Senate advances funding bill to avert shutdown after Manchin measure scrapped

Both parties opposed the measure on energy permits, which critics said would gut environmental protections

The US Senate has voted to advance a funding bill to avert a federal government shutdown, after a tense standoff over a controversial energy-permitting provision proposed by the West Virginia senator Joe Manchin ended with its withdrawal.

A procedural vote on Tuesday to move forward with the funding bill succeeded easily, 72-23, after Democrats announced that the West Virginia senator’s proposal, which faced opposition from both parties, would be stripped from the final legislation. It was clear that, with Manchin’s plan included, Democrats were falling far short of the 60 votes needed to proceed, as most Republicans objected to it.

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Special master ruling shows Trump’s takeover of courts has started to sting

Aileen Cannon, who Trump nominated in 2020, granted his wish over the Mar-a-Lago search – a maverick decision that is the thin end of the wedge

In the first televised presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden in 2020, the sitting president was asked why voters should re-elect him to the White House. He gave a relatively obscure answer – it was all about the judges, he said.

By the end of his first term in office, Trump bragged, he would have smashed all records for the number of his appointments to the federal bench. “I’ll have approximately 300 federal judges.”

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Biden hails ‘tentative agreement’ to avoid looming US rail strike

Announcement in early hours comes a day before deadline for deal as freight strike threatened widespread disruption

A tentative agreement had been reached to avert a freight rail strike that could have disrupted commuter rail services across the US, Joe Biden has said.

A strike would also have dealt a major blow to Democrats two months before midterm elections in which they will try to keep control of the Senate and the House.

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US judge orders Trump Mar-a-Lago affidavit to be unsealed with redactions – as it happened

Bruce Reinhart gives US government until noon ET Friday to make the redacted document public

As midterm election campaigns hit the home stretch over the next two months, voters may start seeing a familiar Democratic face: Barack Obama.

Axios reports that the former president is scheduled to appear at two upcoming fundraisers for the party, one of which is focused on Democrats’ campaign to maintain their majority in the Senate, which they seem slightly favored to do.

The submission by the Justice Department is a significant legal milepost in an investigation that has swiftly emerged as a major threat to Mr. Trump, whose lawyers have offered a confused and at times stumbling response. But it is also an inflection point for Attorney General Merrick B. Garland, who is trying to balance protecting the prosecutorial process by keeping secret details of the investigation, and providing enough information to defend his decision to request a search unlike any other in history.

“There are clearly opposed poles here,” said Daniel C. Richman, a former federal prosecutor and a law professor at Columbia University, who said it might be difficult, even impossible, for Mr. Garland to strike the right balance.

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Biden unveils plan to cancel $10,000 in student loan debt for millions

President delivers on campaign promise and outlines debt relief measures for those on lower incomes in White House speech

Millions of Americans received welcome news on Wednesday when Joe Biden delivered on a campaign promise to provide $10,000 in student debt forgiveness.

Borrowers who earn less than $125,000 a year will be eligible for loan forgiveness, with those whose low incomes qualified them for federal Pell Grants receiving up to $20,000 in relief. About a third of US undergraduate students receive Pell Grants.

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Colorado Republican turns Democrat over ‘existential threat’ from GOP

In letter announcing defection, state senator Kevin Priola cites political and environmental threat from his erstwhile party

Announcing his switch to the Democrats, a Colorado state senator said Republican attacks on democracy were not the only “existential threat” posed by his former party.

“I have become increasingly worried about our planet and the climate crisis we are facing,” Kevin Priola said, in a letter posted to social media on Monday.

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‘Biggest step forward on climate ever’: Biden signs Democrats’ landmark bill

Party leaders hope approval of Inflation Reduction Act will boost their prospects in the midterm elections this November

Joe Biden signed Democrats’ healthcare, climate and tax package on Tuesday, putting the final seal of approval on a landmark bill that party leaders hope will boost their prospects in the midterm elections this November.

