Category Archives: US Politics

Bipartisan group of US senators push for compromise on gun control legislation – as it happened

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In more midterms news, independent Tiffany Bond of Maine has secured enough verified signatures to qualify for a spot on the ballot this November, according to the Press Herald.

This upends one of the most closely-watched races of the cycle: a rematch between Democratic congressman Jared Golden and former Republican congressman Bruce Poliquin for Maines second congressional district.

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Clinton lawyer acquitted of lying to FBI when he briefed them on Trump-Russia links – as it happened

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Jury’s verdict is setback for special counsel John Durham’s search for alleged misconduct in investigation of Trump’s 2016 campaign

• Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer acquitted of lying to the FBI

US supreme court clerks may be required to hand over phone records – report

• ‘We have to do something’: calls mount for Texas gun control laws after latest deadly attack

• Trump aide Peter Navarro ordered to testify before grand jury over January 6

In an unprecedented move, US supreme court clerks may be required to release their phone records as the investigation into who leaked the Roe v Wade opinion draft widens.

The possible mandated release of private cell records and signed affidavits, reported by CNN, is reportedly causing some clerks to consider retaining legal counsel.

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Austin resolution aims to ‘decriminalize’ abortion if Roe v Wade is overturned

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Group of city council members seeks to protect patients from criminal prosecution if supreme court ends abortion rights

A group of Austin, Texas city council members is preparing a resolution to “decriminalize” abortion there in the event the US Supreme Court overturns Roe v Wade, a landmark case decided nearly five decades ago that protects the federal right to terminate a pregnancy.

An unprecedented leaked supreme court draft decision showed a conservative majority of the nine justices are open to reversing Roe v Wade entirely. If that happened, 26 states would be certain or likely to ban abortion, including in Texas. The state has a “trigger” ban that would almost immediately ban abortion.

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Timeline of how Texas school shooting unfolded

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Massacre in Uvalde began on Tuesday 24 May with a single shot

The mass shooting at Robb elementary school in the small city of Uvalde, south Texas, began on Tuesday 24 May with a single shot.

An 18-year-old local man, who just a few weeks before had reached the age where he could legally buy a military-style assault rifle, sent ominous social media messages pre-dawn, including telling someone he was going to shoot his grandmother.

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Trump calls Capitol attack an ‘insurrection hoax’ as public hearings set to begin

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Former president intensifies attacks on Liz Cheney at Wyoming rally and endorses her Republican primary challenger in midterm elections

As the House committee investigating the attack on the US Capitol by extremist supporters of Donald Trump prepares to start public hearings next week, the former president called the insurrection on January 6, 2021, a hoax.

Trump spoke at a rally in Wyoming on Saturday night in support of the Republican primary challenger in the midterm elections to congresswoman Liz Cheney. Cheney sits on the committee and has been vilified by Trump since she voted in favor of his historic second impeachment over the insurrection.

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DoJ launches investigation into police response to Uvalde school shooting

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Inquiry comes amid anger over why officers waited over an hour outside the classroom where the gunman killed 21 people

The US government on Sunday announced a federal investigation into the police response to the mass shooting at a Texas school five days ago as anger mounted over why armed officers waited more than one hour in the hall outside the classroom where the gunman killed 19 children and two teachers and wounded others.

The US Department of Justice said it will conduct a “critical incident review” of the law enforcement action in the small south Texas city of Uvalde last Tuesday.

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‘Do something!’: Biden visits Uvalde after mass shooting as onlookers urge him to take action

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President and first lady seek to comfort community as DoJ launches investigation into police response to school shooting

Joe Biden on Sunday visited Uvalde, Texas, seeking to comfort a community devastated by the latest American mass shooting, which claimed the lives of 19 elementary school children and two teachers.

The visit marked the second presidential visit related to a massacre within two weeks following a racist attack in Buffalo, New York, as Democrats in Washington offered tentative hope of bipartisan gun reform legislation in Congress.

