Category Archives: Biden administration

Iran president rules out meeting with Biden, saying it won’t be beneficial

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Ebrahim Raisi says he sees no ‘changes in reality’ from Trump administration as hopes to revive nuclear talks dampen

Iran’s president, Ebrahim Raisi, has ruled out a meeting with Joe Biden on the margins of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) this week, saying he saw no “changes in reality” from the Trump administration.

Raisi underlined the firm position of his government and dampened hopes that a week of summitry at UNGA in New York might yield any progress in negotiations to revive the 2015 nuclear deal. Washington has rejected the latest Iranian bargaining positive as “not constructive”, and most observers believe there will be no breakthroughs at least until after the US congressional elections in November.

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Judge blocks justice department from Trump documents as legal fight continues – live

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Judge appoints special master to weed out documents under legal privilege rules but DoJ is expected to appeal the decision

Speaking of conservative media, Ramon Antonio Vargas tuned into conservative stalwart Fox News to see what their political coverage looks like ahead of the midterms:

With most US voters indicating that the preservation of abortion rights is their chief focus as midterm elections loom, the face of Fox News and Republican politicians appear to be trying to shift attention to crime, a progressive media watchdog has warned.

As a kid, he always knew he wanted to be a doctor (“Fisher Price play kit,” he muses). But it wasn’t until he was an undergraduate at Columbia University that he experienced an epiphany.

He was working on a big display of the AIDS memorial quilt, he says, and was tasked with flying to San Francisco to bring back a “roll of carpet that looked like a body in a shroud.” On the day the exhibit opened for the finished quilt, he watched as men his age — people who should have been enjoying their 20s — walked in, coughing and raging with a disease very likely to kill them.

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US announces new $600m arms package for Ukraine

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The aid is expected to contain munitions including HIMARS ammunition and funding for military education and training

The Biden administration announced a new $600m arms package to help the Ukrainian military battle Russia, as the US rushes more weapons to fuel Kyiv’s successful counteroffensive in the country’s east.

The package will include more of the same types of ammunition and equipment that have helped Ukrainian forces beat back the Russian forces in portions of the east and south.

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Biden vows to tackle ‘venom and violence of white supremacy’ and decries Trump over Charlottesville – as it happened

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Biden has begun speaking at the White House about the agreement reached to head off a rail workers strike.

You can watch it below:

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

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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 railroad workers prepare for strike as rail companies see record profits

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As Biden’s recommendations fall flat, negotiations between management and unions are at an impasse – and workers are prepared to walk

US freight railroad workers are close to striking over claims that grueling schedules and poor working conditions have been driving employees out of the industry over the past several years.

Heated negotiations over a new union contract between railroad corporations and 150,000-member-strong labor unions have been ongoing for nearly three years. A “cooling off” period imposed by the Biden administration after it issued recommendations to settle the dispute ends on Friday. If no deal is reached, unions are threatening industrial action – the first since 1992 – and workers say they will quit an industry already facing staff shortages.

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Ban Bain & Co from US government contracts, Joe Biden is urged

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Exclusive: Labour peer calls on US president to follow UK in banning firm over misconduct in South Africa

Joe Biden should follow the UK in banning the global management consultancy firm Bain & Company from future government contracts, the Labour peer Peter Hain has said.

In a letter shared with the Guardian, the former minister and anti-apartheid campaigner urged the US president to “act on this matter and establish a clear precedent that will signal to all US global companies, consultancies, lawyers, auditors and financial advisers that collusion with corrupt politicians and their business cronies in other countries will not be tolerated”.

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US bans ‘advanced tech’ firms from building facilities in China for a decade

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Move comes as Biden administration outlines plans to boost domestic production of semiconductors

US technology firms that receive government funding will be banned from building “advanced technology facilities” in China for a decade, the Biden administration has announced, as it outlined plans to increase domestic production of semiconductors.

The requirements come under the US government’s near-$53bn (£46bn) plan to scale up manufacturing of semiconductor chips – the “brain” in every electronic device from cars to household appliances – which are predominantly produced in Asia.

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Five key takeaways from Biden’s speech on the threat to democracy

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In a rare primetime address, Biden pitched the midterms as a battle for the nation’s soul and directly called out Trump

Joe Biden – who usually makes couched references to “the former guy” and his “predecessor” – explicitly named and called out Donald Trump during his speech. The president warned that Trump and the “Maga (Make America great again)” Republicans “represent an extremism that threatens the very foundation of our republic”.

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Biden’s stern warning on extremism shows the rose-colored glasses are off

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The president’s primetime speech named Trump and ‘Maga Republicans’ as a threat facing American democracy

Joe Biden’s journey from idealist to realist continues. But it is not quite complete.

After 36 years in the Senate, he stepped into the US presidency in 2021 as an apostle of bipartisanship, convinced that his authoritarian-minded predecessor Donald Trump would fade away and the Republican party would rediscover its bearings.

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Biden speech: ‘Democracy is under assault’ from election deniers and political violence, president warns – as it happened

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The president called out Maga forces as a threat ‘to our personal rights, to the pursuit of justice, to the very soul of this country’

Protesters outside Independence Hall were shouting “Let’s go, Brandon,” which Biden was able to brush off.

