The White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, and treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin were on Capitol Hill on Saturday, for talks with aides to Senate Republicans over the next coronavirus relief package.
Related: 'Nobody’s ever seen anything like this': how coronavirus turned the US election upside down
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Among real storms blowing around the US today, hurricanes are approaching Texas and Hawaii while a tropical storm heads for the Caribbean. The Associated Press is keeping watch here.
Among other kinds of storm, the kinds that blow themselves out on Twitter, the billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk and his partner, the musician Grimes, appear to have had a public argument about pronouns.
Related: Explain it to me quickly: did Elon Musk and Grimes really name their baby X Æ A-12?
Miami Dade county has now recorded more than 100,000 cases of Covid-19 since the start of the pandemic. According to the Miami Herald, there were 3,424 new cases reported on Saturday. The county’s population is around 2.7 million.
Continue reading...Congresswoman condemned ‘violent language against women’ after Ted Yoho berated her on the House steps on Monday
Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s outrage over a Republican lawmaker’s verbal assault broadened into an extraordinary moment on the House floor on Thursday as she and other Democrats assailed a sexist culture of “accepting violence and violent language against women” whose adherents include Donald Trump.
A day after rejecting an offer of contrition from Republican congressman Ted Yoho for his language during this week’s Capitol steps confrontation, Ocasio-Cortez and more than a dozen colleagues cast the incident as all-too-common behavior by men, including the president and other Republicans.
Continue reading...The New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said the insults a Republican colleague was heard saying to her on the steps of the US Capitol on Monday are part of a larger problem faced by all women.
The Hill reported that Ocasio-Cortez was confronted by the Florida Republican congressman Ted Yoho. He apparently said she was 'disgusting' for saying of spiking gun violence in New York this month 'is a problem of a diseased society, which neglects its marginalized people … policing is not the solution to crime'.
Speaking on the House floor on Thursday morning, Ocasio-Cortez said: 'In front of reporters, Representative Yoho called me, and I quote, a "fucking bitch"'
Latest data shows virus hitting Republican heartlands as well as key battleground states
“I said it’s going away – and it is going away,” a defiant Donald Trump claimed about Covid-19 on 3 April, when about 300,000 cases of the virus had been reported across the country.
At the time, Trump was enjoying a brief surge in approval ratings. But the virus obviously did not go away – more than 3.8m cases have now been reported, and latest polls show that Trump may pay the price for his handling of the crisis in the November elections.
Continue reading...House majority whip James Clyburn called on Sunday for both voting rights legislation and an infamous bridge in Alabama to be named after John Lewis.
Related: Trump equates support for Confederate flag with Black Lives Matter
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Donald Trump has broken his silence on the passing of John Lewis with a tweet posted moments ago.
“Saddened to hear the news of civil rights hero John Lewis passing,” he wrote. “Melania and I send our prayers to he and his family.
Saddened to hear the news of civil rights hero John Lewis passing. Melania and I send our prayers to he and his family.
Joe Biden will run campaign ads during Donald Trump’s eagerly awaited interview with Fox News Sunday tomorrow – to go a bit Friends for a second, that being The One In Which Trump Says Biden Wants To Defund The Police And Chris Wallace Says Hang On A Minute, Not So, And Trump Gets A Little Testy.
Related: Trump clashes with Fox News interviewer over false claim about Biden
Related: 'The virus doesn't care about excuses': US faces terrifying autumn as Covid-19 surges
Continue reading...John Lewis, the civil rights hero and Democratic congressman, has died at the age of 80. In 1965 he headed a march across the Edmund Pettus bridge in Selma, Alabama, and was knocked to the ground and beaten by police. The incident, along with other beatings during peaceful protests, brought attention to racial oppression in the US south. 20 years later he recalled the events for the documentary series Eyes on the Prize for Washington University in St Louis
The White House will not allow the CDC to testify at next week’s hearing fo the Committee on Education and Labor about how to safely reopen schools.
Virginia representative Bobby Scott joined other lawmakers Friday in speaking out against the Trump administration’s efforts to block theCDC from appearing before the committee.
A judge on Friday ruled the Trump administration cannot block a California program that caps carbon emissions from the transportation sector.
The cap and trade program aims to improve air quality and allows California companies to trade emissions credits with companies in Quebec. The administration sued to block it, saying it intrudes on the federal government’s foreign policy authority – particularly its withdrawal from environmental treaty the Paris agreement.
Continue reading...Joe Biden is polling well ahead of Donald Trump, potentially putting more states in play – but complacency has been banished
Less than four months out from the November election, the Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has been consistently polling ahead of Donald Trump.
The president’s approval numbers remain underwater, and Democrats believe they can seriously compete in traditionally red states including Texas, as Trump faces sustained criticism for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic and the economic crisis linked to it, as well as the ongoing anti-racism protests against police brutality.
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We’ll be shutting down the blog shortly. Here’s a look at today’s top news lines:
Donald Trump was wearing a black mask as he walked down the entryway of Walter Reed medical center accompanied by hospital staff, marking the first time he has been seen wearing a protective face covering in public.
The president did not stop to take questions from the White House pool before turning down a hallway. His meeting with injured troops and staff is closed to the press.
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Houston mayor Sylvester Turner has appeared on CBS’s Face The Nation to discuss the Covid-19 outbreak in his city. He says staffing at the city’s hospital is a particular problem.
