update today, >51,000
Why can't the @CDCgov curate the data and partition it by vaccination status, as done in other countries?
We know it's >>90% unvaccinated, but this needs close tracking to determine extent of breakthrough illness, demographics, time from vaccination, etc pic.twitter.com/cBNx2hnZJK

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US launches emergency airlift to rescue Afghan allies at risk of Taliban’s revenge

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Evacuation flights start before visas are issued after insurgents make sweeping gains in provinces


America has launched emergency airlifts for Afghans who worked with its armed forces and diplomats, evacuating hundreds who are still waiting for their visas to the United States on military flights.

Only people in the final stages of a long, slow and bureaucratic visa process are eligible for the airlift, but bringing applicants to the continental US in large numbers is still unprecedented in recent years, officials working on the programme say.

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Tunisia shows that democracy will struggle if it can’t deliver prosperity

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Political liberty has been overturned – with majority support. That will delight authoritarians everywhere

Implicit in US and western support for pro-democracy movements and transitions around the world is an assumption that, given a free choice, a system of elected, representative government is what people will always naturally prefer. But what if this assumption is wrong? What if a majority believes democracy doesn’t work for them?

Emerging testimony from Tunisia, the latest country to face a crisis over how it is run, suggests many citizens welcomed the forceful suspension of a democratically elected parliament that had failed to address people’s problems and was widely reviled as a self-serving oligarchy.
Mohammed Ali, 33, from Ben Guerdane, seems to typify this view. “I think what happened is good. I think that’s what all the people want,” he told the Guardian after last week’s surprise move by Kais Saied, Tunisia’s president, to seize power and impose a state of emergency. Local politicians and western critics called it a coup.

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Biden calls on Congress to extend pandemic moratorium on evictions – live

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House speaker Nancy Pelosi noted in a letter to colleagues that only $3bn of $46bn allocated for rental aid in the American Rescue Plan had been spent

Here’s where the day stands so far:

Democratic congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, the chair of the House oversight committee, said the notes painted a damning picture of Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the presidential election.

“These handwritten notes show that President Trump directly instructed our nation’s top law enforcement agency to take steps to overturn a free and fair election in the final days of his presidency,” Maloney said in a statement.

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Biden praises infrastructure bill: ‘Deal signals to world our democracy can function’ – live

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The Federal Reserve chair said today that the Delta variant poses little threat to the economy, so far. At a news conference, chair Jerome Powell said:

What we’ve seen is with successive waves of COVID over the past year and some months now, there has tended to be less in the way of economic implications from each wave. We will see whether that is the case with the delta variety, but it’s certainly not an unreasonable expectation.”

Dining out, traveling, some schools might not reopen. We may see economic effects from some of that or it might weigh on the return to the labor market. We don’t have a strong sense of how that will work out, so we’ll be monitoring it carefully.”

Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell has said he will vote to move forward with the infrastructure bill:

Based on a commitment from Leader Schumer to Senators Portman and Sinema that the Portman-Sinema amendment to be filed will be the substitute amendment, I will vote to proceed to the bipartisan infrastructure bill.

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‘This is how I’m going to die’: officers recount Capitol attack ordeal – live

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  • Police officer Aquilino Gonell describes violence at Capitol
  • Select committee hears witness testimony from 6 January

Jamie Raskin of Maryland is next. A law professor, his descriptions of his experiences during the attack and management of the impeachment of Donald Trump that followed brought him to particular national attention:

Related: 'The moral centre': how Jamie Raskin dominated the stage at Trump's trial

Related: ‘I need a drink’ after Republican talks, says officer beaten in Capitol attack

Now we have Stephanie Murphy, a Florida Democrat, and more video, this time from Officer Hodges’ body camera.

There are clouds of smoke, police in riot gear, shouting, pushing. Hodges curls his lip as he looks up at the screen. One burly police officer is seen dousing his eyes with water, walking back through the police line. Now we have Officer Hodges stuck in a door, screaming. It is tough to watch.

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Covid vaccines mandated for employees of a US federal agency for the first time – as it happened

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In a survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation vaccine monitor, 23% of Republicans said they definitely won’t get vaccinated, while 16% of independents and 2% of Democrats said the same.

White House chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci said local leaders, particularly in areas with low rates of vaccination, needed to lead outreach efforts to get people vaccinated.

Related: Fauci says health officials considering mask guidance revision for vaccinated

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Biden and Kadhimi seal agreement to end US combat mission in Iraq

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Joe Biden and the Iraqi prime minister, Mustafa al-Kadhimi, have sealed an agreement formally ending the US combat mission in Iraq by the end of 2021, more than 18 years after troops were sent to the country.

Coupled with Biden’s withdrawal of the last American forces in Afghanistan by the end of August, the Democratic president is completing US combat missions in the two wars that George W Bush began under his watch.

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Plans of four G20 states are threat to global climate pledge, warn scientists

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‘Disastrous’ energy policies of China, Russia, Brazil and Australia could stoke 5C rise in temperatures if adopted by the rest of the world

A key group of leading G20 nations is committed to climate targets that would lead to disastrous global warming, scientists have warned. They say China, Russia, Brazil and Australia all have energy policies associated with 5C rises in atmospheric temperatures, a heating hike that would bring devastation to much of the planet.

