Senators meet Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy who praises US bipartisan support for his country
The US Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, has joined the growing list of US politicians making visits to Kyiv, it emerged on Saturday
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy welcomed McConnell’s visit as a powerful signal of bipartisan support for Ukraine.
Continue reading...Psaki’s final White House briefing continues.
“I promised myself I wouldn’t get emotional,” she says. She succeeds.
Continue reading...Billie Eilish and Megan Thee Stallion denounce likely overturning of abortion rights: ‘We will not go back – and we will not back down’
Ariana Grande, Billie Eilish, Megan Thee Stallion, Olivia Rodrigo and Selena Gomez joined a slew of fellow music stars and other celebrities to take out a full-page advertisement in Friday’s New York Times decrying the looming fall of nationwide abortion rights.
“The supreme court is planning to overturn Roe v Wade,” read the ad, referring to the landmark 1973 ruling that in effect legalized abortion across the US. “Our power to plan our own futures and control our own bodies depends on our ability to access sexual and reproductive health care, including abortion.”
Continue reading...Before taking its decision, the select committee gamed out scenarios: what happens if Republicans defy the subpoenas?
The House select committee investigating the Capitol attack made a political and legal gambit when it issued unprecedented subpoenas that compelled five Republican members of Congress to reveal inside information about Donald Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election.
The move sets into motion an extraordinary high-stakes showdown of response and counter-response for both the subpoenaed House Republicans – the House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, Jim Jordan, Scott Perry, Andy Biggs and Mo Brooks – and the panel itself.
Continue reading...Democratic and Republican Senate leaders both supported package but Paul objected to scale of spending
The top Democrat and Republican in the US Senate joined forces in a rare moment of unity on Thursday in an attempt to pass $40bn in aid for Ukraine, only to be stymied by a single Republican lawmaker: the Kentucky libertarian Rand Paul.
Faced with the prospect of an extended delay for the package that passed the House of Representatives on Tuesday, the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, and his Republican counterpart, Mitch McConnell, sought to move forward on the aid package only to be blocked by Paul, a fiscal hawk who objects to the amount of spending proposed.
Continue reading...A baseball signed by Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has sold at auction for more than $50,000, the Associated Press reports, with a portion going to Ukrainians displaced in the war with Russia.
Boston auctioneer RR Auction said the winning bid for the Rawlings Major League baseball was more than three times its estimate. The company will donate its $15,000 cut of the sale, while seller Randy Kaplan will also donate an undisclosed portion of his proceeds.
Continue reading...Chair Bennie Thompson says panel has been ‘forced to take this step’ as Kevin McCarthy complains investigation ‘not legitimate’
The House select committee investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol has issued unprecedented subpoenas to five Republican members of Congress, seeking to compel their cooperation with the inquiry into Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
The select committee empowered the chairman, Bennie Thompson, to move ahead with subpoenas to the House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, Jim Jordan of Ohio, Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, Andy Biggs of Arizona and Mo Brooks of Alabama.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Influential delegation likely to underline Biden’s commitment to defend Good Friday agreement
A delegation of influential US congressmen will fly to London within days amid growing concern in the White House about spiralling tensions over the Northern Ireland protocol, the Guardian can reveal.
With the UK government poised to table legislation next week which could revoke parts of the protocol, arrangements are being made for at least half a dozen representatives from the US Congress to fly to Europe for a series of meetings in Brussels, Dublin, London and Belfast.
Continue reading...Final tally was 49-51, with all Republicans and one conservative Democrat, Joe Manchin, voting against the measure
The US Senate on Wednesday failed to advance legislation that would codify the right to an abortion into federal law, after it was blocked by Republicans.
It was a largely symbolic vote by Democrats to mobilize Americans around the issue ahead of a likely supreme court decision striking down the protections enshrined by Roe v Wade.
Continue reading...Crystal Mason was sentenced to five years in prison for casting a provisional ballot in the 2016 election
A Texas appeals court must reconsider its decision to uphold a five-year conviction for Crystal Mason, the Texas woman sentenced to prison for casting a provisional ballot in the 2016 election, the state’s highest criminal court ruled on Wednesday.
Mason showed up to the polls to vote in 2016, while on supervised release – which is similar to probation – for a federal tax felony. She cast a provisional ballot at the urging of election workers, which was ultimately rejected because people with felony convictions in Texas cannot vote while they are serving any part of a federal sentence.
Continue reading...Majority leader Chuck Schumer says Senate vote is among most important of the century even though it will fail to pass
• Pro-choice states rush to pledge legal shield for out-of-state abortions
• Mitch McConnell says Senate Republicans couldn’t pass abortion ban
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We’ve heard a lot about the “rival” abortion rights bill pushed by Republican senators Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, and they’ve just released a joint statement explaining why they believe their reproductive rights act is preferable to the Democratic Women’s Health Protection Act they’ll vote against in the Senate this afternoon.
