Author: Chris LAVOIE

Three Texas House Democrats who fled the state have tested positive for coronavirus while in Washington, D.C., the Texas House Democratic Caucus said in a statement on Saturday.

Over 50 House Democrats from the state left on Monday to break quorum in the chamber. In doing so, they prevented Republicans from advancing proposals to change the state’s election laws, which include empowering poll watchers in the state and proposing new criminal and civil penalties for election workers, along with other legislative items in the special session.

Read the rest of the story at Politico

President Joe Biden said it’s “deeply disappointing” that a federal judge in Texas has ruled the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program as unlawful, and said the Department of Justice will appeal the decision.

“While the court’s order does not now affect current DACA recipients, this decision nonetheless relegates hundreds of thousands of young immigrants to an uncertain future,” Biden said in a statement on Saturday.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

The group of 10 bipartisan infrastructure negotiators was already having trouble coming up with ways to pay for nearly $600 billion in planned new spending, but Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer setting a Wednesday deadline for a key test vote on their bill turned up the heat and pressure significantly.

“That’s pretty aggressive. That means we have a lot of work to do,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, a key GOP negotiator, announcing that she and her colleagues would be working through the weekend to try to finish up the details of their $1.2 trillion plan.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

Public health officials will reinstate an indoor mask mandate for residents of the most populous county in the nation as coronavirus cases rise just one month after the state reopened its economy.

Fueled by the quickening spread of the delta variant, the mask ordinance will go into effect late Saturday and will apply to everyone regardless of vaccination status. Exceptions will apply, but those were not immediately clear Thursday. The Public Health Department said it will release full guidance no later than Friday.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

COVID-19 deaths and cases are on the rise again globally in a dispiriting setback that is triggering another round of restrictions and dampening hopes for a return to normal life.

The World Health Organization reported Wednesday that deaths climbed last week after nine straight weeks of decline. It recorded more than 55,000 lives lost, a 3% increase from the week before.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

Most eligible families in the U.S. will get their first monthly payments of the expanded child tax credit Thursday.

The payments, which were included in the American Rescue Plan, change an existing tax credit by expanding the eligibility pool and increasing the money families get. Under the expanded credit, the IRS, also for the first time, offers the option to receive the payments monthly, rather than in a lump sum as a tax refund.

The expanded payments are expected to dramatically decrease the number of children living in poverty; the White House estimates that child poverty could be reduced by as much as 50 percent.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

For the first time in Senate history, Democrats on Wednesday will move toward ending the federal prohibition on cannabis, removing it from the federal list of controlled substances. It’s a move sponsors hope will also end the disproportionate harm that has been done to communities of color.

To date, some 18 states have legalized the recreational use of marijuana and 37 states, along with the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands, now allow the medical use of the drug.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

President Joe Biden on Tuesday decried Republican efforts to limit ballot access across the country as a “21st century Jim Crow assault,” while warning Americans that the GOP push to restrict voting and “selfish” challenge of the 2020 election results were “the most significant test of our democracy since the Civil War.”

“There is an unfolding assault taking place in America today, an attempt to suppress and subvert the right to vote in fair and free elections, an assault on democracy, an assault on liberty, an assault on who we are as Americans,” Biden said at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

Former Trump attorney Sidney Powell and her legal team clashed repeatedly with a federal judge Monday during a hearing to determine if sanctions are warranted against her and other attorneys who filed a lawsuit in Michigan based on false claims of election fraud in an unsuccessful attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and the City of Detroit have requested that Federal Judge Linda V. Parker sanction Powell, attorney Lin Wood, and other members of the legal team that were involved in the efforts to have Michigan’s presidential election returns decertified due to unsubstantiated claims of voting irregularities.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

U.S. health officials, after meeting with vaccine maker Pfizer, reiterated on Monday that Americans who have been fully vaccinated do not need to get a booster shot, a spokesperson for the Health and Human Services Department said.

Pfizer said last week it planned to ask U.S. regulators to authorize a booster dose of its COVID-19 vaccine, based on evidence of greater risk of infection six months after inoculation and the spread of the highly contagious Delta variant.

HHS officials had a briefing from Pfizer on Monday regarding their latest, preliminary data on vaccinations and will continue to discuss when and if booster shots will be needed in the future, the spokesperson said.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Allen Weisselberg, the Trump Organization chief financial officer indicted on tax fraud charges this month, has quietly been removed from top positions at more than two dozen Trump subsidiaries, NBC News has confirmed.

Weisselberg, 73, was removed from positions with at least 28 Trump subsidiaries, according to filings with the Florida State Department that were first reported Monday by The Wall Street Journal.

