Agreement ends months of defiance from president’s son, who had insisted on testifying publicly
Hunter Biden has agreed to appear before House Republicans for a private deposition next month, ending months of defiance from the president’s son, who had insisted on testifying publicly.
The House oversight committee announced on Thursday that the two parties have come to an agreement for Hunter Biden to sit for a deposition on 28 February.
Continue reading...Non-brand-name drugs are one inexpensive part of the healthcare system but they’re driving some manufacturers out of business
Generic drugs are the singularity of American healthcare – they are too cheap. And it’s driving some manufacturers out of business altogether.
Drug prices regularly sparks recrimination and outrage on Capitol Hill, such as a recently announced investigation by Senate Democrats and Bernie Sanders into the price of albuterol inhalers.
Continue reading...Revealed: review of internal state department documents shows special mechanisms have been used to shield Israel from US human rights laws
Top US officials quietly reviewed more than a dozen incidents of alleged gross violations of human rights by Israeli security forces since 2020, but have gone to great lengths to preserve continued access to US weapons for the units responsible for the alleged violations, contributing – former US officials say – to the sense of impunity with which Israel has approached its war in Gaza.
An estimated 24,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed by Israeli forces since Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, a death toll that has spurred condemnation of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US president Joe Biden, who has been criticized for failing to rein in Israel’s “indiscriminate” bombing of Gaza.
Continue reading...Florida governor and Republican presidential candidate concedes country has faced ‘challenges’ over dealing with race
The hard-right Florida governor Ron DeSantis says the US is “not a racist country”, echoing a controversial claim by Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor who is also trying to deny Donald Trump the Republican presidential nomination.
“Well, the US is not a racist country,” DeSantis told a CNN town hall this week in New Hampshire. “And we’ve overcome things in our history. You know, I think the founding fathers – they established a set of principles that are universal.”
Continue reading...New discussions with president’s son’s attorneys could lead to him testifying in the near future
Efforts by House Republicans to hold Hunter Biden in contempt of Congress appear to be in suspension following new discussions with his attorneys that could lead to the president’s son testifying in the near future.
The development follows Biden’s surprise appearance at a congressional oversight committee meeting last week during which the Republicans complained he was refusing to make himself available in defiance of their subpoena for closed-door testimony.
Continue reading...Trump’s victory in Iowa intensifies skepticism that any of his opponents will be able to overtake him in the Republican primary
Donald Trump will continue on to the New Hampshire primaries more confident than ever about capturing the Republican nomination after the former president secured a 30-point win in the Iowa caucuses on Monday.
Trump won 51% of the vote in Iowa, giving him the largest margin of victory in the history of the state’s Republican caucuses, further securing his position as the Republican frontrunner who will face President Joe Biden in November. Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor, secured a distant second-place finish with 21% of the vote, while Nikki Haley, a former South Carolina governor and UN ambassador, trailed in third place with 19%. The entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who came in fourth, dropped out of the race following his disappointing performance, as did the former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson.
Continue reading...Former Arkansas governor, a stalwart conservative, was willing to sharply criticize Donald Trump
The former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson, a stalwart conservative willing to sharply criticize Donald Trump, has suspended his beleaguered bid for the White House the day after the Iowa caucuses.
“My message of being a principled Republican with experience and telling the truth about the current front runner did not sell in Iowa,” he said in a statement. “I stand by the campaign I ran. I answered every question, sounded the warning to the GOP about the risks in 2024 and presented hope for our country’s future.”
Continue reading...Kamala Harris reminds voters of Trump’s role in overturning Roe v Wade as unstated core of campaign is Biden can beat him again
Top Democrats did not react to Donald Trump’s crushing win in the Iowa caucuses on Monday with the dismay that might have been expected. Instead, the victory of the twice-impeached, 91-times criminally charged former president was heralded as an early beginning to the battle for the White House itself.
Called early, Trump’s victory came by 30 points over the hard-right Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, who edged the former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley for second. Only one of 99 Iowa counties did not go for Trump: Johnson county, which includes the University of Iowa, was won by Haley, the relative moderate left in the race – by a single vote.
Continue reading...Former US president beats Republican rivals in first state to choose their Republican candidate
Florida senator Marco Rubio formally endorsed Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign on Sunday, effectively snubbing his state’s own governor Ron DeSantis.
In a social media post, Rubio cited his work with Trump to expand child tax credit as well as sanctions placed on Cuba and Venezuela as reasons for throwing his support behind the former president. Rubio added:
I support Trump because that kind of leadership is the ONLY way we will get the extraordinary actions needed to fix the disaster Biden has created.
Continue reading...US vice-president speaks at South Carolina event honoring the civil rights leader, urging voters to ‘roll up our sleeves’
Kamala Harris issued a plea to Black voters on Martin Luther King Jr Day to join with Democrats to win the 2024 election and to stave off what she said were threats to US democracy posed by Republicans who look set to overwhelmingly back Donald Trump at their first state nomination contest today in Iowa.
The US vice-president, the headliner at the NAACP’s annual King Day at the Dome event in Columbia, South Carolina, said that freedom in the country is under “profound threat”, and cited the supreme court’s overturning of Roe v Wade, long lines for voting, Republican-backed book bans and the prevalence of gun violence.
Continue reading...Republican presidential candidate makes final appearance in Iowa hours ahead of caucuses
Vivek Ramaswamy, the biotech entrepreneur who has gone all in on Iowa to jumpstart his presidential bid, urged supporters not to believe the polls during a final appearance at a Cedar Rapids brewery hours ahead of Monday night’s caucuses.
