Biden’s chief medical adviser also says the US is ‘clearly going in the right direction’ on the pandemic
The US is likely to see an increase in Covid cases like that in Europe and the UK thanks to the BA.2 virus subvariant but not a dangerous surge, Anthony Fauci said on Sunday.
Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser also said the US was “clearly going in the right direction” on the coronavirus pandemic.
Continue reading...Senate judiciary committee chair Dick Durbin says Hawley’s attacks should be ignored in confirmation hearings this week
The Missouri Republican Josh Hawley is wrong to attack Ketanji Brown Jackson, Joe Biden’s supreme court nominee, and should be ignored in confirmation hearings this week, the Senate judiciary chair said.
Hawley, the Illinois Democrat Dick Durbin said, is “part of the fringe within the Republican party … a man who was fist-bumping the murderous mob that descended on the Capitol on 6 January of the last year.
Continue reading...Wisconsin senator says if GOP retakes control it will use committees to move against Democrats and Biden
Hunter Biden and Anthony Fauci will be prime targets of Senate Republicans should the party win control in November, a senior senator said.
Asked by the Hill what he would want to investigate should he control a committee with subpoena power, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin said: “Like everything? It’s like a mosquito in a nudist colony, it’s a target-rich environment.”
Continue reading...Congressional Progressive Caucus urges president to bypass legislative logjam and give Democrats record to campaign on
The leftwing Congressional Progressive Caucus unveiled its highly anticipated list of suggested executive orders on Thursday, outlining a strategy for Joe Biden to advance Democrats’ policy priorities in the US while much of his legislative agenda has stalled on Capitol Hill.
The move reflects pressure from the left of the Democratic party to try to keep Biden pushing an ambitious program of action, despite setbacks and as November’s midterm elections are widely expected to favor a resurgent Republican party.
Continue reading...The well-known public health expert will be replacing Jeff Zients, who was appointed 14 months ago
Joe Biden has selected a new White House Covid-19 response coordinator to help lead the US’s fight against the virus, the US president announced on Thursday.
Dr Ashish Jha has been named as the new response coordinator. Jha, who is the dean of Brown University’s School of Public Health, is a well-known public health expert.
Continue reading...Vice-President Kamala Harris has tested negative but is cutting back on her schedule; both were vaccinated and had booster shots
Doug Emhoff, the US second gentleman, has tested positive for Covid-19, the White House announced on Tuesday. The vice-president, Kamala Harris, tested negative, but is curtailing her schedule as a result of her husband’s positive test.
Harris’s spokesperson Sabrina Singh said Harris would not participate in a planned Equal Pay Day event on Tuesday evening at the White House with Joe Biden “out of an abundance of caution”.
Continue reading...If spending legislation remains stalled in Congress, the US will soon run out of funding for Covid booster shots, new treatments and testing efforts, a Biden administration official told NBC News.
To recap: the White House requested $22.5bn in Covid relief funding. Democrats negotiated the funding down to $15bn, but still had to take it out of the $1.5tn omnibus package in order for it to pass.
Continue reading...United States Studies Centre finds Americans are not convinced the Indo-Pacific should be a priority region for the Biden administration
Voters in the US are not convinced the Indo-Pacific should be a priority region for the Biden administration, and isolationist sentiment in the country continues to rise, according to a new analysis by the United States Studies Centre.
The new USSC State of the United States report, to be launched in Canberra at an event on Wednesday with the defence minister, Peter Dutton, Labor frontbenchers Penny Wong and Brendan O’Connor, and US congressman Joe Courtney, finds support for the US alliance with Canberra remains strong.
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Continue reading...Amid reports that Russia has requested military help in Ukraine, Jake Sullivan is due to meet China’s top diplomat in Rome on Monday
Joe Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan, who is due to meet China’s top diplomat, Yang Jiechi, in Rome on Monday, warned on Sunday that Beijing will “absolutely” face consequences if it helps Moscow evade sanctions over the invasion of Ukraine.
The White House national security council declined to comment, however, on reports that Russia has asked China for military equipment since its invasion of Ukraine on 24 February.
Continue reading...Rob Portman of Ohio urges US and Nato as US intelligence community says creating no-fly zone risks escalation of conflict
A senior Republican senator on Sunday urged the US and Nato to “close the skies” over Ukraine, hours after a logistics hub and training base for foreign fighters 11 miles from the Polish border was struck by Russian forces, killing 35.
“The message coming loud and clear is close the skies,” said Rob Portman, a senator from Ohio on a visit to Poland. “Because the skies are where the bombs are coming, whether it’s the missile attacks or the airplane attacks or with artillery.”