During a bill-signing ceremony at the White House, the US president celebrated the bill as a historic piece of legislation that would reduce healthcare costs for millions of Americans and help address the climate crisis.

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Democrats celebrate as climate bill moves to House – and critics weigh in

Bernie Sanders calls climate measures a ‘very modest step forward’ and Republicans denounce the bill altogether

Democrats celebrated the much-delayed Senate passage of their healthcare and climate spending package, expressing hope that the bill’s approval could improve their prospects in the crucial midterm elections this November.

The bill, formally known as the Inflation Reduction Act, passed the Senate on Sunday in a party-line vote of 51-50, with Vice-President Kamala Harris breaking the tie in the evenly divided chamber.

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Senate passes $739bn healthcare and climate bill after months of wrangling

Inflation Reduction Act will reduce planet-heating emissions and lower prescription drug costs – and give Biden a crucial victory

Senate Democrats passed their climate and healthcare spending package on Sunday, sending the legislation to the House and bringing Joe Biden one step closer to a significant legislative victory ahead of crucial midterm elections in November.

If signed into law, the bill, formally known as the Inflation Reduction Act, would allocate $369bn to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and investing in renewable energy sources. Experts have estimated the climate provisions of the bill will reduce America’s planet-heating emissions by about 40% by 2030, compared with 2005 levels.

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Climate bill could slash US emissions by 40% after historic Senate vote

Inflation Reduction Act could put US within striking distance of Biden’s goal of halving emissions by 2030, analysis suggests

The US is, following decades of political rancor and fossil fuel industry obfuscation, almost certain to make its first significant attempt to tackle the climate crisis. Experts say it will help rewire the American economy and act as an important step in averting disastrous global heating.

Independent analysis of the proposed legislation, known as the Inflation Reduction Act, shows it should slash America’s planet-heating emissions by about 40% by the end of the decade, compared with 2005 levels.

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Senate Democrats given green light to vote on $430bn climate and tax bill

Senate arbiter rules bill can bypass filibuster and be passed with simple majority, setting stage for ‘vote-a-rama’ next week

US Senate Democrats on Saturday were set to push ahead on a bill that would address key elements of President Joe Biden’s agenda, tackling climate change, lowering the cost of energy and senior citizens’ drugs and forcing the wealthy to pay more taxes.

A Senate rulemaker determined that the lion’s share of the $430bn bill could be passed with only a simple majority, bypassing a filibuster rule requiring 60 votes in the 100-seat chamber to advance most legislation and enabling Democrats to pass it over Republican objections, majority leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement.

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Hungary’s far-right PM Viktor Orbán speaks at CPAC summit – as it happened

Griner has been sentenced to nine years in prison, Bloomberg reports:

A court in Russia has found Brittney Griner, an Americans women’s basketball star, guilty of drug smuggling, Reuters reports.

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Biden hails ‘most significant legislation to tackle climate crisis’ after Manchin says yes – live

Joe Biden “was not involved” in negotiations over the newly announced Inflation Reduction Act, Joe Manchin has said, claiming credit instead for himself and his own aides.

In a press call Thursday morning that shed a little more light, but not very much, on how the bill came to be, the Democratic West Virginia senator said:

It was me and my staff. And then we worked with [Senate majority leader Chuck] Schumer’s staff. My staff was driving it. We wrote the bill. Schumer’s staff would look at it and we would negotiate, and we worked that through them.

President Biden was not involved.

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Joe Biden hails Senate deal as ‘most significant’ US climate legislation ever

Proposal backed by centrist senator Joe Manchin also addresses healthcare, tax rises for high earners and cutting federal debt

Joe Biden has hailed a congressional deal that represents the biggest single climate investment in US history – and hands him a badly needed political victory.

In a stunning reversal, Senate Democrats on Wednesday announced an expansive $739bn package that had eluded them for months addressing healthcare and the climate crisis, raising taxes on high earners and corporations and reducing federal debt.

