Category Archives: US Senate

Bob Menendez refuses to quit and says $480,000 in cash was for personal use

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New Jersey senator strikes defiant tone to reporters and accuses some of ‘rushing to judge a Latino and push him out of his seat’

Insisting he would not resign after being indicted on corruption charges, the embattled New Jersey Democratic senator Bob Menendez told reporters that $480,000 in cash found in a safe, clothing and closets at his home was kept there for emergency personal use.

“For 30 years,” Menendez said, “I have withdrawn thousands of dollars in cash from my personal savings accounts, which I have kept for emergencies and because of the history of my family facing confiscation in Cuba.”

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New Jersey senator Menendez rejects calls from fellow Democrats to resign

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Robert Menendez urged to step down after being charged with accepting bribes, including gold bars, in exchange for favors

Several Democrats including his own state governor are calling on their fellow party member Robert Menendez to resign after federal authorities charged the New Jersey US senator and his wife with accepting bribes. However, the defiant senator has rejected those claims and is refusing to step down.

Authorities on Friday revealed charges alleging that Robert and Nadine Menendez illegally accepted gold bars, cash, a luxurious Mercedes-Benz car and other gifts in exchange for favors benefiting three businessmen as well as influencing the Egyptian government.

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‘Not accurate’: Republican wrong to say Montana has more bears than people

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Expert says Senate candidate Tim Sheehy’s estimate wildly off as there are 1.12 million people in state and ‘nowhere close to that number of bear’

In the compendium of false claims, an offering from Tim Sheehy, a Montana 2024 Republican Senate candidate, is readily disprovable.

In an interview with Breitbart, the former Navy Seal observed that the state, which he referred to as “flyover country”, did not typically have much in political power – a situation that could change with the balance of power in the US Senate races next year.

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Senate subpoenas Saudi’s $700bn sovereign wealth fund over US dealings

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Chamber’s investigations committee is targeting the PIF after refusing to voluntarily comply with requests for disclosure

Saudi Arabia’s $700bn sovereign wealth fund – which has been used as a lever of global influence by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman – has been subpoenaed by a powerful Senate committee after it refused to voluntarily comply with information requests about its US dealings.

The subpoena, which was issued by the Senate’s permanent subcommittee on investigations, is targeting the Public Investment Fund’s wholly-owned US subsidiaries in connection to the group’s proposed golf deal and “related investments throughout the United States”.

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Updated Covid vaccines approved by US medical regulator – live

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FDA approval makes way for vaccines targeting XBB.1.5 sub-variant to be rolled out

Joe Biden’s national security tour of south-east Asia reached Hanoi, Vietnam, on Sunday, where the president called for stability in the US-China relationship against an increasingly complex diplomatic picture in the region for his country.

“I don’t want to contain China,” Biden said.

I just want to make sure that we have a relationship with China that is on the up and up, squared away, everybody knows what it’s all about.

On the one hand, we’ve got to pass a continuing resolution. We also have the impeachment issue. And we also have members of the House, led by my good friend, Chip Roy, who are concerned about policy issues. They want riders in the appropriations bills, amendments in the appropriations bills that guarantee some type of security on our Southern border.

There is not a strong connection at this point between the evidence on Hunter Biden and any evidence connecting the president.

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Mitch McConnell rejects speculation about future amid concerns over health

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Republican Senate leader, 81, says he will finish term as signs emerge of uncertainty over his future in GOP ranks

Mitch McConnell rejected speculation about his future as Republican leader in the US Senate, telling reporters: “I’m going to finish my term as leader and I’m going to finish my Senate term.”

The remarks on Wednesday came amid intense speculation about the 81-year-old Kentucky senator’s health, after two recent freezes in front of reporters, one on Capitol Hill in July and another in McConnell’s home state last week.

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Health concerns plague ageing Congress members returning to Capitol Hill

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Republicans Mitch McConnell and Steve Scalise join others in increased scrutiny over recent health issues

Lawmakers are returning to Capitol Hill as they race to reach a short-term funding deal by the end of the month to keep federal agencies open and avert a government shutdown. But worries about the health of two top Republicans loom over the high-stakes talks as politicians’ age has become a growing concern.

Speaking to reporters last week in Kentucky, Mitch McConnell, the 81-year-old Senate Republican leader, appeared to freeze for 30 seconds after calling the possibility of a shutdown “a pretty big mess”. The incident raised questions about his health and mirrored an earlier incident where he suddenly paused for several seconds while speaking to reporters at the US Capitol.

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Proud Boys former leader Enrique Tarrio in court for January 6 sentencing – live

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Prosecutors are seeking a 33-year prison term for seditious conspiracy

There is “no evidence” that Mitch McConnell experienced a seizure or stroke when he froze up last week, the Capitol’s physician Brian Monahan told the top Senate Republican in a letter today:

McConnell last week appeared suddenly unable to speak when taking questions reporters, the second such occurrence in as many months following a fall earlier this year that sidelined him from work for several weeks. The episodes have raised concerns about the health of 81-year-old McConnell, a fixture in Republican politics.

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Mitch McConnell did not have stroke or seizure, Capitol doctor says

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Brian Monahan suggests Republican leader in US Senate, 81, may be suffering effects of concussion sustained during fall in March

Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the US Senate, is not evidently suffering from “a seizure disorder”, a stroke or a “movement disorder such as Parkinson’s disease”, the congressional physician said on Tuesday.

The doctor’s remarks came a little less than a week after the 81-year-old senator suffered a second worrying freeze in front of reporters.

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Mitch McConnell appears to freeze again for more than 30 seconds

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Republican Senate minority leader, 81, had a similar but shorter incident several weeks ago

The Republican leader in the US Senate, Mitch McConnell, experienced another public health scare on Wednesday when he appeared to freeze for more than 30 seconds while speaking to reporters in his home state, Kentucky.

