Republicans opposed to Joe Biden’s proposed $2tn infrastructure bill claimed on Sunday that it was effectively a partisan tax hike that allocated too much money to electric vehicles and other environmental initiatives.
Related: Florida faces 'imminent' pollution catastrophe from phosphate mine pond
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Robert Contee of the Washington, DC, Metropolitan Police Department has just said at the briefing outside the US Capitol that the attack by a man driving a car at Capitol Police officers “does not appear to be terrorism related”.
Acting chief of the Capitol Police, Yogananda Pittman, just described the now-deceased suspect in the attack as having got out of the vehicle after ramming her officers and crashing into a barrier and then he “ran aggressively” at them, brandishing a knife.
Robert J Contee III, the acting chief of the Metropolitan Police Department of DC, said the attack “does not appear to be terrorism related”.
The MPD acting chief also said the suspect does not seem to have been previously known to law enforcement.
Continue reading...Joe Biden has encouraged Americans to ‘buckle down’ as coronavirus cases rise but he was optimistic on the state of the economy and celebrated the latest jobs report.
The US economy added 916,000 jobs last month according to the report which Biden credited to the resiliency of the American people and his administration’s new economic vision
Continue reading...Liquidation of Bill Hwang’s Archegos Capital Management sparked a fire sale of more than $20bn assets
Financial regulators across the world are monitoring the collapse of the New York-based billionaire Bill Hwang’s personal hedge fund.
The sudden liquidation of Hwang’s Archegos Capital Management sparked a fire sale of more than $20bn assets that has left some of the world’s biggest investment banks nursing billions of dollars of losses.
Continue reading...Final tally was 220 to 211, with one Democrat and all Republicans voting against the measure
A deeply divided Congress passed a landmark $1.9tn coronavirus relief bill on Wednesday, delivering the first major legislative victory of Joe Biden’s presidency and a sweeping promise to raise millions of Americans out of poverty.
Continue reading...Joe Biden hailed “one more giant step forward on delivering on that promise that help is on the way”, after Democrats took a critical step towards a first major legislative victory since assuming control of Congress and the White House, with a party-line vote in the Senate to approve a $1.9tn coronavirus relief bill.
Related: Biden urged to 'go big' on New Deal-like economic plan – but can he bridge left-right gap?
Continue reading...Biden’s $1.9tn relief package struggles through Senate but majority leaders vows passage ‘however long it takes’
A fiery speech and last-ditch effort by Bernie Sanders to secure a place for a federal minimum wage hike in the $1.9tn coronavirus relief package appeared as good as doomed on Friday, following a day that saw the flagship legislation hit grinding delays in the Senate.
Senate leaders and moderate Democratic senator Joe Manchin struck a deal late on Friday over emergency jobless benefits, breaking a nine-hour logjam.
Continue reading...Relief bill represents Biden first big legislative win but wage hike proposal to be removed from Senate version
The US House of Representatives has passed Joe Biden’s $1.9tn coronavirus aid bill in his first major legislative victory.
Related: Criticism builds over Biden's failure to lift Trump sanctions on ICC prosecutors
Continue reading...Energy watchdog’s Fatih Birol says shift away from coal in key regions needs to be made a global priority
Dependency on coal in key parts of the world is preventing a global green recovery from taking off, and the shift away from coal needs to be made a global priority, the head of the world’s energy watchdog has said
Coal still forms a key part of China’s energy system, and plans are in train for further coal-fired power plants in the country. India is also heavily dependent on coal, and despite increasing its renewable energy generation has shown little sign of reducing its use of the fossil fuel.
Continue reading...The dramatic struggle over video game chain’s shares suggests markets must now contend with a breed of angry, young, networked investors
When Ben, 28, a software engineer from Leeds, bought two shares in US games retailer GameStop for £460, it was for one reason, he says: “When they make the film about this in years to come, I’ll know I was there at the frontline with a bunch of idiots on the internet, trying to bring down Wall Street.”
For Emma Rivers from East Sussex, who invested £1,400 in the same company – having known little about it a few weeks ago – it has all been about sending a message that capitalism has had its day.
Continue reading...Centre for Economics and Business Research says it expects this to happen half a decade sooner than it forecast a year ago
China will overtake the US as the world’s biggest economy before the end of the decade after outperforming its rival during the global Covid-19 pandemic, according to a report.
The Centre for Economics and Business Research said that it nowexpected the value of China’s economy when measured in dollars to exceed that of the US by 2028, half a decade sooner than it expected a year ago.