A person familiar with the matter told NBC News that the Trump Organization took a “prudent corporate governance approach” for the time being to avoid any potential issues in Florida but added that Weisselberg’s overall role with the Trump Organization remains unchanged.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Texas Republicans advanced bills Sunday that would make voting harder in a state that already has some of the nation’s toughest restrictions after hundreds spoke against the proposals — with some waiting to speak for almost 24 hours.

Republicans made clear they intended to advance a new election bill — which would prohibit 24-hour polling places, ban drop boxes and stop drive-thru voting — this weekend, with a first major vote on the proposals expected this week. That timeline is pushing some Democratic lawmakers toward calling for a second walkout to again stop the restrictions from moving forward like they did in May when they broke quorum.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

A tip from a housekeeper led police to uncover a large arsenal of weapons at a hotel in downtown Denver about a block from Coors Field, where Major League Baseball‘s All-Star Game is set to be played on Tuesday.

Three men and a woman were arrested and 16 long guns, body armor, hundreds of rounds of ammunition and narcotics were seized from two rooms at the Maven Hotel in downtown Denver.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

Vice President Kamala Harris announced on Thursday that the Democratic National Committee is investing an additional $25 million in its voting rights initiative, underscoring the Biden-Harris administration’s commitment to a cause that has become a rallying cry for the party.

“This campaign is grounded in the firm belief that everyone’s vote matters — that your vote matters,” Harris said, flanked by two American flags.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

President Biden said the withdrawal from Afghanistan of U.S troops after 20 years of war will conclude on August 31, ahead of the September 11 deadline he announced in mid-April. 

“We are ending the nation’s longest war,” the president said in remarks at the White House Thursday.

At the time he announced the September deadline, about 3,500 troops remained. Earlier this week, the Pentagon said that the withdrawal was 90% complete. It proceeded quickly for a reason.

Read the rest of the story at CBS News

Officials announced Wednesday evening that the search and rescue efforts at the collapsed Miami Beach-area condo building would shift to a recovery operation, signaling the formal end of the search for survivors.

With 86 people still unaccounted for, crews have not found anyone alive since shortly after half of Champlain Towers South in Surfside, Florida, crumbled into a pile of rubble in less than a minute early June 24.

For two weeks, officials called the grueling, nearly-nonstop dig a search and rescue mission.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has announced Republican Rep. Liz Cheney will serve on the House select committee to investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

“We are very honored and proud she has agreed to serve on the committee,” Pelosi said Thursday.

At her press conference on Capitol Hill, Pelosi also announced House Homeland Security Chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., will serve as the chair of the committee, which was widely expected.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

One week after a 12-story residential building partially collapsed in South Florida‘s Miami-Dade County, at least 18 people have been confirmed deadwhile 145 others remain unaccounted for, officials said.

The massive search and rescue operation, now in its eighth day, was halted for much of Thursday due to structural concerns, as officials worried about the remaining condo building also collapsing. Crews continue to carefully comb through the pancaked pile of debris in hopes of finding survivors. The partial collapse occurred around 1:15 a.m. on June 24 at the Champlain Towers South condominium in the small, beachside town of Surfside, about 6 miles north of Miami Beach. Approximately 55 of the oceanfront complex’s 136 units were destroyed, according to Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Assistant Chief Raide Jadallah.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

President Joe Biden will visit Surfside, Fla., on Thursday following the collapse of a condo building in the coastal suburb, a departure from the White House’s position a day earlier that the president had no immediate plans to visit the site of the disaster.

The president told reporters of his plans to visit South Florida “hopefully as early as Thursday” as he left the White House on Tuesday to head to Wisconsin. The White House later confirmed that the president will travel to Surfside with the first lady on Thursday.

Read the rest of the story at Politico

Donald H. Rumsfeld, the secretary of defense for Presidents Gerald R. Ford and George W. Bush, who presided over America’s Cold War strategies in the 1970s and, in the new world of terrorism decades later, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, died on Tuesday at his home in Taos, N.M. He was 88.

The cause was multiple myeloma, said Keith Urbahn, a spokesman for the family.

Read the rest of the story at The New York Times

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned the indecent assault conviction of Bill Cosby on Wednesday and ordered his release from prison after finding that he was denied protection against self-incrimination.

The court said that a prosecutor’s decision not to charge Cosby, 83, in an earlier case opened the door for him to speak freely in a lawsuit against him, thinking he would not incriminate himself criminally. A second prosecutor later used the lawsuit testimony in a criminal trial, and that testimony was key in his conviction years later.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

A letter sent in April to residents of the Miami Beach-area condo that collapsed last week said the building’s “concrete deterioration is accelerating” and warned that damage “would begin to multiply exponentially.”

The letter, sent by Champlain Towers South Board President Jean Wodnicki, explained to residents why a renovation that had originally been estimated to cost about $9 million had jumped to $16 million in about three years.

