Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Republican opposition holds through marathon ‘vote-a-rama’
Speaker Pelosi has said measure should be law by 14 March
Joe Biden hailed “one more giant step forward on delivering on that promise that help is on the way”, after Democrats took a critical step towards a first major legislative victory since assuming control of Congress and the White House, with a party-line vote in the Senate to approve a $1.9tn coronavirus relief bill.
Biden’s $1.9tn relief package struggles through Senate but majority leaders vows passage ‘however long it takes’
A fiery speech and last-ditch effort by Bernie Sanders to secure a place for a federal minimum wage hike in the $1.9tn coronavirus relief package appeared as good as doomed on Friday, following a day that saw the flagship legislation hit grinding delays in the Senate.
Senate leaders and moderate Democratic senator Joe Manchin struck a deal late on Friday over emergency jobless benefits, breaking a nine-hour logjam.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki rejected the notion that Joe Biden was “snubbing” lawmakers by delaying his first address to a joint session of Congress.
“It’s not a snubbing happening here,” Psaki said. “We are in the middle of a global pandemic.”
"It's not a snubbing," press sec. Psaki says when asked about Pres. Biden addressing Congress.
"We are in the middle of a global pandemic...We intend on the president delivering a joint session... but we don't have a date for that." pic.twitter.com/R89HWMj6Jp
White House press secretary Jen Psaki was asked about whether Joe Biden would soon speak to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Psaki said the two leaders would speak “at some point,” but she did not give a clear sense of when that might happen.
Joe Biden’s nominee for budget director faced Republican opposition over old tweets but had also clashed with progressives
Neera Tanden’s decision to withdraw from consideration to serve as Joe Biden’s budget director marks the first major loss for the still young Biden administration, and sets off a scramble between various political factions to push through a new nominee.
FBI director Christopher Wray has said the bureau views the Capitol insurrection as a clear act of domestic terrorism. Speaking during a Senate hearing on the 6 January riots, Wray said: ‘That attack, that siege, was criminal behaviour, plain and simple, and it’s behaviour that we, the FBI, view as domestic terrorism’
A Senate official has ruled that the plan for a $15 minimum cannot be passed with only a simple majority but the fight is far from over
It was a major plank of the Democratic plan to “build back better” – raising the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $15 an hour as a way of boosting the economy during the pandemic and tackling poverty and income inequality. But on Thursday the much-vaunted plan hit a roadblock in the US Senate, which has knocked the proposal sideways.
True scope of the breach, which affected 100 companies and several federal agencies, is still unknown
Tech executives revealed that a historic cybersecurity breach that affected about 100 US companies and nine federal agencies was larger and more sophisticated than previously known.
The former Capitol police chief, Steven Sund, said during a joint hearing on security failures that the insurrectionists during the 6 January attack 'came prepared for war'.
Senators investigating the attack on the US Capitol last month heard testimony on training and equipping the Capitol police as the former police chief of that department and other security officials testified publicly for the first time Tuesday.
Testifying on Tuesday in the first congressional hearing on the US Capitol attack, the chief of Capitol police who resigned over the riot said the pro-Trump mob which stormed the building “came prepared for war”.
Democrats defended their prosecution of Donald Trump’s impeachment trial on Sunday and hinted at the possibility of criminal charges, after failing to convince enough senators the former president was guilty of inciting the deadly Capitol attack.
Donald Trump emerged from his second impeachment trial almost completely politically intact. But amid widespread laments (or celebrations, depending on the affiliation of the speaker) about the former president’s grip on the Republican party, some prominent voices suggested a changing of the guard may still be due.
Five Senate Republicans voted with the Democrats on Saturday, that the Senate should call witnesses in the impeachment trial of Donald Trump.
Before the 55-45 vote, Trump’s impeachment lawyer Michael van der Veen warned senators that if Democrats wished to call a witness, he would ask for at least 100 witnesses and insist they give depositions in person in his office in Philadelphia – a threat that prompted laughter from the chamber.
Lawyers claim Trump’s ‘fight like hell’ rhetoric on 6 January was no different than the language politicians frequently use
Impeachment lawyers for Donald Trump accused the prosecution of waging a “politically motivated witch-hunt” against the former president, vehemently denying the charge that his words and actions incited the deadly insurrection at the US Capitol as they concluded their sharply partisan defense and prepared for a swift conclusion to the trial.
Confident that Trump’s unprecedented second impeachment trial would again result in acquittal, the defense lawyers channeled the former president’s bombastic style – and his loose relationship with the facts – to denounce the case against him as an “unconstitutional act of political vengeance” fueled by Democrats’ longstanding “hatred” of their client. They claimed the House managers had grievously mischaracterized Trump’s remarks to his followers at a rally on 6 January, when he exhorted them to “fight like hell” during a rally just before they marched down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington and attacked the US Capitol.
House impeachment managers rested their case against Donald Trump on Thursday, concluding that the deadly Capitol assault he stands accused of inciting was the culmination of a presidency beset by lies and violent rhetoric, and warning gravely that he would remain a threat to American democracy if not convicted and barred from holding future office.
House impeachment managers warned that more political violence could occur if Trump is not held accountable. Representative Diana DeGette argued the vote to impeach would make sure this would never happen again.
The managers rested their case on the third day of the trial after presenting arguments for convicting Donald Trump.
Police bodycam footage showing officers under attack at the US Capitol attack has been released during the second impeachment trial for Donald Trump. Democrat congressman Eric Swalell played footage captured from the officer's perspective showing the crowd attacking police with whatever items were at hand, including crutches and a Trump flag. Swalell also revealed vision showing the evacuation of representatives including Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer being ushered away by security
New video shown during the second impeachment trial for Donald Trump has revealed Capitol police officer Eugene Goodman leading Senator Mitt Romney away from the rioters as well as the evacuation of former vice-president Mike Pence.
Representative Stacey Plaskett presented the previously unreleased security footage from the 6 January Capitol breach documenting Romney's close call as well as Pence and his family's escape as rioters chanted ‘hang Mike Pence’
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.
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.
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.
Jamie Raskin, the Democratic congressman, lead impeachment manager and constitutional law professor, fought back tears as he recounted his experience of the Capitol breach which happened the day after the death of his son. 'This cannot be our future': Raskin's 24-year-old daughter and his son-in-law were hiding in his office during the attack.
Analysis: faith in the US has been shaken and the impeachment trial is a test of accountability before a global audience
The Democratic congressman Jamie Raskin stood at the lectern, faced 100 senators and removed his black face mask to begin the historic second impeachment trial of former president Donald John Trump.