Intense heat in the north, epic rains in Miami, fires in New Mexico and California. Trump plans for ‘energy dominance’, removing protection from mining and drilling on public lands
This article was produced in partnership with the non-profit newsroom Type Investigations, with support from the Wayne Barrett Project.
Ex-president determined to destroy independence of justice department if he regains control of White House
Donald Trump is planning an assault on the American justice system should he win re-election to the White House, in which he would seek to destroy the independence of the justice department and turn it into an attack machine for his Make American great again (Maga) movement.
At the heart of his plans is the desire to impose his will on the individual prosecutorial decisions taken by the Department of Justice. The move, if successful, would end half a century of accepted practice that prevents presidents from politically interfering with specific cases.
Continue reading...With high levels of people seeking asylum, and after failed attempts to pass reforms, Biden has presented his most aggressive restrictions yet
Joe Biden on Tuesday signed an aggressive new immigration order suspending asylum rights, signalling that “securing the border” was a central tenet of his re-election bid.
At the southern US border, the policy is set to cause chaos and hardship for those seeking the protection of the United States.
Continue reading...People at the border reel after hearing about Biden’s order and consider the CBP One app, where they can go and what’s next
Angel Ramos Girón was searching for a gap to breach the coils of concertina wire standing between him and the huge US fence near gate 36.
The port of entry divides the US from Ciudad Juárez in Mexico, where he stood on Tuesday afternoon looking towards El Paso, its American sister city in Texas.
Continue reading...Attorney general defends stewardship of justice department and accuses Republican lawmakers of peddling conspiracy theories
US attorney general Merrick Garland has defended his stewardship of the justice department in a combative display on Capitol Hill that saw him accusing Republicans of attacking the rule of law while telling them he “will not be intimidated.”
Testifying before the House judiciary committee, Garland accused GOP congressmen of engaging in conspiracy theories and peddling false narratives.
Continue reading...President’s move comes amid voter dissatisfaction over immigration as leftwing and Latino lawmakers express alarm
Joe Biden on Tuesday signed an executive order that will temporarily shut down the US-Mexico border to asylum seekers attempting to cross between lawful ports of entry, when a daily threshold of crossings has been exceeded.
The order will take effect immediately, senior administration officials said on a press call. Those seeking asylum will be held to a much more rigorous standard for establishing credible fear of returning to their home country, although certain groups – including human trafficking victims and unaccompanied children – would be excluded from the ban.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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”.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.”
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...