“If we don’t get our hands around this virus quickly, in about two weeks our hospital system could be in serious, serious trouble,” he says. “... We can always provide additional beds, but we need the people, the nurses and everybody else, the medical professionals to staff those beds. That’s the critical point right now.”
New Jersey’s Democratic governor, Phil Murphy, has appeared on NBC’s Meet The Press. New Jersey has been one of the worst-hit states in the US during the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic, and he says a national strategy is needed to combat Covid-19.
“This thing is lethal,” he says. “New Jersey’s paid an enormous price. We’ve [had] 13,000 confirmed fatalities from Covid-19. We’re starting to see small spikes in reinfection from folks coming back from places like Myrtle Beach and as well as in Florida, other hotspots.
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The White House is set to host its largest event since the start of the coronavirus pandemic with tonight’s Salute to America. Hundreds of chairs and tables have been set up on the South Lawn, where Trump will deliver a speech he says will celebrate American heritage. An administration spokesperson says social distancing “will be observed” and face masks will be offered but not mandatory.
Trump was first inspired to stage a mass display of pop and power on America’s birthday when attended the Bastille Day military parade as the guest of French president Emmanuel Macron back in 2017. An initial 2018 push to stage a parade that would have seen soldiers marching and tanks rolling down the streets of Washington was scuttled amid accusations that he was politicizing an important holiday, emulating displays in authoritarian countries and wasting taxpayers’ money.
President Donald J. Trump and First Lady Melania Trump, along with the Department of Interior, will host the 2020 Salute to America on the South Lawn of the White House and Ellipse on Saturday, July 4. In addition to music, military demonstrations, and flyovers to honor our Nation’s service members and veterans, the President will deliver remarks that celebrate our independence and salute our amazing heritage. The evening will culminate with a spectacular fireworks display over the National Mall.
For 4 July, in the summer of protests over the killing of George Floyd, a picture gallery from Jameelah Nuriddin and Erin Hammond.
The eight images capture a giant 200-year-old flag, a young black woman with a giant afro, and various postures combining the pledge of allegiance and black power poses. They are accompanied by a manifesto that mirrors the preamble to the US constitution, written by Nuriddin, who is also the model in the series:
Related: Imagine a 'New America': reclaiming the American flag – in pictures
Continue reading...Donald Trump was given a written briefing months ago about intelligence suggesting Russia offered bounties for attacks on US forces in Afghanistan, multiple US media have reported on Monday night. The president said on Sunday he was not told of the allegations because the information was not “credible”.
The New York Times quoted two sources as saying details were included in a daily intelligence briefing the president received in late February. CNN said an official with direct knowledge told them it was included in the briefing – a written document – briefing “sometime in the spring”.
Continue reading...After every single Republican on the coronavirus subcommittee turned up to a Friday meeting without wearing a mask, the Democratic chair has threatened to stop them from speaking at future meetings if they fail to do so again.
Not wearing a mask in a confined space such as a committee hearing room violates rules written by Congress’s attending physician, if attendees intend to be in the space for more than 15 minutes.
Continue reading...Aaron Zelinsky says prosecutors were under pressure to go easy on Stone because of his relationship with the president
A federal prosecutor who was part of Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation told Congress on Wednesday Roger Stone, a close ally of Donald Trump, was given special treatment before sentencing because of his relationship with the US president.
Related: US appeals court orders judge to dismiss case against Michael Flynn
Continue reading...In official return to the campaign trail, former president urged 175,000 viewers not to be ‘complacent’ about 2020 race
Barack Obama made his first campaign appearance alongside Joe Biden since endorsing him for president in April, helping raise more than $11m while warning Democrats against being “complacent or smug” about the presidential race.
The virtual fundraiser collected $7.6m from 175,000 grassroots contributors according to the Biden campaign. The former president and the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee also hosted a private online portion for high-dollar donors, which was not open to reporters, and brought in more than $3.4m.
Continue reading...Voters need to understand that Sanders’ delegate candidates aren’t running against Biden’s delegate candidates – they’re running against each other
Although Joe Biden is the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, voting in the New York primary on Tuesday (or during early voting) is by no means futile for progressives who were largely supporting Bernie Sanders and policies such as the Green New Deal and Medicare for All.
Related: 'Just ridiculous': what it’s like to wait five hours in line to vote in the US
Continue reading...The White House fired back at John Bolton on Sunday, seeking to rubbish a key claim in the former national security adviser’s bombshell new book, that Donald Trump asked Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, for help in winning re-election.
Related: Trump's Berman-SDNY disaster suggests William Barr is not so smart after all | Lloyd Green
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It has been seven weeks since Florida’s governor Ron DeSantis took a coronavirus “victory lap”, pressing ahead with a swift reopening program while berating the media for a “doom and gloom” approach he said bore little relation to reality.
“We haven’t seen an explosion of new cases,” DeSantis insisted during a 29 April news conference, a day on which the state’s Covid-19 tally increased by 347.
Robert Mueller and his investigators thought it possible Donald Trump lied to them about conversations with Roger Stone, according to previously redacted sections of the special counsel’s report which were were released on Friday night.
The release, part of litigation over portions of Mueller’s findings which remain secret, was largely overshadowed by US attorney general William Barr’s announcement of the resignation of the attorney for the southern district of New York, Geoffrey Berman, who then denied he was stepping down.
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