Category Archives: Biden administration

Impeachment trial: Trump’s defense team expected to keep arguments brief – live

Posted on by

As we gear up for Trump’s lawyers to present their defense, here’s a handy clip of congressman Jamie Raskin, the lead impeachment manager, making the case that Trump incited his supporters on January 6.

Yesterday Raskin wrapped up the House’s case against the president, asking senators:

Rep. Raskin: Trump HAS incited violence before. Roll the tape pic.twitter.com/tpavGBooXG

Some people online are getting very excited about events at the White House, where Jill Biden has installed some heart-shaped signs ahead of Valentine’s Day.

Overnight, the First Lady’s surprise Valentine messages to the country were installed on the north lawn of the White House for the weekend! Happy Valentines, America...from @FLOTUS pic.twitter.com/HPHjFbDfhD

President Biden: "#ValentinesDay is a big. Jill's favorite day. For real."

Q: "What inspired you to do this?"@FLOTUS: "I just wanted some joy. With the pandemic, just everybody's feeling a little down. So, it's just a little joy. A little hope. That's all." pic.twitter.com/JW0S1cclNO

Continue reading...

Coronavirus live: France advises single vaccine dose for those who had Covid; Germany shut parts of land border

Posted on by

French health authority will give one jab to previously infected people; Germany to ban travel from Czech border regions and Austria’s Tyrol

Reuters reports:

The French government has no plans for now to order local lockdown measures in the eastern area of Moselle to rein in the spread of highly contagious Covid-19 variants, health minister Olivier Veran said on Friday.

Veran told reporters that a high number of cases of the South African Covid-19 variant had been found in the region.

The World Health Organizations’ director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has discussed US support for COVAX vaccines:

I so appreciated today’s call with @CDCDirector Dr. Rochelle Walensky on our organizations' enduring partnership. It was good to discuss ‘s support for @ACTAccelerator and COVAX, #VaccinEquity, prioritizing robust public health systems, and our partnership to #EndPolio. pic.twitter.com/LVba0R3aFq

Continue reading...

Saudi Arabia’s release of Loujain al-Hathloul an overture to Biden

Posted on by

Analysis: Mohammed bin Salman views the move as an attempt to engage the new US administration

As Loujain al-Hathloul marked her first day outside prison in nearly three years, Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader, Mohammed bin Salman, was bracing for a reaction from Washington to what amounts to a peace offering on his part.

Prince Mohammed views the decision to release the women’s rights activist as an attempt to belatedly engage the new administration, whose strident tone on human rights issues in its early weeks of office has all but conditioned a working relationship with Riyadh on righting the wrongs of the Trump years.

Continue reading...

Trump impeachment: Senate to hear prosecution arguments against former president – live

Posted on by

Prosecutors in Fulton county, Georgia, have reportedly launched a criminal investigation of Donald Trump’s phone call to Brad Raffensperger, the Republican secretary of state, about the presidential election.

The New York Times reports:

On Wednesday, Fani Willis, the recently elected Democratic prosecutor in Fulton County, sent a letter to numerous officials in state government, including Mr. Raffensperger, requesting that they preserve documents related to Mr. Trump’s call, according to a state official with knowledge of the letter. The letter explicitly stated that the request was part of a criminal investigation, said the official, who insisted on anonymity to discuss internal matters.

The inquiry makes Georgia the second state after New York where Mr. Trump faces a criminal investigation. And it comes in a jurisdiction where potential jurors are unlikely to be hospitable to the former president; Fulton County encompasses most of Atlanta and overwhelmingly supported President Biden in the November election.
The Fulton County investigation comes on the heels of a decision Monday by Mr. Raffensperger’s office to open an administrative inquiry.

Related: 'I just want 11,780 votes': Trump pressed Georgia to overturn Biden victory

House impeachment managers are preparing to introduce new visual evidence during their presentation on Wednesday, as the trial begins in earnest following a vote to move forward with the proceedings.

The Democratic managers will lay out their case for why Donald Trump should be impeached, arguing that the former president committed “the most heinous constitutional crime possible” according to a senior aide on the impeachment manager’s team.

Continue reading...

Outcry as more than 20 babies and children deported by US to Haiti

Posted on by

Ice accused of sending ‘defenseless babies into the burning house’ as deportations of 72 carried out in apparent breach of Biden order

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) deported at least 72 people to Haiti on Monday, including a two-month-old baby and 21 other children, in an apparent flagrant breach of the Biden administration’s orders only to remove suspected terrorists and potentially dangerous convicted felons.

