Biden hails ‘giant step’ as Senate passes $1.9tn coronavirus relief bill

  • Republican opposition holds through marathon ‘vote-a-rama’
  • Speaker Pelosi has said measure should be law by 14 March

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?

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Deborah Birx ‘always’ considered quitting Trump coronavirus taskforce

Dr Deborah Birx, White House coronavirus task force co-ordinator under Donald Trump, “always” considered quitting as the US lurched into disaster under the 45th president – but didn’t.

Related: A doctor wanted to make a difference. Now he’s a top Covid adviser to Biden

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Biden will appeal for unity as US braces for violence by Trump supporters

Joe Biden will deliver a message of national unity when he assumes the presidency on Wednesday, seeking to begin healing a country fractured by the acrimony of Donald Trump’s administration and ongoing threats of violence by his supporters.

Related: America is broken – can Biden and Harris put it back together?

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Joe Biden names scientific advisers and seeks to bring Eric Lander into cabinet

Joe Biden has named the geneticist Eric Lander as his top scientific adviser and will elevate the position to the cabinet for the first time, a move meant to indicate a decisive break from Donald Trump’s treatment of science.

Related: History-maker Kamala Harris will wield real power as vice-president

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Mitch McConnell and Nancy Pelosi homes vandalised in Covid protests

The Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, decried what he called a “radical tantrum” on Saturday after his home in Kentucky was vandalised with messages apparently protesting against his refusal to increase Covid aid payments from $600 to $2,000.

The attack followed a similar one on the home of Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic House speaker, in San Francisco.

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Trump claims to be ‘working tirelessly’ but leaves Covid relief in disarray

Donald Trump went to his golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida on Thursday, after claiming to be “working tirelessly for the American people” with a schedule that included “many meetings and calls”. Back in Washington, a Democratic proposal to increase direct payments to Americans under the Covid relief bill, from $600 to $2,000, was blocked.

Related: Donald Trump's latest wave of pardons includes Paul Manafort and Charles Kushner

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Trickle-down economics doesn’t work but build-up does – is Biden listening? | Robert Reich

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?

Related: Jeff Bezos became even richer thanks to Covid-19. But he still won't protect Amazon workers | Robert Reich

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US records 166,000 new Covid cases as Trump supporters crowd Washington

The US recorded 166,555 new coronavirus cases on Saturday, down from more than 184,000 on Friday but still its second-highest daily total and a 12th day in a row above 100,000.

Related: Arrests in Washington as Trump supporters assemble, rejecting Biden victory

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US sees record 184,000 new daily Covid cases as Trump politicises vaccine effort

Deaths increase as states implement new social restrictions and president threatens not to deliver vaccines to New York

The US set yet another daily record for new coronavirus cases on Friday, topping 184,000, while Donald Trump promised imminent distribution of a vaccine – except to New York, which he threatened to leave out for political reasons – and the president-elect, Joe Biden, pleaded with Americans to follow basic mitigation measures.

Related: 'Failure is not an option': Biden's Covid taskforce ready to step up

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‘A whole lot of hurt’: Fauci angers Trump White House with dark Covid outlook

The US is “in for a whole lot of hurt” under the coronavirus pandemic, senior public health expert Anthony Fauci said, predicting a winter of 100,000 or more cases a day and a rising death toll.

Related: Wisconsin battles rapid rise in Covid cases amid partisan disputes over safety

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If Biden wins what would the first 100 days of his presidency look like?

If he succeeds in defeating Trump, the Democrat will have to urgently tackle the pandemic and rebuild global relationships

If Joe Biden wins the 2020 US election against Donald Trump next week, the new president-elect will face enormous pressures to implement a laundry list of priorities on a range of issues from foreign policy to the climate crisis, reversing many of the stark changes implemented by his predecessor.

Related: From climate to China, how Joe Biden is plotting America’s restoration

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Trump attempts to save himself in battleground states as Covid cases surge

With little more than two weeks to reverse his dismal standing in the polls, and amid a coronavirus resurgence that could sink his pursuit of a second term, Donald Trump has embarked on a tour of battleground states.

Related: Trump's hopes fade in Wisconsin as 'greatest economy' boast unravels

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Will the New York Times taxes report sink Donald Trump?