Continue reading...A new study confirms tax cuts for the rich do not benefit the rest. Recovery from the pandemic is a chance to change course
How should the huge financial costs of the pandemic be paid for, as well as the other deferred needs of society after this annus horribilis?
Continue reading...US president-elect Joe Biden has formally introduced his choices for top economic advisers. ‘Our message to everybody struggling right now is this: help is on the way,’ Biden said. Biden’s nominations would put several women in top economic roles, including Janet Yellen, who if confirmed by the Senate would be the first woman to lead the US treasury in its 231-year history. Yellen said the economic impact of the pandemic was ‘an American tragedy'
Joe Biden, the US president-elect, formally introduced his top economic advisers on Tuesday, as his incoming administration prepares to deal with the worst financial crisis in decades and a resurgent coronavirus pandemic.
Related: Bipartisan group pitches $908bn Covid-19 relief to break deadlock in Congress
Continue reading...The Dow Jones Industrial Average has topped the 30,000 mark for the first time as financial markets around the world rally amid hopes for a coronavirus vaccine and smooth transition to a Joe Biden presidency.
The landmark for the Wall Street market comes as investors bet rapid medical advances will bring the Covid outbreak to an earlier end than feared, paving the way for a swift economic rebound next year as business activity returns closer to normal and tough government restrictions are relaxed.
Continue reading...When Joe Biden formally takes over the presidency in January he will face some of the greatest crises to hit the US in recent history: a pandemic that has killed more than 200,000 Americans, a devastated economy, a rapidly overheating climate and a deeply fractured nation.
The Guardian's Lauren Gambino looks at how Biden and the vice-president-elect, Kamala Harris, plan to 'heal' the country after four years of Trumpism – and the challenges they will face with the prospect of having to navigate these times without a majority in the Senate
Continue reading...Covid has tanked the gains he made in the economy and any new stimulus could be too late
It all looked so simple for Donald Trump as he took the stage at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January this year. At the start of an election year, the annual gathering of the global business elite was an opportunity to launch his campaign.
It was one Trump eagerly seized. The next 30 minutes was one long boast, detailing how a US economy that had allegedly been on its knees under Barack Obama had been transformed under his stewardship.
Continue reading...World economic outlook says 2020 impact is less than thought but there will be deep scars
The International Monetary Fund has scaled back its estimate of the hit to the global economy from Covid-19 this year but warned that the final bill for the pandemic would total $28tn (£21.5tn) in lost output.
Gita Gopinath, the IMF’s economic counsellor, described coronavirus as the worst crisis since the Great Depression, and said the pandemic would leave deep and enduring scars caused by job losses, weaker investment and children being deprived of education.
Continue reading...It’s a myth that Republicans handle the economy better – US recessions almost always occur under the GOP
Joe Biden has consistently held a wide polling lead over US President Donald Trump ahead of November’s election. But, despite Trump’s botched response to the Covid-19 pandemic – a failure that has left the economy far weaker than it otherwise would have been – he has maintained a marginal edge on the question of which candidate would be better for the US economy. Thanks to Trump, a country with just 4% of the world’s population now accounts for more than 20% of total Covid-19 deaths – an utterly shameful outcome, given America’s advanced (albeit expensive) healthcare system.
The presumption that Republicans are better than Democrats at economic stewardship is a longstanding myth that must be debunked. In our 1997 book, Political Cycles and the Macroeconomy, the late (and great) Alberto Alesina and I showed that Democratic administrations tend to preside over faster growth, lower unemployment and stronger stock markets than Republican presidents do.
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A panel of three federal judges blocked the Trump administration on Thursday from excluding undocumented immigrants from the census totals used to determine how many seats in Congress each state gets.
Trump acted unlawfully in July when he ordered the Commerce Department to produce data that would allow him to exclude undocumented immigrants from the count, the panel said. Federal law is clear that only a single data source - the census count of total population - can be used to apportion the 435 seats in the US House among states, the judges wrote. The decennial census does not ask about citizenship status and by requesting a second set of data outside of the decennial census, Trump ran afoul of the law.
Unprecedented wildfires and rushed evacuations in Oregon have wreaked havoc on the state’s incarcerated population, with thousands now packed into a single overcrowded prison that was already a major Covid-19 hotspot.
A destructive and rapidly spreading fire in Marion county prompted the state to evacuate three prisons on Tuesday, transferring 1,450 people to the Oregon state penitentiary (OSP) in Salem. Evacuees are sleeping on the floor and on emergency beds throughout OSP, including in indoor recreational areas, program rooms and other facilities not typically used for housing.
Related: Oregon fires: evacuated prisoners sleep on floor in packed Covid-19 hotspot
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