Hillary Clinton urges Democrats to ‘do a better job’ of telling voters of successes

Former New York senator and secretary of state believes Democrats are holding themselves back by constant introspection

Hillary Clinton has called on Democrats “to do a better job” of selling themselves to America’s voters to avoid humiliation in this year’s midterm elections where Republicans are widely expected to perform strongly and likely grab control of Congress.

The former Democratic presidential candidate was speaking frankly on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, saying she thought last summer’s chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan was harmful to Joe Biden. The US president’s approval ratings have slumped in recent weeks to the lowest level since he took office.

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Biden’s record defense budget draws progressive ire over spending priorities

President’s $813bn proposal is a 4% increase for the Pentagon which already spends more than the next 11 countries combined

When Joe Biden released his annual budget proposal last week, one number in particular jumped out to progressives: $813bn. That is how much Biden is calling to spend on national defense in the US in the coming fiscal year. If approved, that number would represent the largest defense budget that America has ever seen.

US presidents’ budget proposals are generally considered to be reflections of their policy priorities rather than realistic estimates of final spending allocations. If Biden’s call for a 4% increase in defense spending was meant to signal his policy priorities, progressives wasted no time in telling the president that his priorities are backwards.

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Biden ends Trump-era asylum curbs amid border-region Democrat backlash

Administration signals end of Title 42 immigration restrictions – ostensibly to fight Covid – but some fear electoral consequences

Joe Biden will next month end a controversial pandemic-related expulsion policy that effectively closed America’s asylum system at its border with Mexico, it was announced on Friday.

The decision to lift the Title 42 public health order, which will take effect on 23 May, is seen as long overdue by immigration advocates who regard the order as inhumane. But it was seized on by Republicans and some electorally vulnerable Democrats, who warned of chaos at the border.

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US ends Trump-era policy of blocking asylum seekers on Covid grounds – live

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention terminates Title 42 from 23 May, ending policy widely criticized as pretext to keep migrants out

• Senate deal on drastically pared-down Covid aid package may be imminent

US adds 431,000 jobs as hiring spree cuts unemployment rate to 3.6%

• Disney staff stage walkouts over ‘don’t say gay’ bill

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The late supreme court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is to be honoured by having a US navy ship named after her.

The yet-to-be-built fuel tanker will join a fleet of John Lewis-class “replenishment oilers” named for historical figures in human and civil rights. The navy took delivery of the first of the fleet, a tribute to the former Democratic congressman, last summer.

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Republican Susan Collins to back Ketanji Brown Jackson for supreme court – live

The US is imposing new financial sanctions against Iran following the country’s missile attack on a target in Iraq earlier this month, the treasury department has announced.

Iran sent at least 12 ballistic missiles into Erbil, Iraq’s northern Kurdish regional capital, on 13 March. They landed close to a US consulate under construction, but did not cause any damage or injuries, the state department said.

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Biden and allies vow to keep up Russia punishment for ‘brutal attacks in Ukraine’ – US politics live

A North Carolina court has blocked a law prohibiting people with felony convictions from voting while they are not incarcerated, a move that could enfranchise an estimated 56,000 people in the state.

A panel of three superior court judges ruled 2-1 to block the law, which plaintiffs said was rooted in an effort to discriminate against Black people at the turn of the 20th century in the state. The panel said the statute violated the state constitution’s guarantee of equal protection under law and free elections.

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Mitch McConnell says he will not support Ketanji Brown Jackson nomination – as it happened

The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said the new sanctions on members of the Russian Duma would punish lawmakers who have “supported the Kremlin’s violations of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity”.

“President Putin’s war continues to inflict horror and widespread suffering on the people of Ukraine,” Blinken said in a statement.

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Ketanji Brown Jackson faces renewed Republican attacks in Senate grilling

Hearings on Biden’s supreme court nominee resume with chair chiding Republicans for ‘showcasing election talking points’

The second round of senators’ questioning of Ketanji Brown Jackson unfolded on Wednesday after a marathon 13-hour judiciary committee hearing with the supreme court nominee the day before.

The latest hearing began with a review of the previous day’s proceedings, as the Democratic chairman, Dick Durbin, criticized some of his Republican colleagues over their questioning of Jackson.

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Ketanji Brown Jackson says Roe v Wade ‘the settled law of the supreme court’ – as it happened

Asked about her views of the second amendment’s right to bear arms, Jackson said that the supreme court had already established it as a “fundamental right.”

“There is precedent in the supreme court related to various rights that the court has recognized as fundamental,” she told Grassley. She added: “The court has said that the 14th amendment substantive due process clause does support some fundamental rights, but only things that are implicit in the ordered concept of liberty or deeply rooted in the history and traditions of this country, the kinds of rights that relate to personal individual autonomy.”

In that speech, I talked about my my parents growing up in Florida, attended and had to attend racially-segregated schools because by law when they were young, white children and black children were not allowed to go to school together.

And my reality, when I was born in 1970 and went to school in Miami, Florida was completely different. I went to a diverse public junior high school, high school elementary school. And the fact that we had come that far was to me a testament to the hope and the promise of this country, the greatness of America that in one generation – one generation – we could go from racially-segregated schools in Florida to have me sitting here as the first Floridian ever to be nominated to the supreme court of the United States. So yes, senator, that is my belief.

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US not optimistic about Ukraine talks as Zelenskiy ups pressure on Biden

  • Ukraine president raises specter of ‘third world war’
  • Biden to travel to Poland on Friday
  • US president pressed to increase military aid ahead of Nato visit
  • Ukraine – live coverage

Joe Biden’s ambassador to the United Nations warned on Sunday there was little immediate hope of a negotiated end to the war in Ukraine, as pressure continued to build on the US president ahead of a crucial Nato summit in Europe this week.