Ramaswamy has visited all 99 counties in Iowa twice and even rented an apartment in Des Moines during the final stretch of the campaign. He said on Monday he had done nearly 400 events in the state.
Continue reading...Latest polls place Donald Trump as clear frontrunner for party’s nomination in first round of voting in 2024 primary
Iowa Republicans braved brutally cold temperatures on Monday evening to participate in the state’s presidential caucuses, as Donald Trump remains the clear frontrunner in the race for his party’s nomination.
The caucuses began at 7pm CT and marked the first round of voting in the 2024 presidential primary. They will offer the most tangible insight yet into whether any of Trump’s primary opponents, particularly the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, and the former UN ambassador Nikki Haley, have managed to diminish his significant polling advantage in the race. Trump has maintained that advantage for months, even as he has been charged with 91 felony counts across four criminal cases.
Continue reading...Hunter Walker and Luppe B Luppen, authors of The Truce, quote former staffers to vice-president in scathing assessment
Considering Kamala Harris’s fitness to take over from Joe Biden should the need arise, a top aide to the former California senator’s 2020 campaign said: “This person should not be president of the United States.”
The withering assessment, given after Harris was picked for vice-president in 2020, is reported in The Truce: Progressives, Centrists and the Future of the Democratic Party, by the reporters Hunter Walker and Luppe B Luppen. The book will be published in the US on 24 January 2024. The Guardian obtained a copy.
Continue reading...Event, briefly interrupted by young climate protesters, overshadows those of former president’s Republican rivals
It was a melancholy farewell. Three years ago this week, Donald Trump departed on Air Force One for the last time as Frank Sinatra’s My Way blared from loudspeakers. The outgoing US president was defeated, disgraced and seemingly down and out.
Amid the snowy plains of Iowa, however, Trump is set to pull off one of the most improbable of all political comebacks. On Sunday, he held a campaign rally more akin to a victory lap in a state where Republican caucus-goers look certain to back him for a swift return to the White House.
Continue reading...The former South Carolina governor wins over Republicans who see another Donald Trump presidential term as ‘chaos’
One day before the Iowa caucuses, Nikki Haley addressed an energized crowd at a barbecue restaurant in Ames, just a few miles from Iowa State University. Despite the freezing temperatures, the room was filled to capacity with campaign volunteers, journalists and a few undecided caucus-goers.
“This is truly cold,” Haley said. “But we’re going to keep on going anywhere and everywhere. We’re going to go all the way until the last hour because we know what situation we’re in.”
Continue reading...US media reports congressional leaders have agreed on a ‘continuing resolution’, which extends deadlines
US congressional leaders have agreed on a two-tranche stopgap spending bill to keep the federal government funded into March and avert a partial government shutdown starting late next week, US media reported on Saturday.
Politico, CNN and Punchbowl reported that congressional leaders have agreed on what is called a “continuing resolution” or “CR”, that would fund the government – extending two deadlines through 1 March and 8 March. The media outlets reported that House of Representatives Republicans will unveil the plan Sunday night.
Continue reading...Kerry’s office announced the news on Saturday after he had informed his staff and spoken with Biden earlier in the week
John Kerry, the United States’ special climate envoy and former secretary of state and presidential contender, plans to leave the Biden administration later this winter and switch to helping Joe Biden campaign to be re-elected to the White House, Kerry’s office said.
Kerry informed his staff earlier on Saturday after speaking with Biden this week, a spokesperson for Kerry told Reuters.
Continue reading...Letter accuses ex-president of intending to ‘sow chaos’ next week, while Trump ordered to pay New York Times nearly $400,000
Donald Trump’s legal woes continued to mount as a lawyer in an upcoming defamation case asked a judge to ensure the former president does not disrupt imminent legal proceedings – and, in a separate issue, he was ordered to pay nearly $400,000 in legal fees to the New York Times.
In the first of those two cases, a lawyer for E Jean Carroll – a columnist who last year won a $5m jury award against Trump for sexual abuse – urged a judge to take strong measures to ensure Trump does not “sow chaos” when a new jury considers next week if he owes even more in damages.
Continue reading...President’s son switches gears and says he will speak to Congress members seeking to impeach his father
Hunter Biden offered on Friday to comply with any new subpoena and testify in private before House Republicans seeking to impeach his father over alleged but unproven corruption, an attorney for Joe Biden’s son said.
“If you issue a new proper subpoena, now that there is a duly authorised impeachment inquiry, Mr Biden will comply for a hearing or deposition,” Abbe Lowell wrote to James Comer and Jim Jordan, the Republican chairs of the oversight and judiciary committees.
Continue reading...Critics on left and right furious that president failed to seek congressional approval for strikes against Houthi militants
A bipartisan chorus of lawmakers assailed Joe Biden for failing to seek congressional approval before authorizing military strikes against targets in Yemen controlled by Iranian-backed Houthi militants, reigniting a long-simmering debate over who has the power to declare war in America.
The US president announced on Thursday night that the US and the UK, with support from Australia, Canada, the Netherlands and Bahrain, had launched a series of air and naval strikes on more than a dozen sites in Yemen. The retaliatory action was in response to relentless Houthi attacks against commercial shipping in the Red Sea since the start of Israel’s war in Gaza.
Continue reading...