Democrats celebrate as climate bill moves to House – and critics weigh in

Bernie Sanders calls climate measures a ‘very modest step forward’ and Republicans denounce the bill altogether

Democrats celebrated the much-delayed Senate passage of their healthcare and climate spending package, expressing hope that the bill’s approval could improve their prospects in the crucial midterm elections this November.

The bill, formally known as the Inflation Reduction Act, passed the Senate on Sunday in a party-line vote of 51-50, with Vice-President Kamala Harris breaking the tie in the evenly divided chamber.

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Senate Democrats given green light to vote on $430bn climate and tax bill

Senate arbiter rules bill can bypass filibuster and be passed with simple majority, setting stage for ‘vote-a-rama’ next week

US Senate Democrats on Saturday were set to push ahead on a bill that would address key elements of President Joe Biden’s agenda, tackling climate change, lowering the cost of energy and senior citizens’ drugs and forcing the wealthy to pay more taxes.

A Senate rulemaker determined that the lion’s share of the $430bn bill could be passed with only a simple majority, bypassing a filibuster rule requiring 60 votes in the 100-seat chamber to advance most legislation and enabling Democrats to pass it over Republican objections, majority leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement.

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Indiana congresswoman Jackie Walorski dies in car crash

Republican, 58, elected to Congress in 2012, killed along with two members of her staff in head-on collision in Indiana, police say

The US congresswoman Jackie Walorski and two members of her staff were killed in a head-on vehicle collision in Indiana on Wednesday, her office and local police said.

Walorski, a Republican who represented Indiana’s second congressional district in the US House of Representatives, was traveling in a vehicle with the two others when another car veered into their lane, the Elkhart county sheriff’s office said.

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Democrats prepare for showdown over key spending and climate bill – as it happened

Antony Blinken, secretary of state, said at global nonproliferation discussions at the United Nations today that a return to the 2015 nuclear deal remains the best outcome for the United States, Iran and the world.

Reuters is reporting that Blinken made a point to repeat a warning from the US that North Korea is preparing to conduct its seventh nuclear test.

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House-passed assault weapons ban appears to be doomed in the Senate

Bill would require support from at least 10 Senate Republicans, and it isn’t certain that all 50 Democratic senators are onboard

The assault weapons ban in America passed by the House appears set to be doomed in the Senate amid implacable Republican opposition to gun reform, even in the wake of a series of mass shootings in the US.

The legislation in the House, which would ban assault weapons for the first time since 2004, is interpreted as a sign that Democrats plan more aggressive gun violence prevention after a series of mass shootings using the military-derived weapons, including in Buffalo, New York, and Uvalde, Texas.

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DoJ reportedly preparing court fight to get Trump insiders to testify – live

Prosectors expect former president to try to invoke executive privilege to prevent his ex-officials from speaking

An impassioned plea from a 12-year-old girl has gone viral after she spoke to West Virginia Republican lawmakers during a public hearing for an abortion bill that would prohibit the procedure in nearly all cases.

On Wednesday, Addison Gardner of Buffalo middle school in Kenova, West Virginia, was among several people who spoke out against a bill that would not only ban abortions in most cases but also allow for physicians who perform abortions to be prosecuted.

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Gun executives tell Congress: don’t blame us for deadly shootings

CEOs face aggressive questioning from lawmakers at hearing about their companies’ responsibility for recent attacks

Executives from large American gun companies appeared before a House committee on Wednesday, facing aggressive questioning from lawmakers about their organizations’ responsibility for recent devastating mass shootings in the US.

The hearing marked the first time in nearly two decades that the CEOs of leading gun manufacturers testified before Congress and comes after a wave of deadly attacks including at a Fourth of July parade in Illinois, a school in Texas and the racist massacre of Black shoppers at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York.

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‘Nancy, I’ll go with you’: Trump allies back Pelosi’s proposed Taiwan visit

Mike Pompeo and Mark Esper support visit to ‘freedom-loving Taiwan’ but Biden concerned any trip would antagonise Beijing

Plans for Nancy Pelosi, the US House speaker, to visit Taiwan have prompted opposition from China and the American military but support from Republicans in Washington, including former members of the Trump administration.

Trump’s second secretary of defense, Mark Esper, told CNN: “I think if the speaker wants to go, she should go.”

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Trump speaks in Washington DC for first visit since leaving office – as it happened

Joe Biden’s daily health bulletin is a good one, as he continues to recover from the Covid-19 infection announced last week.

The president has improved enough to be able to resume his regular exercise routine, according to a Tuesday morning update from physician Dr Kevin O’Connor, reported by the Associated Press.

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January 6 panel says Bannon conviction is a ‘victory for the rule of law’ – as it happened

The former Trump adviser was charged with two counts of criminal contempt for refusing to appear before the House committee

If voters were to elect Donald Trump to another term in the 2024 presidential election, he is considering using bureaucratic maneuvers to remove potentially tens of thousands of civil servants across the US government and replace them with people who adhere to his ideology, according to a report from Axios.

That Trump expects his deputies to be unfailingly loyal to him is no secret, but during his time in the White House, they didn’t always do what he wanted. He intends to change that dramatically in a second term, according to the report, appointing staunch cabinet members and changing civil service regulations to allow him to dismiss up to 50,000 employees. He would replace these bureaucrats, who typically hold onto their jobs through presidential administrations, with people handpicked to support his “America first” ideology.