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Democrats rush to push gun safety laws after mass shootings as Republicans stall

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New York governor seeks to ban people under 21 from buying assault rifles, while California governor intends to sign restrictions, including the right to sue gun manufacturers

With Republicans stonewalling for years on any significant federal gun safety legislation, some states are now rushing to take steps themselves following large-scale shootings in New York and Texas this month.

Democrats in some blue states are making fresh efforts to reinvigorate proposals toward what gun control advocates call “evidence-based policy interventions”.

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‘Too much fear, too much grief’: Biden visits Uvalde amid scrutiny of police response to shooting

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Kamala Harris calls for ban on assault weapons after attending last funeral of those killed in Buffalo attack

Joe Biden lamented “too much violence, too much fear, too much grief” after the latest US mass shooting as he prepared to visit Uvalde, where police face intensifying scrutiny for waiting outside the classroom where a teenage gunman with an assault rifle killed 19 children and two teachers.

The US president and first lady, Jill Biden, arrived in Uvalde, Texas, on Sunday morning, both dressed in black. They visited the informal memorial of flowers and notes that has accumulated outside Robb elementary school, where the carnage took place last Tuesday.

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Texas officials deflect questions on ‘missing hour’ when gunman was in school – as it happened

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Chris Murphy, the Democratic Connecticut senator who delivered a powerful “What are we doing?” gun law plea to the chamber in the immediate aftermath of the Texas shooting, will address the media a little later this morning with progress report on bipartisan talks.

Murphy is leading his party’s efforts to get enough Republican senators on board to pass some kind of firearms control measures, and met last night with Susan Collins of Maine and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, as well as a group of fellow Democrats, Politico reports.

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Outrage as NRA to gather in Houston just days after Texas school massacre

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Counter-protests expected as about 55,000 NRA members to attend event, including Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and Greg Abbott

Just days after the deadliest mass school shooting in Texas history, the National Rifle Association (NRA) – America’s leading gun lobbyist group – will meet a few hours away in Houston on Friday.

Ashton P Woods says they are not welcome in his hometown.

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Georgia primaries deliver blow to Trump’s grip on Republican party – live

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Several candidates who supported the ex-president’s big lie of election fraud were defeated but the Maga wing also had successes

Texas Democratic congressman Henry Cuellar was still locked in a tight primary runoff race with progressive challenger Jessica Cisneros on Wednesday, but “the Squad” is already angry, regardless of the result.

New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, among the most prominent of the party’s progressive wing in Congress, called out its leaders for backing the anti-abortion, pro-gun Cuellar over Cisneros.

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Texas school shooting: gunman was inside for 40 minutes, officials say – updates as they happened

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This blog is now closed. Click here for full coverage of the shooting at the Robb elementary school in Uvalde

As the US begins to reflect on the events of yesterday as it begins to wake up, several politicians have made calls to action or asked pressing questions. Tulsi Gabbard, who ran for the Democratic party presidential nominations in 2020, said:

We grieve for the 21 who were killed in Texas today. But grieving is not enough—we could have, and must now, take commonsense actions to prevent these tragedies, like establishing single points of entry into schools, armed guards, trained staff, mental health services & more.

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Five key takeaways: the US midterm elections

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Races from Georgia to Texas were a litmus test of Donald Trump’s hold on the Republican party with some significant losses

Brian Kemp, the Republican governor of Georgia, defeated former Senator David Perdue, who had been endorsed by Donald Trump. Perdue’s loss marked a significant defeat for Trump’s reputation as a kingmaker in the Republican party, as the former president has used the power of his endorsement to wield influence over candidates and lawmakers.

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Capitol rioter who sprayed police with fire extinguisher sentenced to three years

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Matthew Ryan Miller from Maryland draped himself in a far right-affiliated flag and used a barricade as a ladder to scale walls

A Maryland man who draped himself in a far right-affiliated flag and sprayed a fire extinguisher at police during the deadly Capitol attack on January 6 has been sentenced to nearly three years in prison, according to federal court records.

