Biden pledges billions to rebuild cities ‘torn apart’ by highways decades ago

President announces $3.3bn in infrastructure spending to ‘right historic wrongs’ as he takes 2024 campaign to vital swing states

Joe Biden hailed the beginning of $3.3bn in infrastructure spending on US projects on Wednesday “to right historic wrongs” with efforts to reconnect city neighborhoods riven by interstate highways that plowed with particular impunity through many Black, brown, Asian American and Hispanic communities decades ago.

The US president was in Milwaukee, where he traveled to announce new infrastructure investment and officially open his election campaign’s Wisconsin office in the vital swing state.

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US lawmakers present bill to fund government and avert shutdown

The bill sets a discretionary spending level of $1.66tn for fiscal 2024 and still faces opposition from hardline House Republicans

US congressional negotiators on Sunday revealed a bill to fund key parts of the government through the rest of the fiscal year that began in October, as lawmakers faced yet another threat of a partial shutdown if they fail to act by Friday.

The legislation sets a discretionary spending level of $1.66tn for fiscal 2024, a spokesperson for Democratic Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer said. It fills in the details of an agreement that Schumer and Republican House of Representatives speaker Mike Johnson set in early January.

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Senate passes short-term funding bill to avert government shutdown

Majority leader Chuck Schumer had hailed bipartisan legislation to stop partial shutdown due to occur this weekend

The Senate has passed a short-term funding bill following a House vote on Thursday afternoon, narrowly averting a partial government shutdown that was due to occur this weekend.

Ahead of the Senate vote, the majority leader, Chuck Schumer, addressed the chamber floor, saying that he saw “no reason this should take a very long time”.

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Biden poised to loosen restrictions on marijuana, but some say it’s not enough

Legalization advocates say reclassifying drug to schedule III from schedule I doesn’t resolve state and federal law conflicts

The US government appears poised to announce next year the most sweeping changes in decades to how it handles marijuana, the psychoactive drug dozens of states allow to be sold from storefronts, but which federal law considers among the most dangerous substances.

Evidence suggests that Joe Biden’s administration, responding to a policy the president announced last year, is working on moving marijuana to schedule III of the Controlled Substance Act (CSA), a change from its current listing on the maximally restrictive schedule I. That would lessen the tax burden on businesses selling the drug in states where it is legal, and potentially change how police agencies view enforcement of marijuana laws.

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Americans who renounced citizenship sue US over ‘astronomical’ fees

Former Americans file lawsuit against US government, alleging ‘renunciation fee’ of $2,350 is ‘arbitrary, capricious and illegal’

Former Americans who have renounced their citizenship have launched a class-action lawsuit suing the US government for what they argue are exorbitant and unconstitutional costs of relinquishing their passports.

The lawsuit, filed on Wednesday by four renounced US citizens in a federal court in Washington DC, accuses the US of wrongfully profiting from the “astronomical” fee it charges those who voluntarily cease to be Americans. Since 2014, Americans abroad who no longer wish to remain citizens, or who can no longer afford to meet the notoriously onerous US tax demands, have been forced to pay a “renunciation fee” of $2,350.

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‘Let’s have that fight’: McCarthy and Gaetz go to war over shutdown deal

Far-right congressman says he will move to oust Kevin McCarthy as speaker over deal to avert shutdown to ‘rip the Bandaid off’

Simmering hostility between Republicans over the bipartisan deal that averted a government shutdown descended into open political warfare on Sunday, a rightwing congressman saying he would move to oust Kevin McCarthy and the embattled House speaker insisting he would survive.

“We need to rip off the Bandaid. We need to move on with new leadership that can be trustworthy,” the Florida representative Matt Gaetz told CNN’s State of the Union, saying he would file a “motion to vacate” in the next few days.

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FBI agents reportedly search for Uzbeks helped into US by smuggler with IS ties

Episode reported by CNN required emergency memo to senior officials and suggests agency does not know migrants’ location

Federal agents are reportedly trailing a group of more than a dozen Uzbek nationals who entered the US as asylum seekers aided by a smuggler with ties to Isis.