Biden addressed them, saying: “They’re entitled to be outrageous. This is a democracy.”

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Americans should focus on Biden’s accomplishments, says chief of staff – as it happened

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Ron Klain argues president has made a historic impact and that focus shouldn’t be on inflation or Afghanistan withdrawal

Democratic leaders went on the attack against Mike Pence, as the former vice-president under Donald Trump heads to Iowa today amid increased speculation of a potential 2024 campaign.

Jaime Harrison, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, sharply criticized Pence’s repeated calls for a national abortion ban in the wake of the supreme court’s decision to overturn Roe v Wade.

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Biden’s chief of staff says president is comparable to historic predecessors

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Ron Klain compares Biden’s achievements to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, John F Kennedy and Lyndon B Johnson in interview

In a bullish interview, the White House chief of staff, Ron Klain, compared Joe Biden’s achievements in his first two years in office to historic successes under Franklin Delano Roosevelt, John F Kennedy and Lyndon B Johnson.

Speaking to Politico, Klain said: “The president has delivered the largest economic recovery plan since Roosevelt, the largest infrastructure plan since [Dwight D] Eisenhower, the most judges confirmed since Kennedy, the second-largest healthcare bill since Johnson, and the largest climate change bill in history.”

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Biden: US knows ‘with certainty’ Syria holding missing journalist Austin Tice

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President urges regime, which denies involvement, to release Tice, who disappeared in 2012 covering Syrian war

Joe Biden has said that the US knows “with certainty” that the Syrian government is holding Austin Tice – an American journalist who has been missing for a decade – and called on Damascus to release him.

Ten years after the freelance reporter disappeared while reporting on the Syrian war, Biden said the US government knows “that [Tice] has been held by the Syrian regime”.

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Border wall that threatened historic US-Mexico Friendship park halted

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The Biden administration agreed to pause plans that would have destroyed a 51-year-old oceanfront park

The Biden administration has agreed to pause plans for a double border wall that critics say would effectively destroy a 51-year-old oceanfront park that symbolizes friendship between the United States and Mexico.

Chris Magnus, the US Customs and Border Protection commissioner, said he wanted to hear community concerns before settling on a wall design for Friendship Park, which then-first lady Pat Nixon inaugurated in 1971.

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Biden administration declares monkeypox a public health emergency

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Move will trigger extra resources and other measures to combat virus as health secretary urges ‘every American to take it seriously’

The Biden administration has declared the US monkeypox outbreak a national public health emergency which will trigger extra resources and other measures aimed at combatting the virus.

During a news briefing with reporters Xavier Becerra, the health secretary, said: “We’re prepared to take our response to the next level in addressing this virus, and we urge every American to take monkeypox seriously.”

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Biden echoes Obama as White House releases photo of briefing on strike

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Picture bore striking similarities to 1 May 2011 image, when US special forces killed Osama bin Laden

The White House on Tuesday released a picture of Joe Biden being briefed on the CIA drone strike which killed Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of al-Qaida and a chief planner of the 9/11 attacks, in Kabul last weekend.

The move came amid widespread celebration of the killing in the United States and the apparently successful attack provides a welcome fillip to Biden, whose popularity has plunged during 2022 as the nation gears up for crucial midterm election in November.

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How Ayman al-Zawahiri’s ‘pattern of life’ allowed the US to kill al-Qaida leader

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After a decades-long hunt the simple habit of sitting out on the balcony gave the CIA an opportunity to launch ‘tailored strike’

In the end it was one of the oldest mistakes in the fugitive’s handbook that apparently did for Ayman al-Zawahiri, the top al-Qaida leader killed, according to US intelligence, by a drone strike on Sunday morning: he developed a habit.

The co-planner of the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington in 2001 had acquired a taste for sitting out on the balcony of his safe house in Sherpur, a well-to-do diplomatic enclave of Kabul. He grew especially fond of stepping out on to the balcony after morning prayers, so that he could watch the sun rise over the Afghan capital.

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Xi Jinping tells Joe Biden not to ‘play with fire’ over Taiwan in two-hour call

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US president reiterates opposition to undermining peace in Taiwan amid tension over potential Pelosi trip

The Chinese president has warned Joe Biden against “playing with fire” over Taiwan in a highly anticipated phone call that lasted more than two hours on Thursday, as tensions remain high over the House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s possible trip to the island next month.

“Those who play with fire will be perished by it. It is hoped that the US will be clear-eyed about this,” said Xi Jinping, according to a Chinese statement. He also urged the US to implement the three joint communiques that serve as the foundation for relations between the two countries “both in word and in deed”. Xi vowed “resolutely” to safeguard China’s national sovereignty and territorial integrity and said this is “the firm will of more than 1.4 billion Chinese people”.

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Biden ‘doing just fine’ after testing positive for Covid, White House says

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Ashish Jha, coronavirus response coordinator, and physician Kevin O’Connor say president contracted BA.5 variant

Joe Biden is “feeling well” and “doing just fine” after testing positive for Covid, the White House coronavirus response coordinator said.

Appearing on CBS’s Face the Nation, Ashish Jha said: “So it is the BA.5 variant, which is about 80% of infections. But thank goodness, our vaccines and therapeutics work well against it, which is why I think the president’s doing well.

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