McConnell, 81, was eventually escorted away by staff, footage from an NBC News affiliate showed.

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Trump should drop out of 2024 presidential race, says Republican

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Senator Bill Cassidy says ‘he will lose to Joe Biden’ as ex-president faces more than 90 pending charges

Donald Trump should drop out of the 2024 race for the White House because polling shows the former US president trailing Joe Biden as he grapples with more than 90 pending criminal charges, according to Republican US senator Bill Cassidy.

Cassidy’s comments to State of the Union host Kasie Hunt were not the first time he has denounced Trump. About two months earlier, he went on CNN and predicted that Trump would lose if his party nominated him to run for the Oval Office again, citing the poor performance of his endorsed candidates during the 2022 midterms.

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Joe Manchin expected to skip Biden event as he weighs leaving Democrats

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US Democratic senator will reportedly miss anniversary of Inflation Reduction Act, Biden’s landmark climate legislation

The West Virginia Democratic senator Joe Manchin is expected to skip a prominent White House celebration of one of Joe Biden’s signature legislative achievements, NBC reported, as he considers leaving his party – and perhaps running for president himself.

Next week, the Biden administration will celebrate the first anniversary of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), a healthcare, climate and tax reform package Joe Biden hailed on signing as “the biggest step forward on climate ever”.

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Senator Dianne Feinstein hospitalized after falling in her home

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California senator, 90, was only in hospital for ‘an hour or two’, spokesperson told the Chronicle

The California US senator Dianne Feinstein, 90, was hospitalized on Tuesday evening after suffering a fall in her home, a spokesperson said.

“Senator Feinstein briefly went to the hospital yesterday afternoon as a precaution after a minor fall in her home,” a spokesperson said in a statement. “All of her scans were clear and she returned home.”

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Democrat calls on Biden to stop ‘racists’ in Israeli government from ‘land grab’

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Senator Chris Van Hollen says president should reassess military aid to Israel in light of extreme rightward tilt of government

A leading Democratic senator has called on Joe Biden to “get more personally engaged” in stopping “racists” in the Israeli government from a land grab in the occupied territories and committing “gross violations” of Palestinian rights or risk damage to the US’s credibility.

After a visit to Israel and the West Bank last month, Chris Van Hollen of Maryland told the Guardian in an interview that the US president should begin by reassessing the US’s huge military aid to Israel to prevent it from being used to facilitate annexation of the West Bank and oppression of the Palestinians, including the army’s complicity in escalating settler violence against the Arab civilian population.

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Nikki Haley suggests Mitch McConnell should step aside amid health concerns

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Presidential hopeful makes comment after Senate Republican leader, 81, froze and was unable to speak this week

Presidential hopeful Nikki Haley has suggested her fellow Republican Mitch McConnell – the longtime powerful US Senate leader – should step aside after an episode in which he physically froze and was unable to speak at the Capitol this week.

Appearing on CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday, Haley was asked by the host Margaret Brennan whether she still had confidence in McConnell’s ability to lead after the episode.

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Alito ‘stunningly wrong’ that Senate can’t impose supreme court ethics rules

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Senator Chris Murphy dismisses Justice Samuel Alito’s claims that Senate has ‘no authority’ to regulate the supreme court

Senator Chris Murphy has dismissed claims by the supreme court justice, Samuel Alito, that the Senate has “no authority” to create a code of conduct for the court as “stunningly wrong”.

The Connecticut Democrat made those remarks in an interview on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday, adding that Alito “should know that more than anyone else because his seat on the supreme court exists only because of an act passed by Congress”.

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Republican congressman rebuked by senators for swearing at young pages

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Bipartisan disapproval for Derrick Van Orden, who yelled and cursed at school-age Senate helpers during late-night Capitol tour

A freshman Republican congressman from Wisconsin yelled and cursed at high school-aged Senate pages during a late-night tour of the Capitol this week, eliciting a bipartisan rebuke from Senate leaders.

Derrick Van Orden, who represents western Wisconsin’s third district, used a profanity to describe the young pages as lazy and another to order them off the floor of the Capitol Rotunda on Wednesday night, according to PunchBowl News. The pages were lying down to take photos, according to the publication.

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Mitch McConnell should step down as Senate minority leader after freezing, GOP senator says

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Questions remain around mental fitness of Republican Senate leader, 81, after health scare in public earlier this week

Mitch McConnell, the 81-year-old Republican leader in the US Senate who suffered a public health scare this week, should step down from the role he has filled since 2007, an unnamed GOP senator said.

McConnell, from Kentucky, remains “intellectually sharp” on “a whole host of issues including baseball”, the anonymous senator told NBC News.

Reuters contributed to this report

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Mitch McConnell abruptly stops mid-sentence during press conference

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Senate Republican leader appeared to lose train of thought and stared for 20 seconds before being escorted away from podium

The Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, briefly left his own press conference on Wednesday after stopping his remarks mid-sentence and staring off into space for several seconds.

McConnell approached the podium for his weekly press conference and began speaking about the annual defense bill on the floor, which he said was proceeding with “good bipartisan cooperation”. But he then appeared to lose his train of thought, trailing off with a drawn-out “uh”.

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Kamala Harris says claiming slavery had some benefit is ‘propaganda’ being pushed on US children – as it happened

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Vice-president condemns ‘extremist so-called leaders’ in speech in Florida speech amid outcry over new school board guidance

For decades, US politicians have been reluctant to get involved in the topic of UFOs and aliens.

After a series of disclosures in recent months, however, Republicans and Democrats now appear to be lining up to inquire into the question of extraterrestrial life, as the world seems closer than ever to finding out whether we are alone in the universe.

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