The children were deported to Haiti on Monday on two flights chartered by Ice from Laredo, Texas to the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince. The removals sent vulnerable infants back to Haiti as it is being roiled by major political unrest.

Continue reading...

Is big tech now just too big to stomach?

Posted on by

The Covid crisis has turbo-charged profits and share prices. But are the big six now too powerful for regulators to ignore?

The coronavirus pandemic has wrought economic disruption on a global scale, but one sector has marched on throughout the chaos: big tech.

Further evidence of the industry’s relentless progress has come in recent weeks with the news that Apple and Amazon both raked in sales of $100bn (£72bn) over the past three months – 25% more than Tesco brings in over a full year.

Continue reading...

Biden: Trump should not receive intelligence briefings due to his ‘erratic behavior’

Posted on by

Biden says predecessor shouldn’t have access to briefings, which are traditionally offered to presidents even after leaving office

Joe Biden has said that he doesn’t believe his predecessor, Donald Trump, should have access to any intelligence briefings due to his “erratic behavior”.

Continue reading...

House passes budget resolution, paving way for Covid relief – US politics live

Posted on by

The House has just passed the Senate-approved budget resolution, paving the way for the chamber to take up Joe Biden’s coronavirus relief proposal in the coming weeks.

The House voted 219-209 along mostly partly lines to approve the resolution as amended by the Senate. Jared Golden was the only Democrat to vote against the measure.

The rule for S.Con.Res. 5 – Setting forth the congressional budget for the US Gov't for FY 2021 & setting forth the appropriate budgetary levels for FY 2022-2030 was adopted by a vote of 219-209.

S.Con.Res. 5 is hereby passed.

Marjorie Taylor Greene, fresh from being stripped of her committee assignments, seemed unrepentant on Friday morning, as she used a press conference to sum up the intertwining of the Republican party and Donald Trump.

“The party is his – it doesn’t belong to anyone else,” Greene told reporters in Washington this morning.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) on Trump and the GOP Party:

"The party is his. It doesn’t belong to anybody else." pic.twitter.com/XOL8VzRicW

Continue reading...

Yemenis give cautious welcome to US shift in policy on conflict

Posted on by

Joe Biden’s decision to end support for Saudi-led coalition seen as important step towards peace

Yemenis have cautiously welcomed Joe Biden’s announcement that the US is ending its support for the Saudi-led coalition fighting in the country’s complex war, saying the decision is an important step on the long road towards finding a peaceful solution to the conflict.

In his first foreign policy speech as president on Thursday, Biden announced a broad reshaping of US relations with the rest of the world, including his predecessor Donald Trump’s unquestioning support for Gulf monarchies with poor human rights records at home and abroad.

Continue reading...

House votes to strip Republican extremist Marjorie Taylor Greene of committee assignments – live

Posted on by

Here’s a recap of the day, from me and Joan E Greve:

Covid is killing Native Americans at a faster rate than any other community in the United States, shocking new figures reveal.

American Indians and Alaskan Natives are dying at almost twice the rate of white Americans, according to analysis by APM Research Lab shared exclusively with the Guardian.

Related: Exclusive: indigenous Americans dying from Covid at twice the rate of white Americans

Continue reading...

Exclusive: Ice cancels deportation flight to Africa after claims of brutality

Posted on by
  • Ice agents allegedly forced asylum seekers to agree to expulsion
  • Flight was due to leave from Louisiana at 3pm on Wednesday

US immigration and customs enforcement (Ice) canceled a deportation flight to west Africa because of allegations of brutality by Ice agents in the treatment of the deportees, the agency has said in a statement.

The statement emailed to the Guardian and the cancellation of the deportation flight, so that would-be deportees can be interviewed as witnesses, marks a dramatic change in tone by the agency, which has hitherto deflected and denied earlier allegations of human rights abuses.

Continue reading...

US ‘deeply disturbed’ by reports of systematic rape in China’s Xinjiang camps

Posted on by

State department says ‘atrocities’ against detained Uighur and Muslim women in region must be ‘met with serious consequences’

The United States government is “deeply disturbed” by reports of systematic rape and sexual torture of women detained in China’s Xinjiang camps for ethnic Uighur and other Muslims, and demanded serious consequences.

The US state department was responding to a BBC report, published on Wednesday, detailing horrific allegations rape, sexual abuse and torture, based on interviews with several former detainees and a guard. The interviewees told the BBC “they experienced or saw evidence of an organised system of mass rape, sexual abuse and torture”.

Continue reading...