The analysis, by the peer-reviewed group Paris Equity Check, raises serious worries about the prospects of key climate agreements being achieved at the Cop26 summit in Glasgow in three months. The conference – rated as one of the most important climate summits ever staged – will attempt to hammer out policies to hold global heating to 1.5C by agreeing on a global policy for ending net emissions of greenhouse gases by 2050.

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Biden races to unite allies against China knowing sooner or later an explosion will occur

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US president is being much tougher than expected on Beijing, but a lack of solidarity will undermine his policy’s success

It’s generally accepted in Washington that once-buoyant hopes for the emergence of a free, democratic China, initially sparked by Richard Nixon’s groundbreaking 1972 visit, have sunk without trace. President Xi Jinping’s regime is now described as a “systemic rival”, “strategic competitor” or outright “threat”. The EU, Nato, the UK, and regional allies broadly agree: the era of engagement is over.

What’s lacking is agreement over what comes next. The hole where common policy and joint action should be gapes ever more dangerously amid almost daily collisions on multiple fronts with Xi’s aggressive, authoritarian one-party state. If it’s not about human rights abuses, cyberhacking, or trade, it’s Taiwan, visas, spying, maritime disputes, the Indian border, or alleged hostage-taking.

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Alabama governor joins growing number of Republicans urging Americans to get vaccinated – live

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  • Covid cases likely to accelerate through summer, new forecasts say
  • CDC director warns Americans in ‘another pivotal moment’ in pandemic

As the Tokyo Olympics opening ceremony comes to an end, First Lady Jill Biden cheers from the stands. On Saturday, she is expected to attend the USA v France women’s 3x3 basketball game and the USA v Nw Zealand women’s soccer game.

. @FLOTUS stands to cheer as #TeamUSA enters the arena. pic.twitter.com/XM0xiSzqxb

First Lady @DrBiden will attend the following Olympic events in Tokyo on Saturday, per the White House:

- USA v France women's 3x3 basketball game
- Various swimming races
- USA v New Zealand women's soccer game

The bust of a man who was a Confederate general, Ku Klux Klan leader and slave trader was removed from the Tennessee state capitol this morning, a year after the governor said it was high time it was gone.

Nathan Bedford Forrest had been immortalized at the Tennessee capitol in Nashville since the late 1970s.

HAPPENING NOW: Crews are starting the process of removing the Nathan Bedford Forrest bust from the capitol. @WKRN #GMN pic.twitter.com/8HwOG3zsoY

The State Building Commission on Thursday gave approval for the relocation of the Forrest bust to the Tennessee State Museum, a final step in a process that has taken more than a year since Gov. Bill Lee first said it was time for the statue to be moved.

“It’s been a year long journey, and this is an appropriate step in that process,” Lee said prior to the Building Commission meeting Thursday morning. “It’s most important to me that we followed the process. We talked about that from the very beginning.”

The bust of Confederate Gen. and KKK leader Nathan Bedford Forrest is off its pedestal and being wheeled out of the Tennessee Capitol. pic.twitter.com/dgAg4isvxw

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‘Pivotal moment’: CDC chief issues stark warning over surge in Delta Covid variant – as it happened

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  • Senators say FBI gathered over 4,500 tips but failed to follow them up
  • Nancy Pelosi rejects Jim Jordan and Jim Banks for inquiry role
  • White House in talks with CDC about updating masking guidance

The recent heatwave that broiled the US Pacific north-west not only obliterated temperature records in cities such as Seattle and Portland – it also put a torch to a comforting bromide that the region would be a mild, safe haven from the ravages of the climate crisis.

Unprecedented temperatures baked the region three weeks ago, part of a procession of heatwaves that have hit the parched US west, from Montana to southern California, over the past month. A “heat dome” that settled over the area saw Seattle reach 108F (42.2C), smashing the previous record by 3F (1.7C), while Portland, Oregon, soared to its own record of 116F (46.7C). Some inland areas managed to get up to 118F (47.8C).

Related: ‘Nowhere is safe’: heat shatters vision of Pacific north-west as climate refuge

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US sanctions Cuban security chief and special forces over crackdown on protests

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Biden moves to pressure government over alleged human rights abuses amid biggest demonstrations in decades

The US has imposed sanctions on a Cuban security minister and an interior ministry special forces unit for alleged human rights abuses in a crackdown on anti-government protests this month.

The move marked the first concrete steps by Joe Biden’s administration to apply pressure on Cuba’s Communist government as it faces calls from US lawmakers and the Cuban American community to show greater support for the biggest protests to hit the island in decades.

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White House official and Pelosi aide test positive for Covid, reports say – live

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  • Pair escorted delegation from Texas around Capitol this week
  • President walks back ‘Facebook is killing people’ comment

Many were surprised by the strong stance that Fox News host Sean Hannity took on Covid-19 Monday night when he told viewers, “I believe in science, I believe in the science of vaccination.”

Related: Fox News host Sean Hannity urges viewers to ‘take Covid seriously’

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