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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.
Cases could plateau at a point equivalent to summer 2020 peak, while vaccines have reached relatively few people
Public health experts encouraged Americans to continue social distancing and wearing masks at a potentially critical inflection point in the pandemic – one in which highly effective vaccines could provide relief, but fervor to reopen public life could unintentionally spread new Covid-19 variants.
The warnings come the same week Texas and Mississippi flung open the doors to normal social life in their states.
Richard Barnett, charged over January attack, complains after judge rules he must remain in jail until next court date in May
Of all the pictures that were taken during the insurrection at the US Capitol on 6 January, one of the most famous is of a man sitting on a chair with one foot on the desk of the US House speaker, Nancy Pelosi.
That man, Richard Barnett, was told by a judge on Thursday that he is to remain in jail until his next court date in May.
US president has chosen to ‘recalibrate’ relations with Saudi Arabia, but some say a rupture is required
In late 2019, as Joe Biden stood on a debate stage and boldly vowed to make Saudi Arabia a pariah if he was elected president, a little-known former aide and Middle East expert was examining what exactly a “progressive” post-Trump stance towards the oil-rich kingdom might look like.
Daniel Benaim, a policy wonk who had worked for Biden as a speechwriter, and for Hillary Clinton and John Kerry before that, first travelled to Saudi Arabia and then began interviewing dozens of Democratic and progressive policy experts to come up with a blueprint.
Royal experts predict the Duke and Duchess of Sussex will not target members of the royal family
As the world awaits Sunday’s interview with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex against a toxic canvas of bullying and smear claims, the key question must be: what should Buckingham Palace fear most?
Anticipating what will fall from the couple’s lips under Oprah Winfrey’s “no off-limits” questioning is clearly taxing those at the heart of the British monarchy.
Police say a man told investigators that he kidnapped and killed two people at officer Bryan Riser’s instruction
A Dallas police officer was arrested Thursday on two counts of capital murder, more than a year and a half after a man told investigators that he kidnapped and killed two people at the officer’s instruction in 2017, authorities said.
Bryan Riser, a 13-year veteran of the force, was arrested Thursday morning and taken to the Dallas county Jail for processing, according to a statement from the police department. Riser was not listed in online jail records Thursday evening and a lawyer for him couldn’t immediately be identified.
Texas governor Greg Abbott, who lifted face covering requirement, said it was ‘not the type of word a president should be using’
The White House has defended Joe Biden’s criticism of the Republican governors of Texas and Mississippi, after the president called their decisions to end mask mandates “Neanderthal thinking”.
Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, emphasized that the president was comparing the governors’ actions to “the behavior of a Neanderthal, just to be very clear, the behavior”. She also said Biden’s comments were “a reflection of his frustration” about Americans not following public health guidance to limit their risk of contracting coronavirus.
Is smartphone tracking a less intrusive reward for good behaviour or just a way to enrich the incarceration industry?
In 2018, William Frederick Keck III pleaded guilty in a court in Manassas, Virginia, to possession with intent to distribute cannabis. He served three months in prison, then began a three-year probation. He was required to wear a GPS ankle monitor before his trial and then to report for random drug tests after his release. Eventually, the state reduced his level of monitoring to scheduled meetings with his parole officer. Finally, after continued good behaviour, Keck’s parole officer moved him to Virginia’s lowest level of monitoring: an app on his smartphone.
Once a month, Keck would open up the Shadowtrack app and speak his answers to a series of questions so that a voice-recognition algorithm could confirm it was really him. He would then type out answers to several more questions – such as whether he had taken drugs – and the app would send his responses and location to his parole officer. Unless there was a problem, Keck would not have to interact with a human and the process could be completed during a TV ad break.
Voting legislation, which also targets gerrymandering and campaign finance, needs 60 votes in Senate to become law
House Democrats have passed sweeping voting and ethics legislation over unanimous Republican opposition, advancing to the Senate what would be the largest overhaul of the US election law in at least a generation.
House Resolution 1, which touches on virtually every aspect of the electoral process, was approved 220-210. It would restrict partisan gerrymandering of congressional districts, strike down hurdles to voting and bring transparency to a murky campaign finance system that allows wealthy donors to anonymously bankroll political causes.
Dissidents decry lack of sanctions for Mohammed bin Salman over Khashoggi killing and warn of ‘permanent impunity’ for Saudi heir
Exiled dissidents who have been warned about threats against them by Saudi Arabia said they have been put in greater danger by the Biden administration’s decision to forgo direct sanctions on Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman – even as US intelligence agencies acknowledged that he was complicit in the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.
The activists, including some who have previously been warned that they were possibly at risk of being hurt by agents of the kingdom, said in interviews with the Guardian that they believed the 35-year-old crown prince would be emboldened after the White House declined to sanction him.
