Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Statement following talks sparks optimism that unexpected progress has been made
A potential breakthrough in the apparently deadlocked efforts to bring the US back into the nuclear deal with Iran is on the horizon after secret diplomatic talks in Frankfurt this week.
The joint commission, the body that brings together the existing signatories to the deal, will meet virtually on Friday to discuss the outcome of Monday’s meeting amid growing optimism that unexpected progress has been made.
Joe Biden unveiled what he called a 'once-in-a-generation' investment in American infrastructure, promising the nation his $2tn plan would create the 'strongest, most resilient, innovative economy in the world'.
Biden’s proposal to the nation still struggling to overcome the coronavirus pandemic would rebuild 20,000 miles of roads and highways and repair the 10 most economically significant bridges in the country. Biden added other projects would confront the climate crisis, curb wealth inequality and strengthen US competitiveness
Summit is designed to revive a US-convened forum of the world’s major economies that previous administrations had allowed to lapse
President Joe Biden is doubling down on his reset of his predecessor’s environmental policies by inviting Russian president Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping of China to the first big climate talks of his administration next month aimed at increasing cooperation to fight global heating.
The Leaders Summit on Climate talks, scheduled to be held virtually on 22 and 23 April, are an opportunity for the US to shape, hasten and deepen global efforts to cut climate-wrecking fossil fuel pollution, administration officials told the Associated Press.
Activists in Georgia vowed on Friday to keep up an aggressive campaign to pressure Republicans over their support for the law restricting voting access, saying they were undeterred by its final passage through the legislature.
The Sandy Hook shooting failed to convince Congress to enact more regulations. In the wake of recent shootings, calls for reform have begun
Within hours of 10 people being gunned down at the King Soopers grocery store in Boulder, Colorado on Monday – the second such bloody rampage in seven days – the calls had begun for Congress to tighten up America’s notoriously slack firearms laws.
John Hickenlooper, a Democratic US senator from Colorado who was governor of the state at the time of the Aurora cinema shooting that killed 12 people in 2012, opined that “our country has a horrific problem with gun violence. We need federal action. Now.”
There have been more ‘Title 42’ expulsions in the space of a few weeks than during an entire year of Trump’s administration, report says
The Biden administration has so far deported more Haitians in a few weeks than the Trump administration did in a whole year, with the use of a highly controversial Trump-era public health order denying asylum seekers basic legal rights, according to a new report.
The report, The Invisible Wall, due to be published on Thursday by a coalition of immigrant rights groups, focuses on Title 42, part of the 1944 Public Health Service Act invoked a year ago by the Trump administration as grounds for summary expulsion of migrants because of the supposed health risk they posed during the Covid pandemic.
In his first remarks on the supermarket shooting in Boulder, Colorado, that killed 10 people on Monday, Joe Biden called on Congress to move quickly to toughen the country's gun laws, asking lawmakers to close the loopholes in the background checks system and ban assault weapon and high-capacity magazines. Biden homed in on closing what is known as the Charleston loophole – a provision in federal law that gives a gun seller discretion on whether to proceed with a sale if the FBI fails to determine within three business days if a buyer is eligible to purchase a gun
Earlier, while he was touring the James Cancer Hospital and Solove Research Institute in Columbus, Biden was asked if he thinks he has the political capital to get gun control measures passed through the Senate.
“I hope so,” he said, his fingers crossed per the White House press pool report.
.@POTUS crosses his fingers as he's asked about the possibility of gun control legislation, during a tour of the James Cancer Hospital and Solove Research Institute in Columbus, Ohio. pic.twitter.com/qMZ3soPuGJ
Hours after America's second mass shooting in a week, Sen. John Kennedy downplays the gun problem by noting that "we have a lot of drunk drivers in America that kill a lot of people. We ought to try to combat that too ... the answer is not to get rid of all sober drivers." pic.twitter.com/BvqhNvuWRJ
Getting vaccinated and following public health guidelines are patriotic duties, Biden said.
“We need all Americans to keep washing their hands, stay socially distanced, wearing their masks,” he said. “Get vaccinated, when it’s your turn. It’s a patriotic responsibility.
As senior US officials arrive in Mexico for talks experts say deal to send Covid vaccine shows that migrants are still a bargaining chip
Joe Biden took office promising to put a friendlier face on US immigration policy. He put an end to a scheme requiring asylum seekers to remain in Mexico, promised to restore the US asylum system and pledged to spend $4bn on addressing the root causes of migration in Central America.
Kamala Harris also told reporters that she plans to visit the US-Mexican border at some point, although she will not be doing so today.
“We were left with a very challenging situation. Let’s get these kids out of [Customs and Border Protection] custody and get them into [Health and Human Services] custody,” the vice-president said, per a pool report.
Kamala Harris is visiting a coronavirus vaccination site in Jacksonville, Florida, as part of the “Help is Here” tour to advertise the benefits of the relief bill.
After landing in Jacksonville, the vice-president took a few questions from reporters about the pandemic and the situation at the US-Mexican border.