“I support codifying the abortion rights established by Roe v Wade. That’s not what the women’s health protection act would do,” Collins, of Maine, said in the statement.
Continue reading...Consumer price index reveals costs rising by a monthly rate of 0.3% in April, down from 1.2% in March, the first fall since August 2021
Price rises slowed in the US in April but the annual inflation rate remained close to a 40-year high, leaving many Americans struggling to afford necessities including food, shelter and fuel.
The latest consumer price index (CPI) figures – which measure a broad range of goods and services – showed prices rising by a monthly rate of 0.3% in April, down from 1.2% in March, the first fall since August 2021.
Continue reading...President says he understands American’s frustration with Democrats, who control all three branches of government: ‘I don’t blame them’
After his remarks, Biden lingered at the podium to take a few questions on the topic of inflation. (He dismissed off-topic questions, including one about abortion rights.)
Asked whether he believed his agenda was to blame or had contributed to rising costs, he said his policies have “helped not hurt” the economy.
Americans have a choice right now between two paths, reflecting two very different sets of values. My plan attacks inflation and grows the economy by lowering the costs for working families, giving workers well-deserved raises, reducing the deficits by historic levels, and making big corporations and the very wealthiest Americans pay their fair share. The other path is the ‘ultra-MAGA’ plan put forward by Congressional republicans to raise taxes on American families , lower the income of American workers, threaten sacred programs Americans count on like social security, medicare and medicaid, and give break after break to big corporations and billionaires just like they did the last time in power when their top priority was the reckless $2tn tax cut the majority of that going to the wealthiest Americans which ballooned the deficit and not a penny of it was paid for,” the president said.
Continue reading...Nancy Pelosi has assailed Republicans in her weekly “Dear Colleague” letter to fellow Democrats, saying once Roe v Wade abortion protections are overturned, basic human rights will be next.
In the missive, the House speaker says it is “urgent and essential” that Democrats share with the American public the “dangers of the Republican agenda” in the wake of the supreme court’s draft ruling ending almost half a century of constitutional abortion protections:
Republican state legislators across the country are already advancing extreme new laws, seeking to arrest doctors for offering reproductive care, ban abortion entirely with no exceptions, and even charge women with murder who exercise their right to choose.
These draconian measures could even criminalize contraceptive care, in vitro fertilization and post-miscarriage care, dragging our nation back to a dark time decades into the past.
Continue reading...Surprise trip on Mother’s Day as Biden meets with Ukraine’s first lady, Olena Zelenskiy
US first lady Jill Biden made an unannounced visit to western Ukraine on Sunday, holding a surprise Mother’s Day meeting with the nation’s first lady, Olena Zelenskiy, as Russia presses its punishing war in the eastern regions.
US president Joe Biden has not visited the country, though he expressed a desire to when he was in Poland this spring, following Russia’s invasion in February, but at that time Russian tanks were advancing on the capital, Kyiv, and he hinted that his security advisers held him back.
Continue reading...New York Democrat urges her party to stand up to concerted efforts from Republicans seeking to abolish constitutional right
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand on Sunday called the battle over abortion rights in the US the “biggest fight of a generation”.
The New York Democrat urged her party to stand up to Republicans seeking to abolish the constitutional right, and called the draft US supreme court opinion leaked last week, revealing a conservative-leaning super-majority supports overturning the landmark 1973 Roe v Wade decision, “bone-chilling”.
Continue reading...New measures are primarily intended to close loopholes in existing sanctions and to tighten the noose around Russian economy
The US has unveiled a new layer of sanctions on Russia, targeting services, Russia’s propaganda machine and its defence industry on the eve of Vladimir Putin’s planned Victory Day parade.
The new measures were announced as leaders from the G7 group of industrialised democracies held a virtual summit with Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy in a show of solidarity.
Continue reading...Secretary of state Brad Raffensperger accepts judge’s findings and says far-right congresswoman, a Trump ally, is eligible to run
The Georgia secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, has accepted a judge’s findings and said the far-right Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene is qualified to run for re-election.
A group of voters filed a challenge saying Greene should be barred under a seldom-invoked provision of the 14th amendment concerning insurrection, over her links to the January 6 attack on the US Capitol by supporters of Donald Trump.
Continue reading...Here are more pictures from Jill Biden’s trip to Romania and Slovakia, where she will visit with Ukraine refugees over Mother’s Day weekend.
In addition to serving food, Biden also brought ketchup for personnel stationed overseas, as many have run out of different comforts from home like the condiment.
Continue reading...Swing state Democrats are calling for a defense of abortion rights and Republicans doubling down on ending them
As the US waits to see whether the supreme court will follow through on its provisional decision to end the federal right to abortion, Democrats and Republicans are already preparing for how a reversal of Roe v Wade would affect the 2022 midterm elections.
Republicans have been heavily favored to retake control of the House and probably the Senate as well, but the court’s forthcoming final opinion in the crucial Mississippi case now before it, Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, could alter those predictions.
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