Trump signed an executive order, “Creating Schedule F in the Excepted Service,” in October 2020, which established a new employment category for federal employees. It received wide media coverage for a short period, then was largely forgotten in the mayhem and aftermath of Jan. 6 — and quickly was rescinded by President Biden.

Sources close to Trump say that if he were elected to a second term, he would immediately reimpose it.

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House panel showed Trump conspired to seize the election – but was it illegal?

Panel lays out its case that the 45th president orchestrated a plot to keep himself in office, but its work is not done

During the course of its landmark summer of hearings, the House select committee investigating the deadly insurrection at the US Capitol has sought to show that Donald Trump was at the center of a multi-layer conspiracy to seize a second term in office, accusing him of having “summoned the mob, assembled the mob and lit the flame of this attack”.

In a dramatic capstone on Thursday, the panel argued that Trump betrayed his oath of office and was derelict in his duty when he refused to act for 187 minutes on 6 January as rioters carrying poles, bear spray and the banners of his campaign, led a bloody assault on the US Capitol.

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Secret Service turned over just one text message to January 6 panel, sources say

House committee wants all communications from day before and day of Capitol attack but agency indicates such messages are lost

The Secret Service turned over just one text message to the House January 6 committee on Tuesday, in response to a subpoena compelling the production of all communications from the day before and the day of the US Capitol attack, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

The Secret Service told the panel the single text was the only message responsive to the subpoena, the sources said, and while the agency vowed to conduct a forensic search for any other text or phone records, it indicated such messages were likely to prove irrecoverable.

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House approves legislation to protect abortion access across US

Vote was largely symbolic as two bills stand all but no chance of overcoming Republican opposition in the evenly-divided Senate

The House of Representatives on Friday approved legislation that would protect abortion access nationwide, the first action by Democrats in Congress to respond to the supreme court decision in late June overturning Roe v Wade.

The vote was largely symbolic – the bills stand all but no chance of overcoming Republican opposition in the evenly divided Senate, where 60 votes are needed to move legislation forward.

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January 6 testimony tells chilling tale of democracy hanging by a thread

Analysis: Viewers learned of an ‘unhinged’ White House meeting and rioters ready for war – but will it close the case against Trump?

“We settle our differences at the ballot box.”

Bennie Thompson, chairman of the congressional committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, emphasised this article of faith in his opening remarks on Tuesday.

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Jan 6 committee hearings: Cheney describes possible witness tampering after ex-aide’s testimony – as it happened

The Guardian’s Ashifa Kassam and Ramon Antonio Vargas report:

Fifty suspected migrants were found dead and at least a dozen others were hospitalized after being found inside an abandoned tractor-trailer rig on Monday on a remote back road in south-west San Antonio, officials have said.

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Protests sweep across nation as supreme court overturns Roe v Wade – follow live

Former president Barack Obama has condemned the supreme court’s ruling overturning Roe v Wade, calling it an attack on “the essential freedoms of millions of Americans”:

President Joe Biden is expected to address the nation:

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Bipartisan gun control law sent for Biden’s signature after House vote

Fourteen Republicans vote with majority for first major gun reform legislation in nearly 30 years

The US House on Friday passed a bipartisan bill to strengthen federal gun regulations, bringing an end to decades of congressional inaction and sending the historic legislation to Joe Biden’s desk.

Passage of the bill came a day after the supreme court overturned a New York law regulating handgun ownership, a significant blow for proponents of gun reform.

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Feds seek delay in Proud Boys conspiracy case as it collides with parallel January 6 inquiry

The two cases had managed to steer clear of each other as the justice department and House panel pursued the same ground

The US justice department’s criminal investigation into the January 6 Capitol attack collided with the parallel congressional investigation, causing federal prosecutors to seek a delay in proceedings in the seditious conspiracy case against the far-right Proud Boys group.

The two January 6 inquiries had largely managed to steer clear of each other even as both the justice department and a House select committee pursued the same ground. But it all came to head on Wednesday.

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Ex-Trump adviser Peter Navarro pleads not guilty to contempt charges in January 6 case – as it happened

President Joe Biden has cheered the Food and Drug Administration’s decision today to authorize Covid-19 vaccines for children younger than five years old, the last group of Americans that didn’t have access to the jabs.

“Today is a day of huge relief for parents and families across America. Following a rigorous scientific review, the Food and Drug Administration has authorized the first COVID-19 vaccines for kids under the age of five. As early as next week, pending recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), parents will finally be able to get their youngest kids the protection of a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine,” Biden said in a statement released by the White House.

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Abortion and gun decisions loom as US supreme court releases more opinions – live

A special election in south Texas last night ended with bad news for Democrats when the district chose a Republican to represent it in the House of Representatives for the first time. But as Victoria Bekiempis reports, the victor Mayra Flores will face a stiffer challenge in November, when she must stand for her seat once more.

A south Texas congressional district will be represented by a Republican for the first time following a special election Tuesday. The election of Mayra Flores, who bested her Democrat competitor in a 51%-43% vote, comes as Republicans continue to make inroads among Latino voters in south Texas.

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