Aides and allies say it is too early to define the vice-president’s portfolio but she is unlikely to be confined to just one subject area
White House aides and allies stress it’s still too early to define the type of portfolio Kamala Harris will have as vice-president. They bristle at the suggestion that Harris would be confined to one project or focus on just one subject area, as some previous vice-presidents were pegged to do.
But over the last week, the former California senator has once again taken on an increasingly familiar mantle: top surrogate for promoting the Biden administration’s agenda.
The president does not just share Irish roots with John, Robert and Ted Kennedy – he also wants to lead America in the world
It was a popular Washington sport: find the past president who best explained Donald Trump. There was a touch of Andrew Jackson’s populism, a dash of Richard Nixon’s skulduggery, a sprinkling of Ronald Reagan’s myth-making. But now all that is over, who are the closest matches to Joe Biden?
As unaccompanied children reach the US, Republicans seek political gain. The White House has a fight on its hands
Lauded for his human touch, Joe Biden is facing an early political and moral test over how his government treats thousands of migrant children who make the dangerous journey to America alone.
Openings of summits are often dull affairs, but the tense exchanges in Alaska hint at turbulent times ahead
In a protracted, unplanned public spat in Anchorage late on Thursday, China and America’s top diplomats traded barbs for over an hour in front of astonished journalists.
The openings to diplomatic summits are usually dull and carefully choreographed, a showcase for the world’s cameras before the doors close and the real talks begin.
Joan Biskupic, CNN’s legal analyst has an interesting piece this morning arguing that the Supreme Court’s conservatives want to topple abortion rights – but can’t seem to agree on how. She writes:
The aims of individual justices, based on their recent writings, range from reversing Roe v. Wade to forbidding clinics from challenging restrictions on behalf of women to relaxing the standard that states must meet to limit women’s access to the procedure.
New internal tensions in the age-old controversy have emerged, as the six Republican-appointed justices on the right wing diverge on curtailing precedent and more sharply clash with the court’s three remaining Democratic-appointed liberals. The justices could move a step closer to their next chapter as they meet privately on Friday to consider whether to take up Mississippi’s ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.
After four years of racist, chaotic, anti-immigration policies by the Trump administration – as well as growing desperation fuelled by the pandemic and extreme climate events – the number of people seeking to enter the US is rising.
Illinois and Maryland recently announced that within the next two months, all adults will be eligible to receive the Covid-19 vaccine, joining at least seven other states who said they can open up eligibility in March and April.
Illinois governor JB Pritzker said today that all residents 16 and older will be eligible to receive the vaccine starting 12 April. Meanwhile, Maryland’s governor, Larry Hogan, said on Tuesday that all adults should be eligible by 27 April.
The Senate just confirmed William Burns to be director of the CIA. Burns is the former deputy secretary of state in the Obama administration and has held multiple roles within the State Department.
While Burns’ nomination received widespread support from Democrats and Republicans, senator Ted Cruz had temporarily blocked what would have been a quick confirmation as Cruz was hoping to send a message to Biden over the Russia-Germany natural gas Nord Stream 2 pipelines, a controversial energy project that critics fear will give more political power to Russia.
Officials in Moscow go on offensive after Biden says Russian president will pay price for election meddling
Russian relations with the US have entered a new post-Trump period of smouldering hostility after Vladimir Putin shrugged off accusations from Joe Biden that he was a “killer”, saying: “It takes one to know one.”
The Russian president responded in characteristically icy fashion to Biden’s remark, which followed an assessment by US intelligence agencies that Moscow was continuing to meddle in American democracy and had tried to help Donald Trump win last year’s US election.
This may not be overtly party political but there is no doubt it’s political. The trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, accused of murdering George Floyd last May, continues with jury selection and legal arguments.
In the arrest of May 6, 2019, a panicking Floyd swallowed several opioid pain-killer pills as police approached. Eric Nelson, Chauvin’s lead lawyer, has argued that the main cause of Floyd’s death a year later, which was ruled a homicide, was the opioid fentanyl found in his blood at autopsy.
“The similarities are incredible, it’s the exact same behavior in two incidents almost exactly one year apart,” Nelson told the court before the resumption of jury selection, noting Floyd called out for his “mama” in both arrests, according to video footage.
More on the coronavirus, as federal leaders and officials warn the country not to relax at what we all hope is the eleventh hour of the main thrust of the pandemic.
The Associated Press reports from North Carolina:
Duke University saw nearly as many cases of the coronavirus last week as it did during the entire fall semester, according to data released today.
The vast majority of the 231 new cases reported from March 8 through Sunday occurred within the university’s undergraduate student population.
welp this was a surprise to no one, given the recent disaffiliation of many fraternities from Duke into their own council, in response to being told to wait until fall 2021 for rush. And instead hold in person parties/rush events and why is Greek life still a thing?? https://t.co/SA1kgZWMh6
There's a strong reaction among Duke students after off-campus fraternity activities led to increased COVID-19 cases and a new stay-in-place order. https://t.co/mO0jdOpSxd