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Manchin announces deal with Democrats on major tax and climate bill

News of agreement breaks deadlock two weeks after conservative Democrat had appeared to kill off Biden’s climate agenda

Democrat Joe Manchin announced on Wednesday afternoon that he has reached a deal with the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, on a domestic policy bill that would pay down national debt, cut energy costs and lower the cost of health insurance and prescription drugs, while supporting a “realistic” climate policy.

The development came almost two weeks after the West Virginia conservative senator had appeared essentially to kill off flagship climate action legislation when he came out against raising taxes on wealth Americans and refused to support more funding for climate action.

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Biden’s $37bn crime prevention plan delayed by Covid diagnosis

President had hoped to announce plans for 100,000 extra US police officers but speech in Pennsylvania cancelled

Joe Biden had been poised Thursday to unveil a $37bn proposal for fighting crime including funding to help US police departments hire and train an additional 100,000 officers over a five-year period, according to reports, though after contracting Covid he cancelled the speech where he planned to announce it.

The US president’s Safer America Plan would form part of his proposed 2023 budget and would require a green light from Congress, CNN reports. As well as the additional officers, it would reportedly include the launch of a $15bn grant initiative for states and localities to assist them in preventing violent offenses, and to “ease the burden on police officers by identifying non-violent situations that may merit a public health response or other response.”

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Biden pledges executive action after Joe Manchin scuppers climate agenda

West Virginia senator refuses to support funding for climate crisis and says he will not back tax raises for wealthy Americans

Joe Biden has promised executive action on climate change after Joe Manchin, the Democratic senator who has repeatedly thwarted his own party while making millions in the coal industry, refused to support more funding for climate action.

In another blow to Democrats ahead of the midterm elections, the West Virginia senator also came out against tax raises for wealthy Americans.

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‘I will not back down’: Biden vows executive action if Senate cannot pass climate bill – as it happened

The Guardian’s Lois Beckett reports on an overlooked aspect of the bipartisan gun safety bill passed last month that will pay for efforts to reduce gun violence in neighborhoods across the country:

In 2013, a month after the school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, a group of Black pastors and other activists visited the Obama White House to press the administration to do more to prevent gun violence in communities of color.

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US gunmakers summoned to Congress to justify soaring profits from gun violence – as it happened

Top Democrats ‘deeply troubled that gun manufacturers continue to profit from the sale of weapons of war’

Could Donald Trump have had the IRS carry out its most stringent audit on two of his political foes? That’s the question posed by a story published yesterday in The New York Times that says former FBI director James Comey and his deputy Andrew McCabe were both selected for random audits by the tax authority, which is run by an appointee of the former president.

A spokesman for Trump denied knowing anything about the matter, and experts quoted in the story wondered whether it was even possible for a president to order the IRS to carry out such an action. The coincidence is nonetheless abnormal. Here’s how one former IRS official put it to the Times:

“Lightning strikes, and that’s unusual, and that’s what it’s like being picked for one of these audits,” said John A. Koskinen, the I.R.S. commissioner from 2013 to 2017. “The question is: Does lightning then strike again in the same area? Does it happen? Some people may see that in their lives, but most will not — so you don’t need to be an anti-Trumper to look at this and think it’s suspicious.”

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Senate breakthrough clears way for toughening US gun laws

Bill’s passing hailed as ‘long overdue step’ while package falls far short of more robust restrictions Democrats sought

The US Senate has easily approved a bipartisan gun violence bill that seemed unthinkable just a month ago, clearing the way for final congressional approval of what will be lawmakers’ most far-reaching response in decades to mass shootings.

After years of GOP procedural delays that derailed Democratic efforts to curb firearms, Democrats and some Republicans decided that congressional inaction was untenable after last month’s rampages in New York and Texas. It took weeks of closed-door talks but a group of senators from both parties emerged on Thursday with a compromise embodying incremental but impactful movement to curb bloodshed that has come to regularly shock – yet no longer surprise – the nation.

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