Category Archives: US Politics

Senate Democrats given green light to vote on $430bn climate and tax bill

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Senate arbiter rules bill can bypass filibuster and be passed with simple majority, setting stage for ‘vote-a-rama’ next week

US Senate Democrats on Saturday were set to push ahead on a bill that would address key elements of President Joe Biden’s agenda, tackling climate change, lowering the cost of energy and senior citizens’ drugs and forcing the wealthy to pay more taxes.

A Senate rulemaker determined that the lion’s share of the $430bn bill could be passed with only a simple majority, bypassing a filibuster rule requiring 60 votes in the 100-seat chamber to advance most legislation and enabling Democrats to pass it over Republican objections, majority leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement.

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Democrats reach deal to pass major climate bill after Sinema says yes – as it happened

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Amy Weirich, a Memphis prosecutor with a checkered record who is best known for cracking down on a woman just for trying to register to vote, has lost her re-election bid. As Sam Levine reports:

Amy Weirich, the Memphis prosecutor who stirred national outrage for bringing criminal charges against a Black woman for trying to register to vote, has lost her re-election bid.

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What does the US-China row mean for climate change?

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Analysis: breakdown of cooperation between world’s two biggest greenhouse gas emitters over Taiwan could spell disaster for global warming targets

China’s decision to halt cooperation with the US over the climate crisis has provoked alarm, with seasoned climate diplomats urging a swift resumption of talks to help stave off worsening global heating.

On Friday, Beijing announced a series of measures aimed at retaliating against the US for the “egregious provocation” of Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the US House of Representatives, visiting Taiwan. China, which considers Taiwan its territory and has launched large-scale military exercises near the island, said it will stop working with the US on climate change, along with other key issues.

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Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones ordered to pay $4.1m over false Sandy Hook claims

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Far-right Infowars owner faced defamation trial for repeatedly saying the school shooting was a hoax

The jury in Alex Jones’s defamation trial on Thursday ordered the far-right conspiracy theorist to pay $4.1m in damages over his repeated claims that the deadly Sandy Hook school shooting was a hoax.

Jurors in Austin, Texas, gave their verdict after deliberating about one hour Wednesday and seven hours Thursday at the end of a nine-days-long trial. The verdict levied against Jones was far below the $150m or more the plaintiffs had requested that jurors award them.

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Hungary’s far-right PM Viktor Orbán speaks at CPAC summit – as it happened

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Griner has been sentenced to nine years in prison, Bloomberg reports:

A court in Russia has found Brittney Griner, an Americans women’s basketball star, guilty of drug smuggling, Reuters reports.

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US Senate overwhelmingly approves Nato membership for Finland and Sweden

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In 95-1 vote, body supports ‘slam-dunk for national security’ after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine

The US Senate delivered near-unanimous bipartisan approval to Nato membership for Finland and Sweden on Wednesday, calling expansion of the western defensive bloc a “slam-dunk” for US national security and a day of reckoning for Vladimir Putin.

The 95-1 vote for the candidacy of two European countries that, until Russia’s war against Ukraine, had long avoided military alliances took a crucial step toward expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and its 73-year-old pact of mutual defense among the United States and democratic allies in Europe.

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Kansas’s vote to protect abortion rights upends US midterm elections – as it happened

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Following her visit to Taiwan and China’s furious response, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has reiterated her commitment to standing up for the country and said it’s shared by lawmakers across the US Congress.

“Our Congressional delegation’s visit should be seen as a strong statement that America stands with Taiwan. We came to Taiwan to listen to, learn from and show our support for the people of Taiwan, who have built a thriving Democracy that stands as one of the freest and most open in the world,” Pelosi said in a statement after the trip.

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China to begin series of unprecedented live-fire drills off Taiwan coast

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Island accuses Beijing of planning to breach sovereign territory in wake of controversial visit by Nancy Pelosi

China is to begin a series of unprecedented live-fire drills that would effectively blockade the island of Taiwan, just hours after the departure of US House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, whose controversial visit this week has sparked fears of a crisis in the Taiwan strait.

Taiwan has characterised the drills, which will last until Sunday afternoon – and will include missile tests and other “military operations” as close as nine miles to Taiwan’s coastline – as a violation of international law.

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Kansas votes to protect abortion rights in state constitution

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Kansas is the first state to put abortion rights to a vote since the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade

Kansans secured a huge win for abortion rights in the US on Tuesday night when they voted to continue to protect abortion in the state constitution.

The race was called by a host of US groups including NBC News, the New York Times and Decision Desk HQ.

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Nancy Pelosi tells President Tsai US will not abandon Taiwan – as it happened

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Another area of tension lies between the US and Russia, which Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov has ratcheted up again this morning.

On his daily call with the media, Peskov said any talks on a possible prisoner exchange involving US basketball star Brittney Griner needed to be discreet, and that “megaphone diplomacy” would not achieve results, Reuters reports.

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Justice department sues Idaho over state’s near-total abortion ban

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Lawsuit is DoJ’s first piece of litigation aimed at protecting abortion access since the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade

The Biden administration’s Department of Justice is suing Idaho over the state’s near-total abortion ban, set to take effect on 25 August.