His returns examined at last, the president stands exposed as a tax avoider and serial debtor. It raises serious questions – but also, most likely, the passions of his fervent supporters

From the moment he rode down an escalator in the marble-clad, gold-trimmed Trump Tower to declare his candidacy for US president, Donald Trump was selling himself as a successful businessman who could run a successful economy.

Related: New York Times publishes Donald Trump's tax returns in election bombshell

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Trump names Amy Coney Barrett for supreme court, stoking liberal backlash

Donald Trump’s pick for America’s highest court, Amy Coney Barrett, is an “ideological fanatic” who threatens abortion rights, healthcare and the environment, activists warned on Saturday, before Trump unveiled his third supreme court nominee in the White House Rose Garden.

Related: 'Not special any more': how the Senate has failed the American people

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Trump aides insist Woodward tapes reveal strong leadership on Covid

The revelation that Donald Trump deliberately downplayed the coronavirus pandemic forced key aides on to desperate defence on Sunday, barely 50 days from the presidential election.

Related: Roger Stone to Donald Trump: bring in martial law if you lose election

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Joe Biden vows to ‘listen to scientists’ on coronavirus – US politics live

New York governor Andrew Cuomo said the state will give voters a chance to correct missing signatures and other clerical errors so their absentee ballots can be counted in anticipation of a wave of mail-in voting for the November election.

Election officials are expecting an even bigger flood of mail-in votes in November than for the June primary, after which results were delayed for six weeks.

Cuomo said late Friday he’d sign yet temporarily tweak legislation that calls for notifying voters about such problems and provides for fixing them.

Under the version that passed the Legislature last month, the voter would have seven business days to file a form to fix the problem after a notice was mailed, in many situations.

The Associated Press has more from Portland, Oregon, where protesters against police brutality and structural racism clashed again with federal agents and law enforcement officers overnight. Such confrontations were the subject of a Trump tweet this morning, in which the president once again expressed his willingness to send in the national guard:

About 200 people marched to a police precinct station on yet another night of violence for Oregon’s largest city.

Demonstrators hurled bottles and rocks at officers and pointed lasers at them, damaging police cars and causing minor injuries for several officers, Portland police said.

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Coronavirus US: polls put Biden ahead of Trump as deaths top 1,000 a day – live

Shortly before he departed on Air Force One from Morristown Municipal Airport en route to Washington, Donald Trump announced that he will not be throwing out the ceremonial first pitch before a Red Sox-Yankees game at Yankee Stadium next month due to scheduling conflicts.

“Because of my strong focus on the China Virus, including scheduled meetings on Vaccines, our economy and much else, I won’t be able to be in New York to throw out the opening pitch for the @Yankees on August 15th,” he wrote on Twitter. “We will make it later in the season!”

Because of my strong focus on the China Virus, including scheduled meetings on Vaccines, our economy and much else, I won’t be able to be in New York to throw out the opening pitch for the @Yankees on August 15th. We will make it later in the season!

The news website ProPublica has published a database containing complaint information for thousands of New York City police officers days after a federal judge paused the public release of such records.

The Associated Press reports:

ProPublica posted the database Sunday, explaining in a note to readers that it isn’t obligated to comply with judge Katherine Polk Failla’s temporary restraining order because it is not a party to a union lawsuit challenging the release of such records.

Deputy managing editor Eric Umansky said ProPublica requested the information from the city’s police watchdog agency, the Civilian Complaint Review Board, soon after last month’s repeal of state law that for decades had prevented the disclosure of disciplinary records.

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Portland: protesters bring down fence as confrontation with Trump agents rises

The confrontation between protesters and federal paramilitaries in Portland escalated early on Sunday morning, when demonstrators finally broke down a steel fence around the courthouse after days of trying.

Related: What is happening in Portland and what does Trump hope to gain?

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‘White as hell’: Portland protesters face off with Trump but are they eclipsing Black Lives Matter?

On another night of confrontation with federal agents, activists said their message was in danger of being forgotten

Teal Lindseth surveyed the sea of mothers she was about to lead into the firing line.

“I look at this crowd and I don’t see many black people,” lamented the 21-year-old African American activist. “Oregon is white as hell. Whitewashed.”

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