Matthew Ryan Miller, 23, pleaded guilty in February to felony obstruction of an official proceeding – that day’s joint congressional session to certify Joe Biden’s win over Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election – as well as assaulting, resisting or impeding police officers.

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Joe Biden says US recession ‘is not inevitable’ despite rampant inflation – live

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Poll finds 77% of Americans ‘pessimistic’ about cost of goods and services in coming months

• US would defend Taiwan if attacked by China, says Joe Biden

• Capitol attack panel to hold six public hearings

• Sign up to receive First Thing – our daily briefing by email

The House select committee investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol is expected to stage six public hearings in June on how Donald Trump and some allies broke the law as they sought to overturn the 2020 election results, according to sources familiar with the inquiry.

The hearings are set to be a pivotal political moment for the country as the panel aims to publicly outline the potentially unlawful schemes that tried to keep the former president in office despite his defeat at the hands of Joe Biden.

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Shapiro: ‘Dangerous’ Republican rival Mastriano could override will of voters

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Democratic nominee for Pennsylvania governor says if Mastriano wins he could wield power to choose his own slate of electors and overturn presidential election results

Josh Shapiro, who was nominated this week as the Democrats’ candidate for governor in the electorally critical state of Pennsylvania, has accused his Republican rival of intending to override the democratic will of voters and pick his own winners in future elections.

Shapiro launched his attack on Doug Mastriano in an interview on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday. He called Mastriano, a far-right state senator, “dangerous and divisive” and warned that were he to become Pennsylvania’s governor he could wield power to choose his own slate of presidential electors as a means of overturning the results of the 2024 presidential election.

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Arkansas Republican admits abortion trigger law would cause ‘heartbreak’ if Roe is reversed

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Governor Asa Hutchinson signed near-total abortion ban bill, even though he disagreed with the lack of exceptions for incest and rape

The Republican governor of Arkansas, Asa Hutchinson, has admitted that an anti-abortion trigger law that he signed on to the books would lead to “heartbreaking circumstances” if Roe v Wade is overturned, in which girls as young as 11 who became pregnant through rape or incest would be forced to give birth.

Hutchinson’s remarks give a revealing insight into the twisted human and political quandaries that are certain to arise should the US supreme court, as expected, destroy the constitutional right to an abortion enshrined in Roe v Wade when it issues its ruling next month. The governor told CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday that in 2019 he had signed the Arkansas trigger law, Senate Bill 6, which would ban almost all abortions the instant Roe were reversed, even though he disagreed with its lack of exceptions for incest and rape.

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Baby formula shipment arrives from Europe, providing ‘some relief’ for US families

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Biden economic adviser says US to see more baby formula on shelves as 70,000lb of product lands in Indianapolis on Sunday

A top White House economic adviser on Sunday said he was hopeful there would be more baby formula on American store shelves this upcoming week, especially after a plane full of the product arrived from an airbase in Germany.

Brian Deese, the director of the National Economic Council, told CNN State of the Union host Dana Bash that the plane carrying 70,000lb of baby formula – enough for half a million bottles – from Ramstein airbase in Germany which landed in Indianapolis on Sunday morning should cover about 15% of the product’s nationwide shortage. About 45% of baby formula products were out of stock across the US last week, according to figures that Bash cited during her interview of Deese, who didn’t dispute them.

“We’re going to see more formula … in stores starting as early as this week,” said Deese, adding that the incoming Nestlé product was “a specialty medical grade formula, the type that we most need in this market”.

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Russia bans 963 Americans from entering country

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List includes Biden and other senior officials, but not Trump, as country says it is retaliating against what it calls hostile US actions

Russia on Saturday released a list of 963 Americans it said were banned from entering the country, a punctuation of previously announced moves against president Joe Biden and other senior US officials.

The country, which has received global condemnation for its 24 February invasion of Ukraine, said it would continue to retaliate against what it called hostile US actions, Reuters reported.

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