The extraordinary episode, which multiple US officials confirmed to CNN on Tuesday, was considered so serious that it required an emergency intelligence report to senior Biden administration figures.

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Pennsylvania’s ‘road to hell’ reopens after fire-induced bridge collapse

Biden hails ‘proud union workers’ for speedy reopening after stretch of I-95 collapsed following tanker fire earlier in June

Pennsylvania’s “road to hell” reopened on Friday less than two weeks after a tanker fire caused traffic misery for millions.

Joe Biden praised engineers, laborers and “many other proud union workers” for fulfilling his promise to “move heaven and earth” to reopen a busy stretch of the I-95 east coast interstate artery that had been closed since it collapsed in the incident earlier this month.

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Debt ceiling talks briefly resume as US default deadline creeps closer

Janet Yellen, the treasury secretary, has said that without action the US will cease to be able to pay its debts around 1 June

Negotiations for a deal to raise the US debt ceiling and thereby avoid a default with potentially catastrophic consequences for the world economy briefly resumed Friday before concluding with no progress cited by either side.

Republicans had returned to the bipartisan talks with the White House on Friday evening, hours after negotiations had come to an abrupt stop earlier in the day.

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Senate asks supreme court chief justice to testify on ethics amid Clarence Thomas revelations – as it happened

The Democratic chair of the Senate judiciary committee has asked chief justice John Roberts to testify on 2 May about the court’s ethics, following revelations of undisclosed links between a Republican megadonor and conservative justice Clarence Thomas.

In a letter to Roberts, judiciary committee chair Richard Durbin did not mention those reports about Thomas specifically, but noted that since he last addressed the court’s ethics in 2011 “there has been a steady stream of revelations regarding Justices falling short of the ethical standards expected of other federal judges and, indeed, of public servants generally. These problems were already apparent back in 2011, and the Court’s decade-long failure to address them has contributed to a crisis of public confidence. The status quo is no longer tenable.”

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Donald Trump expected to fly to New York for tomorrow’s court appearance – live

Former president to be arraigned on Tuesday in hush money case brought by Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg

Donald Trump’s lawyer Alina Habba has made a prickly appearance on CNN’s This Morning, insisting that a mugshot of her boss, something usually required of all defendants when they are arraigned in New York district court, would be merely “theatrics”.

Habba told host Don Lemon:

Mugshots are for people so that you recognize who they are. He’s the most recognized face in the world, let alone the country, right now, so there’s no need for that.

I’m not in a deposition right now and I’m not going to continue this conversation.

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Biden unveils ‘blue-collar’ budget plan with tax hikes for America’s wealthiest

Proposal will creating ‘a little bit more breathing room’ for American families, Biden says – but Republicans dismiss his plans

Joe Biden on Thursday unveiled his budget, a sprawling policy vision that the president says reflects his commitment to building a fairer economy while drawing a sharp contrast to Republicans who are demanding steep cuts to federal spending programs.

Biden formally introduced his spending plan, which he has described as a “blue-collar blueprint”, in Pennsylvania, a battleground state that helped lift him to the White House in 2020. It was an unusually high-profile rollout for a budget proposal that is often greeted with a resounding thud on Capitol Hill.

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Biden unveils Trump-style plan to deter asylum seekers at Mexico border

Administration’s most aggressive plan yet would bar most migrants who hadn’t sought protection in other countries first

The United States could bar tens of thousands of migrants arriving at the US-Mexico border from claiming asylum under a proposal unveiled on Tuesday that would be the most wide-ranging attempt yet by Joe Biden’s administration to deter unauthorized crossings.

Under the new rules, the US would generally deny asylum to migrants who show up at the US southern border without first seeking protection in a country they passed through, mirroring an attempt by the Trump administration that never took effect because it was blocked in court.

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Biden says he’s Republicans’ ‘nightmare’ over social spending cuts – as it happened

Francine Prose, the novelist and Guardian US columnist, takes a look today at Republican attacks on reading in schools, particularly in Florida under Ron DeSantis, a leading (notional) contender for the presidential nomination in 2024.