Republicans clash over futures of Marjorie Taylor Greene and Liz Cheney – live

Posted on by

The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said she did not believe the vaccination of all teachers was required to safely reopen US schools.

Dr Rochelle Walensky told reporters at the White House coronavirus briefing, “Vaccination of teachers is not a prerequisite for safe reopening of schools.”

Dr Rochelle Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, encouraged people to safely watch the Super Bowl game this Sunday.

“Please watch the Super Bowl safely, gathering only virtually or with the people you live with,” Walensky said during the White House coronavirus briefing.

Continue reading...

Biden pledges to ‘undo moral shame’ of Trump era with new orders on immigration – live

Posted on by

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) has been denounced as a “rogue agency” after new allegations of assaults on asylum seekers emerged, and deportations of African and Caribbean migrants continued in defiance of the Biden administration’s orders.

Joe Biden unveiled his immigration agenda on Tuesday, and his homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas was confirmed by the Senate, but the continued deportations suggested the Biden White House still does not have full control of Ice, which faces multiple allegations of human rights abuses and allegations that it has disproportionately targeted black migrants.

Related: New claims of migrant abuse as Ice defies Biden to continue deportations

A hastily executed transfer of nearly 200 people in California’s prison system set off a public health disaster that endangered the lives of thousands of prisoners and staff and led to dozens of deaths, according to a new report from the state’s office of the inspector general (OIG).

The report published on Monday, the third in a series examining the Covid-19 catastrophe in California state prisons, details the circumstances of a May 2020 transfer of 189 people from the California Institute for Men (CIM) in Chino, California, to San Quentin state prison in the Bay Area and Corcoran state prison in the Central Valley.

Related: California prison transfer led to dozens of deaths and endangered thousands – state watchdog

Continue reading...

New claims of migrant abuse as Ice defies Biden to continue deportations

Posted on by

Ice condemned as ‘rogue agency’ after rights groups allege torture by agents and man deported to Haiti who had never been there

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) has been denounced as a “rogue agency” after new allegations of assaults on asylum seekers emerged, and deportations of African and Caribbean migrants continued in defiance of the Biden administration’s orders.

Joe Biden unveiled his immigration agenda on Tuesday, and his homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas was confirmed by the Senate, but the continued deportations suggested the Biden White House still does not have full control of Ice, which faces multiple allegations of human rights abuses and allegations that it has disproportionately targeted black migrants.

Continue reading...

‘A moral and national shame’: Biden to launch taskforce to reunite families separated at border

Posted on by

President decries Trump administration that ‘literally ripped children from the arms of their families’ as he signs executive orders

Joe Biden plans to create a taskforce to reunify families separated at the US-Mexico border by the Trump administration, as part of a new series of immigration executive actions signed at an Oval Office ceremony on Tuesday.

Biden condemned Donald Trump’s immigration policies as a “stain on the reputation” of the US.

Continue reading...

US to resume deporting asylum seekers after judge rejects Biden order

Posted on by

Trump-appointed judge ruled against president’s 100-day suspension, raising questions over whether Ice will resist reform

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) is preparing to resume deportations of asylum seekers after a Trump-appointed Texas judge ruled against a 100-day suspension ordered by Joe Biden.

The ruling, in response to a challenge from a leading figure in the Republican effort to overturn the election result, marks the first shot in a legal rearguard action by Trump loyalists intended to stymie the Biden administration’s agenda.

Continue reading...

Biden and Harris to meet Republican senators to push for Covid aid package – live

Posted on by

The group of Senate Republicans who will meet with Joe Biden today have proposed their own $600 billion coronavirus relief package.

A package of that size would be about one-third as large as the relief legislation that Biden has proposed.

This is Joan Greve in Washington, taking over for Martin Belam.

Here’s what the blog is keeping an eye on today: The president and the vice-president will meet with a group of Republican senators to discuss a coronavirus relief bill.

Related: Biden promised bold action. Will his efforts to compromise get in the way?

Continue reading...

Biden team scrambles to find 20m vaccine doses Trump reportedly failed to track

Posted on by

Officials work to pinpoint doses in pipeline between federal distribution and administration by states

The Biden administration has spent its first week in office attempting to manually track down 20m vaccine doses in the pipeline between federal distribution and administration at clinic sites, when a dose finally reaches a patient’s arm.

The Trump administration’s strategy pushed the response to the coronavirus pandemic to individual states and omitted pipeline tracking information between distribution and when the shot is actually administered, Biden administration officials told Politico.

Continue reading...