The lawsuit is the justice department’s first piece of litigation aimed at protecting abortion access since the US supreme court in June overturned the landmark Roe v Wade decision that established federal abortion rights nearly 50 years earlier.

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Putin’s reported girlfriend Alina Kabaeva hit with US sanctions

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Kabaeva, 39, former rhythmic gymnast the Kremlin denies is romantically involved with Putin, has assets frozen by US treasury

Vladimir Putin’s purported lover has been hit with sanctions from the US government’s treasury department over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Alina Kabaeva, 39, landed on the latest update to the federal Office of Foreign Assets Control’s specially designated nationals list, freezing any of her assets in the US and generally prohibiting Americans from dealing with her.

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How Ayman al-Zawahiri’s ‘pattern of life’ allowed the US to kill al-Qaida leader

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After a decades-long hunt the simple habit of sitting out on the balcony gave the CIA an opportunity to launch ‘tailored strike’

In the end it was one of the oldest mistakes in the fugitive’s handbook that apparently did for Ayman al-Zawahiri, the top al-Qaida leader killed, according to US intelligence, by a drone strike on Sunday morning: he developed a habit.

The co-planner of the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington in 2001 had acquired a taste for sitting out on the balcony of his safe house in Sherpur, a well-to-do diplomatic enclave of Kabul. He grew especially fond of stepping out on to the balcony after morning prayers, so that he could watch the sun rise over the Afghan capital.

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Democrats prepare for showdown over key spending and climate bill – as it happened

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Antony Blinken, secretary of state, said at global nonproliferation discussions at the United Nations today that a return to the 2015 nuclear deal remains the best outcome for the United States, Iran and the world.

Reuters is reporting that Blinken made a point to repeat a warning from the US that North Korea is preparing to conduct its seventh nuclear test.

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Joe Manchin hails expansive bill he finally agrees to as ‘great for America’

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Rewritten $739bn bill, now called the Inflation Reduction Act, that tackles US debt and the climate crisis could pass Senate this week

West Virginia Democratic senator Joe Manchin on Sunday hailed the legislation he almost killed off, calling the rewritten $739bn bill he agreed to last week to pay down US debt and tackle the climate crisis “great for America”.

Manchin, on a tour of all five Sunday morning TV politics talk shows, told CBS’s Face the Nation that the energy and climate deal he’s now supporting will tackle inflation because it will be “aggressively producing more energy, to get more supply, to get the prices down”.

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Biden under ‘strict isolation measures’ as he continues to test positive for Covid

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President feels well, White House says, after he tests positive only days after he tested negative

Joe Biden continued to test positive for coronavirus on Sunday and will “continue his strict isolation measures” his physician said.

The US president feels well, the White House said. Biden tweeted about the economy and about regretting being unable to meet in person to commiserate with military veterans and their families visiting Capitol Hill in support of a long-awaited bipartisan bill that would expand healthcare access for those exposed to toxic burn pits.

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How Bernie Sanders and conservatives united against US semiconductor bill

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Vermont senator opposed ‘corporate welfare’ to firms paying huge salaries to executives – but Chips and Science Act passed Congress

When it comes to alliances in Washington, few are as unlikely as the common ground the democratic socialist senator Bernie Sanders briefly found with the Heritage Foundation and Americans for Prosperity, two architects of conservative policies across the United States.

Yet that is what happened this week when Sanders, a Vermont independent who caucuses with the Democrats, made a lonely and unsuccessful stand against a $280bn bill funding scientific research and, controversially, giving computer chip manufacturers financial incentives to build more production in the United States – one that rightwing groups also encouraged lawmakers to make.

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Lucas Kunce: ‘Populism is about everyday people coming together’

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Former US Marine with a progressive take on identity and masculinity hopes Missouri Democrats will pick him as their nominee for US Senate

Lucas Kunce thinks populism has been given a bad name. “It’s outrageous,” he says, “that people call the Josh Hawleys, the Eric Greitens, the Donald Trumps of the world populist. Populism is about everyday people coming together to have power in a system that’s not working for them. So do that, Josh Hawley. I mean, good Lord, what a charlatan.”

Kunce is running for the Democratic nomination for US Senate in Missouri, in the fight to take the state’s second seat in Washington, alongside Hawley. The primary is on Tuesday.

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Jared Kushner: I stopped Trump attacking Murdoch in 2015

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In forthcoming memoir, obtained by the Guardian, former adviser claims to have made hugely consequential intervention

In a forthcoming memoir, Jared Kushner says he personally intervened to stop Donald Trump attacking Rupert Murdoch in response to the media mogul’s criticism, at the outset of Trump’s move into politics in 2015.

In the book, Breaking History, Kushner writes: “Trump called me. He’d clearly had enough. ‘This guy’s no good. And I’m going to tweet it.’

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House-passed assault weapons ban appears to be doomed in the Senate

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Bill would require support from at least 10 Senate Republicans, and it isn’t certain that all 50 Democratic senators are onboard

The assault weapons ban in America passed by the House appears set to be doomed in the Senate amid implacable Republican opposition to gun reform, even in the wake of a series of mass shootings in the US.

The legislation in the House, which would ban assault weapons for the first time since 2004, is interpreted as a sign that Democrats plan more aggressive gun violence prevention after a series of mass shootings using the military-derived weapons, including in Buffalo, New York, and Uvalde, Texas.

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