Biden, who faces growing dissatisfaction over his approach to the war, will travel to Brussels on Thursday and then on to Poland, it was announced on Sunday night. He will hear a proposal from Poland for Nato to send a peacekeeping force into Ukraine, something Linda Thomas-Greenfield said was unlikely.

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Republican Hawley’s attack on supreme court nominee Jackson is wrong, says senator

Senate judiciary committee chair Dick Durbin says Hawley’s attacks should be ignored in confirmation hearings this week

The Missouri Republican Josh Hawley is wrong to attack Ketanji Brown Jackson, Joe Biden’s supreme court nominee, and should be ignored in confirmation hearings this week, the Senate judiciary chair said.

Hawley, the Illinois Democrat Dick Durbin said, is “part of the fringe within the Republican party … a man who was fist-bumping the murderous mob that descended on the Capitol on 6 January of the last year.

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‘Mosquito in a nudist colony’: Republican Ron Johnson targets Fauci and Hunter Biden

Wisconsin senator says if GOP retakes control it will use committees to move against Democrats and Biden

Hunter Biden and Anthony Fauci will be prime targets of Senate Republicans should the party win control in November, a senior senator said.

Asked by the Hill what he would want to investigate should he control a committee with subpoena power, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin said: “Like everything? It’s like a mosquito in a nudist colony, it’s a target-rich environment.”

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Stacey Abrams made president of Earth in Star Trek cameo

Candidate for governor in Georgia and self-confessed superfan makes appearance in season four finale of Star Trek: Discovery

The Georgia gubernatorial candidate and voting rights campaigner Stacey Abrams has been made president – of United Earth.

The honour was bestowed by the Paramount+ TV series Star Trek: Discovery, in its season four finale.

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Progressive Democrats set out list of executive orders to push Biden agenda

Congressional Progressive Caucus urges president to bypass legislative logjam and give Democrats record to campaign on

The leftwing Congressional Progressive Caucus unveiled its highly anticipated list of suggested executive orders on Thursday, outlining a strategy for Joe Biden to advance Democrats’ policy priorities in the US while much of his legislative agenda has stalled on Capitol Hill.

The move reflects pressure from the left of the Democratic party to try to keep Biden pushing an ambitious program of action, despite setbacks and as November’s midterm elections are widely expected to favor a resurgent Republican party.

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Manchin ‘very reluctant’ on electric cars in ominous sign for Biden’s climate fight

Centrist Democrat, who holds key swing vote in US Senate, has poured scorn on the idea of phasing out gasoline and diesel cars

Faced with rising gasoline prices, many Americans are now looking to switch to an electric car. But the shift away from fossil fuel vehicles has been criticized by Senator Joe Manchin, who has said he is “very reluctant” to see the proliferation of battery-powered cars.

There has been a surge in interest in buying electric vehicles (EVs) in the wake of the war in Ukraine, analysts say, with drivers in the US unnerved by gasoline prices that have surpassed $4.30 a gallon as a result of the conflict and the supply chain issues from the pandemic.

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Beto O’Rourke calls Texas governor Greg Abbott an ‘authoritarian’ and ‘thug’

The Democratic gubernatorial candidate compared his Republican opponent to the Russian president Vladimir Putin

Beto O’Rourke, the Democratic candidate for Texas governor, has likened his Republican opponent to the Russian president Vladimir Putin, calling Greg Abbott an “authoritarian” and a “thug”.

As governor, Abbott has presided over draconian laws on issues including abortion, LGBTQ+ rights and voting rights. In February 2021, on his watch, a failure of the state energy grid during cold weather contributed to hundreds of deaths.

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US conducting ‘legal review’ of possible Russian war crimes in Ukraine – as it happened

Maya Yang reports:

North Carolina Republican congressman Madison Cawthorn has been charged with driving with a revoked license for the second time.

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White House announces new sanctions on Russian oligarchs and Putin’s ‘cronies’ – live

Leaders of the Quad grouping of countries - the US, India, Australia and Japan - agreed today that what is happening to Ukraine should not be allowed to happen in the Indo-Pacific, Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida said.

Reuters reports:

A virtual meeting of the four-country grouping was held at a time of increased concern about Taiwan, a self-ruled island claimed by China, which has stepped up its alert level, wary of China taking advantage of a distracted west to move against it.

“We’ve agreed that unilateral changes to the status quo with force like this should not be allowed in the Indo-Pacific region,” Kishida said, referring to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

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Biden announces ‘test to treat’ plan with Covid antiviral pills after positive tests – live

The Guardian’s health reporter Jessica Glenza on the White House’s new Covid-19 plan:

The White House announcement and State of the Union address also came with a new look and feel. At the State of the Union, Biden, Vice-President Kamala Harris and the speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, were all mask-free. So, too, were White House officials when they announced the new Covid-19 plan, notably in-person rather than through a group video call.

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House committee requests White House records recovered from Trump’s home

Letter to National Archives requests files found in boxes at Mar-a-Lago that should have been turned over when Trump left office

The investigation into whether Donald Trump broke federal records laws when he took White House documents home after leaving office took another step forward on Friday when a congressional oversight committee requested the materials from the National Archives.

The letter to the archivist, from the House committee on oversight and reform, requests the content of the documents taken by Trump to Mar-a-Lago, his residence in Florida. They also asked for any records that the former US president attempted to destroy, and communications on the issue by Trump’s White House aides.

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