Continue reading...Analysis: Disputes with Biden administration mean Riyadh and Abu Dhabi are likely to drive hard bargain
Joe Biden’s hardline stance on Russia has won him widespread plaudits, but with the most serious oil shock in decades now a reality, the US president’s attempt to cushion the blowback continues to meet resistance from the two allies he needs most.
Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader, Mohammed bin Salman, and his counterpart in the United Arab Emirates, Mohammed bin Zayed, are yet to agree to a phone call with the west’s most powerful man – a scenario all but unthinkable during previous administrations.
Continue reading...The court is set to rule this year on divisive issues including abortion, gun control, the climate crisis and voting rights
The US supreme court could “at some point” become “compromised” by politics, said Clarence Thomas – one of six conservatives on the nine-member court after Republicans denied Barack Obama a nomination then rammed three new justices through during the hard-right presidency of Donald Trump.
“You can cavalierly talk about packing or stacking the court,” said Thomas, whose wife, Ginni Thomas, has come under extensive scrutiny for work for rightwing groups including supporting Trump’s attempts to overturn an election.
Continue reading...Joe Biden said he is issuing this ban on Russian oil imports after “close consultation with our allies, especially in Europe”. He said the American people must understand that many of our European partners will not be able to join the US, a net exporter of energy, in this ban.
“We can take this step when others cannot, but we are working closely with Europe and our partners to develop a long term strategy to reduce their dependency on Russian energy as well,” he said.
Continue reading...Participants in the privately run Isap program, billed as an alternative to detention, describe painful ankle monitors and contradictory rules
Macarena had just put on a pair of skinny jeans when her phone rang.
On the other end of the line was an employee from BI Inc, the private contractor tracking Macarena’s whereabouts on behalf of US Immigration authorities. The employee had received an alert that the ankle monitor Macarena was wearing had been tampered with, Macarena recalled them saying. They asked if she was trying to take it off.
Continue reading...Speaking from Moldova, US secretary of state warns Russia holds military advantage that western allies are finding hard to counter
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken issued a pledge on Sunday to increase pressure on Russia through sanctions and provide more aid to Ukraine, but warned that Russia held a military advantage that western allies are finding hard to counter and the war was set to last “some time”.
“Vladimir Putin has, unfortunately, the capacity with the sheer manpower he has in Ukraine and overmatch he has, the ability to keep grinding things down against incredibly resilient and courageous Ukrainians. I think we have to be prepared for this to last for some time,” Blinken told CNN.
Continue reading...Leaders of the Quad grouping of countries - the US, India, Australia and Japan - agreed today that what is happening to Ukraine should not be allowed to happen in the Indo-Pacific, Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida said.
Reuters reports:
A virtual meeting of the four-country grouping was held at a time of increased concern about Taiwan, a self-ruled island claimed by China, which has stepped up its alert level, wary of China taking advantage of a distracted west to move against it.
“We’ve agreed that unilateral changes to the status quo with force like this should not be allowed in the Indo-Pacific region,” Kishida said, referring to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Continue reading...The Guardian’s health reporter Jessica Glenza on the White House’s new Covid-19 plan:
The White House announcement and State of the Union address also came with a new look and feel. At the State of the Union, Biden, Vice-President Kamala Harris and the speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, were all mask-free. So, too, were White House officials when they announced the new Covid-19 plan, notably in-person rather than through a group video call.
Continue reading...‘Test to treat’ model will offer free anti-viral pills after a positive test as part of four-pronged approach
The White House released a 96-page plan on Wednesday to shift the fight against Covid-19 and “help move America forward safely”, past a crisis footing to a new “normal”.
Announcement of the plan follows promises made in Joe Biden’s State of the Union speech late on Tuesday, which emphasized rapid rollout of a new “test to treat” model with free anti-viral pills after a positive test.
Continue reading...White House sees program as a more elastic testing infrastructure that will accommodate surges and remain on standby
Nearly half of 500m free Covid-19 tests the Biden administration made available to the US public have not been claimed, as cases plummet.
Wild demand swings have been a subplot in the pandemic, from vaccines to hand sanitizer and tests. On the first day of the White House test giveaway in January, the covidtests.gov website received more than 45m orders. Now officials say fewer than 100,000 orders a day are coming in for packages of four free rapid tests per household, delivered by the US Postal Service.
Continue reading...Joe Biden on Friday nominated Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the supreme court, seeking to elevate a Black woman to the nation’s highest court for the first time in its 232-year history.
Biden’s decision to nominate Jackson to succeed Justice Stephen Breyer, 83, for whom she clerked, sets up a fierce confirmation battle in the deeply partisan and evenly-divided Senate. Breyer, the most senior jurist in the court’s three-member liberal wing, will retire at the end of the court’s current session this summer.
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