Duchess of Sussex criticises ‘the firm’ in latest excerpt ahead of broadcast of full Oprah Winfrey interview
The Duchess of Sussex has claimed in a new clip of her forthcoming interview with Oprah Winfrey that the palace is “perpetuating falsehoods” about her and Prince Harry.
In the clip released on Wednesday night in the US, Meghan was asked by Oprah how she felt about the palace hearing her “speak her truth today”.
George Floyd Justice in Policing Act would ban chokeholds and qualified immunity for law enforcement, but faces tough road in the Senate
The US House of Representatives passed the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, the most ambitious police reform effort in decades, for the second time on Wednesday.
Joe Biden sharply criticized the Republican governors of Texas and Mississippi, who announced yesterday that they were rescinding their mask mandates, despite public health experts’ concerns about another surge in coronavirus cases. 'We are on the cusp of being able to fundamentally change the nature of this disease because of the way in which we are able to get vaccines in people’s arms,' Biden said. 'The last thing we need is neanderthal thinking that in the meantime, everything’s fine,' Biden said. 'It still matters.'
President said US ‘on the cusp’ of being able to change nature of Covid crisis but ‘the last thing we need is Neanderthal thinking’
Joe Biden criticized Republican governors of Texas and Mississippi on Wednesday, calling their decisions to end state-wide mask mandates “a big mistake”.
The US president said the country was on the “cusp of being able to fundamentally change the nature of this disease” with the distribution of vaccines and added: “The last thing we need is Neanderthal thinking that in the meantime, everything’s fine.”
Violence linked to the ideology has killed as many as 50 people in the US and Canada and sparked debate among counterterrorism experts and police
As attacks linked to the misogynist “incel” movement mounted in recent years, authorities around the world have begun to treat the ideology as a more serious terrorism threat.
Since 2014, men who call themselves “involuntary celibates” and blame women for their own lack of sexual and social status have carried out mass killings in California, Florida, and Toronto.
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.
The startling truth is that signing up for even basic utilities in this country has turned into a gamble for many people, particularly undocumented immigrants. Last week, the Washington Post revealed that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) has paid tens of millions of dollars since 2017 for access to a private database that contains more than “400m names, addresses and service records from more than 80 utility companies covering all the staples of modern life, including water, gas and electricity, and phone, internet and cable TV”. The information has been mined by Ice, the Post reported, for immigration surveillance and enforcement operations.
Overnight, Giovanni Russonello’s On Politics newsletter for the New York Times had a focus on voting rights restrictions that Republicans are attempting to impose across the US in the wake of their November election defeat.
There are over 250 bills pending in 43 states that would restrict access to voting. He spoke to Wendy Weiser, director of the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU’s law school, and she had this to say about the efforts:
[There are] seven times the number of restrictive voting bills we saw at the same time last year. So it is a dramatic spike in the push to restrict access to voting. It’s not brand-new this year, it wasn’t invented by Donald Trump, but it was certainly supercharged by his regressive attack on our voting systems.
Many of these bills are fueled by the same rhetoric and grievances that were driving the challenges to the 2020 election. In addition to expressly referencing the big lie about widespread voter fraud and that Trump actually won the election, they’re targeting the methods of voting that the Trump campaign was complaining about. So, for example, the single biggest subject of regressive voter legislation in this session — roughly half the bills — is mail voting.
It would create a baseline level of voter access rules that every American could rely on for federal elections. So, for example, in many states we’re seeing attempts to eliminate no-excuse absentee voting. This would require all states to offer no-excuse absentee voting. Every state would then offer that best practice of voting access, and it would no longer be manipulated, election by election, by state legislators to target voters they don’t like.
Analysis: Membership list of American Patriots Three Percent also shows widespread network of people from variety of occupations
A Guardian investigation of a website leak from the American Patriots Three Percent shows the anti-government militia group have recruited a network across the United States that includes current and former military members, police and border patrol agents.
Tanden’s letter to Biden requesting her withdrawal said:
Dear President Biden,
I am writing to you to withdraw my nomination for Director of the Office of Management and Budget. It has been an honor of a lifetime to be considered for this role and for the faith placed in me.
The withdrawal marks the first cabinet nominee by Biden to fail to get confirmation.
“I have accepted Neera Tanden’s request to withdraw her name from nomination for Director of the Office of Management and Budget,” Biden said in a statement. “I have the utmost respect for her record of accomplishment, her experience and her counsel, and I look forward to having her serve in a role in my Administration. She will bring valuable perspective and insight to our work.”
New York governor has avoided public appearances this week
State attorney general to investigate allegations against Cuomo
New York governor Andrew Cuomo has avoided public appearances for days as some members of his own party call for him to resign over sexual harassment allegations.
The governor hasn’t taken questions from reporters since a 19 February briefing, an unusually long gap for a Democrat whose daily, televised updates on the coronavirus pandemic were must-see TV last spring.