For some time now, conservative groups pressured libraries and classrooms to remove certain “controversial” books from their shelves and their syllabi. These are texts that tell uncomfortable or unpopular truths about our nation’s origins, including inequality, race, history, gender, sexuality, power and class – a range of subjects that a small but vocal group of Americans would prefer to ignore or deny.

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FBI searches Biden’s Delaware beach home in documents investigation – live updates

President’s personal attorney reveals justice department ‘planned search’ of home in Rehoboth

Meanwhile in the Senate, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are frustrated that they have not been briefed on the national security implications of all the classified documents that have turned up in Joe Biden, Donald Trump and Mike Pence’s hands.

The sentiment expressed by Democrat Jon Tester today, according to NBC News, is a common one:

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Trump says in video ‘anyone in my position not taking the fifth would be an absolute fool’ – live

FBI agents conducted a voluntary search of an office formerly used by Joe Biden in Washington DC after classified materials were discovered there, CBS News reports.

The search of the Penn Biden Center was carried out with Biden’s agreement in November of last year, after the secret documents dating from Biden’s time as vice president under Barack Obama were first discovered. The search was not publicly announced, and CBS News cited two sources familiar with the investigation in reporting it.

Santos hired Charles Lovett as his chief of staff. Lovett served as Santos’s campaign manager and worked for six months as a field organizer for the Ohio Republican Party, according to LegiStorm. He also served as political director for Ohio Republican Josh Mandel’s unsuccessful primary bid for Senate. He has not worked on the Hill previously. Viswanag Burra, Santos’s operations director, spent less than a year as special operations director for Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and recently worked as executive secretary for the New York Young Republican Club.

His communications director, Naysa Woomer, appears to have the most Hill experience. She worked for three Republican members between 2014 and 2018 before moving to Massachusetts to be the communications director for the state Republican Party and then as a communications specialist for the state Department of Revenue.

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Tlaib and MTG among more than 220 House proxy voters on spending bill

Republicans rail against pandemic-era rule as 226 House members from left to far right take chance not to vote in person

Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, one of two Democrats to oppose the $1.7tn spending bill that averted a US government shutdown on Friday, did so by voting “present”. But Tlaib was not present at the Capitol, voting instead by proxy.

Proxy voting was instituted during the Covid pandemic and is due to come to an end on 3 January, in the new Congress with Republicans controlling the House.

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Senate on track to pass $1.7tn funding bill to avert US government shutdown

Bill includes $45bn in military aid to Ukraine after lawmakers reached agreement on a final series of votes

The US Senate appeared back on track Thursday to pass a $1.7tn bill to finance federal agencies through September 2023 and provide roughly $45bn in military and economic assistance to Ukraine, after lawmakers reached agreement on a final series of votes.

The Democratic majority leader, Chuck Schumer, announced an agreement to consider 15 amendments before voting on final passage. Most of the amendments would be subject to a 60-vote threshold to pass, generally dooming them to failure in the 50-50 Senate.

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Arizona to remove wall of shipping containers on Mexico border

State to dismantle wall following lawsuit filed by US government alleging it was illegally built on federal lands

Arizona will remove a wall of shipping containers along the state’s 370-mile border with Mexico following a lawsuit filed by the US government against the state that claimed that the makeshift wall is being illegally built on federal lands.

According to an agreement reached late Wednesday between federal and state authorities, Arizona will dismantle the wall, along with all related equipment by the beginning of next year.

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Newt Gingrich warns Republicans that Joe Biden is winning the fight

Former speaker who led charge against Bill Clinton raises eyebrows with column heralding Democrat’s first-term success

Republicans must “quit underestimating” Joe Biden, the former US House speaker Newt Gingrich said, because the president is winning the fight.

Writing on his own website, Gingrich said: “Conservatives’ hostility to the Biden administration on our terms tends to blind us to just how effective Biden has been on his terms.

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