Month: February 2021

Lowering Covid-19 cases across the US isn’t only critical to helping prevent another surge fueled by variants — it also makes vaccines more likely to continue working effectively against mutations, one expert says. “The best thing we could possibly do to improve the chances that the vaccine will continue working as we’re hoping it will,

West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin has privately informed President Joe Biden that he won’t join any Democratic efforts to force through provisions in his economic rescue package if they are ruled in violation of strict Senate budget restrictions, the latest warning sign for Biden’s push for a hike to the federal minimum wage. Manchin’s declaration

On Tuesday night, President Joe Biden joined CNN’s Anderson Cooper for a town hall in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The conversation spanned everything from immigration to White supremacist violence to student loan debt to Covid-19, and Biden struck a markedly different tone than his predecessor. He was polite and empathetic. He was thoughtful, if at times a

President Joe Biden made it clear during Tuesday night’s CNN town hall that he disagrees with other members of his party who want to cancel $50,000 of student debt per borrower. “I will not make that happen,” Biden said after a member of the audience said his proposal to cancel $10,000 per borrower doesn’t go

President Joe Biden on Sunday called on Congress to institute “commonsense gun law reforms,” including widespread firearm sales background checks and a ban on assault weapons — highlighting an “epidemic of gun violence” in the US on the third anniversary of the deadly Parkland school shooting. “Today, I am calling on Congress to enact commonsense

President Joe Biden on Tuesday reflected on the “sense of history” he feels as a new resident of the White House and suggested he has spoken with his predecessors, but cited one notable exception. Asked whether he has called any former presidents, Biden told CNN’s Anderson Cooper during a town hall in Milwaukee: “Yes, I

Former President Donald Trump went after Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on Tuesday, calling him “a dour, sullen, and unsmiling political hack” in a broadside attack just days after the Kentucky Republican voted to acquit Trump in his second impeachment trial. After that vote, McConnell ripped Trump in a speech from the Senate floor, and

The Biden administration, in concert with Hill Democrats, is preparing to unveil legislation this week that seeks to provide a pathway to citizenship to the 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States. For decades, lawmakers have tried to reform the US immigration system and fallen short. The latest effort will similarly be a

Former President Donald Trump and attorney Rudy Giuliani are being accused of conspiring with the far-right groups Proud Boys and Oath Keepers to incite the January 6 insurrection in a civil lawsuit filed Tuesday in federal court by the Democratic chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee. The suit cites a post-Civil War law designed

President Joe Biden said teachers should move ahead in the line to receive shots in order to reopen schools, attempting to clarify an administration stance that he acknowledged had become muddled over the last week. Speaking at a CNN town hall from Milwaukee during his first trip outside Washington since taking office, Biden said he

The Biden administration on Tuesday announced it had approved a possible $197 million sale of missiles to Egypt, just days after the Egyptian government is said to have detained family members of a US-based Egyptian American human rights activist. The State Department said in a news release that the proposed sale of the missiles and

President Joe Biden is working to “recalibrate” the American relationship with Saudi Arabia, White House press secretary Jenn Psaki said Tuesday, and plans to communicate with Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud instead of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. “We’ve made clear from the beginning that we’re going to recalibrate our relationship with Saudi Arabia,”

Former President Donald Trump’s longtime personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, is “not currently representing President Trump in any legal matters,” senior Trump adviser Jason Miller told CNN on Tuesday. The former New York City mayor was the face of Trump’s failed bid to overturn the presidential election results, but his legal work with the former President

Former Sen. David Perdue of Georgia filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission on Monday evening to be a 2022 US Senate candidate, the first step in a potential comeback bid after a bruising loss in a runoff election last month. Perdue is leaning toward launching another campaign, according to a person familiar with his

President Joe Biden will answer questions at a CNN town hall in Milwaukee on Tuesday night, less than a month after taking office. The “CNN Presidential Town Hall with Joe Biden” will be moderated by Anderson Cooper and will air live at 9 p.m. ET. The town hall comes as the Biden administration continues its

President Joe Biden, no longer encumbered by his predecessor’s impeachment trial and eager to seize the national spotlight, will bring the case for his massive coronavirus relief plan to the country on Tuesday when he participates in a CNN town hall at 9 p.m. ET in Milwaukee. Biden’s first work trip outside Washington since taking

Former President Donald Trump’s longtime personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, is “not currently representing President Trump in any legal matters,” senior Trump adviser Jason Miller told CNN on Tuesday. The former New York City mayor was the face of Trump’s failed bid to overturn the presidential election results, but his legal work with the former President

A federal judge in California blocked a Trump-era rule that went into effect just a day before Joe Biden took office and sought to dramatically limit the ability of Central American migrants to claim asylum in the United States The regulation, which prohibited migrants who have resided in or traveled through third countries from seeking

Egyptian authorities raided multiple homes and detained family members of Egyptian-American human rights activist Mohamed Soltan, his organization, the Freedom Initiative, said on Tuesday. A lawyer for Soltan, who now lives in the United States after almost two years in prison in Egypt, said the arrests were part of a campaign against the family to

The former chair of the 9/11 commission former New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean said on CNN that there was not an agreed upon set of facts at the start of the commission into September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, providing important context on where a new commission under consideration into the violent insurrection at the Capitol

The House Democrats’ Covid relief bill would reduce household federal tax bills by an average of $3,100 each this year, according the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. The tax savings for individuals would come from four major provisions in the legislation advanced by the House Ways and Means Committee last week: The $1,400 stimulus payments, which