Engineering consultant Frank Morabito had been hired in 2018 to get a start on a 40-year recertification process, as is required under the Miami-Dade County building code. His report indicated that there was “abundant cracking” and crumbling in the underground parking garage of the 12-story building.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

A transgender man from Virginia has won a years-long legal battle against his former high school over its refusal to let him use boys bathrooms when he was a student.

The U.S. Supreme Court Monday rejected the Gloucester County School Board’s appeal of a lower court decision that found its transgender bathroom ban is unconstitutional.

The decision is a major victory for former student Gavin Grimm and transgender advocates nationwide.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

Officials assured residents of the Miami Beach-area condo that collapsed last week that their building was safe, despite a report that strongly indicated otherwise, while also disregarding residents’ concerns that nearby construction might compromise the stability of the beachside high-rise.

The revelations come as the official death toll in the collapse climbed to 11 and the number of unaccounted for only fell to 150 on Monday.

Champlain Towers South resident Susana Alvarez repeated to NBC News that Surfside town officials told residents in a 2018 meeting “that the building was not in bad shape.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

The road to passing the bipartisan infrastructure deal negotiated by senators and agreed to by the White House this week is already proving to be a rough one.

On Saturday, President Joe Biden issued a statement seeking to walk back his perceived ultimatum that his support for the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure deal was dependent on his American Families Plan also reaching his desk through reconciliation.

“I indicated that I would refuse to sign the infrastructure bill if it was sent to me without my Families Plan and other priorities, including clean energy. That statement understandably upset some Republicans, who do not see the two plans as linked,” Biden said in a lengthy statement.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

The death toll has climbed to nine from the partial collapse of a 12-story condominium building in Surfside, Florida, as a massive search and rescue mission continued into its fourth day on Sunday, officials said.

Four more bodies were recovered overnight from the rubble of the Champlain Towers South condominium that buckled and gave way into a pancaking catastrophe around 1:30 a.m. on Thursday as many residents were asleep, Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said at a news conference Sunday morning. More than 150 people remain unaccounted for.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

U.S. military forces carried out what a Pentagon official called “defensive” airstrikes in Iraq and Syria on Sunday against Iran-backed militia groups that were behind drone attacks on American personnel.

Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby said in a statement that the airstrikes targeted operational and weapons storage facilities at two locations in Syria and one in Iraq. The facilities were used by at least two militias, Kata’ib Hezbollah and Kata’ib Sayyid al-Shuhada, Kirby said.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

One person is dead and a dozen people injured after an apparent drive-by shooting spree near Phoenix, authorities said.

Police are investigating at least eight different shooting incidents that occurred over the course of a 90-minute period Thursday morning throughout the West Valley, according to Sgt. Brandon Sheffert, a spokesperson for the Peoria Police Department, which is leading the investigation.

“This is an extremely complex investigation,” Sheffert said during a press briefing, noting that multiple agencies are involved, including several police departments and the FBI. The number of shooting sites “could obviously grow,” he said.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

The House voted to repeal the 2002 authorization for the use of military force in Iraq on Thursday, a rare and historic effort by lawmakers to rein in presidential war powers.

Thursday’s vote brings the U.S. one step closer to ending the so-called Forever Wars in the Middle East that have defined the post-9/11 presidential administrations. And while the Iraq War ended nearly a decade ago, lawmakers saw an opportunity — with Democratic control of Congress — to reassert their Article I authority to declare and authorize foreign wars and military operations.

Read the rest of the story at Politico

Bipartisan support for an infrastructure deal grew Wednesday, as 21 senators — including 11 Republicans — publicly backed the proposal, a signal that talks have progressed as the White House-imposed deadline looms.

“We support this bipartisan framework that provides an historic investment in our nation’s core infrastructure needs without raising taxes,” the group said in a statement. “We look forward to working with our Republican and Democratic colleagues to develop legislation based on this framework to address America’s critical infrastructure challenges.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

For the first time in nearly 40 years, Congress has moved to establish a new national holiday, this time for Juneteenth, and just in time for Saturday’s156th anniversary of the day which marks the last African American slaves being freed in Texas in the wake of the Civil War.

The House voted Wednesday night to pass the legislation. It heads next to President Joe Biden’s desk for a signature. When Biden signs it, as he’s expected to at 3:30 p.m. ET Thursday, according to the White House, Juneteenth will officially become a federal holiday — the first since Martin Luther King Jr. Day was signed into law in 1983.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

Democrats set a timeline Tuesday to move ahead with a sweeping infrastructure and jobs bill that wouldn’t require Republican support, making it clear that they believe a bipartisan deal wouldn’t sufficiently deliver on President Joe Biden’s top legislative priorities.

The process would allow Democrats to avoid the 60-vote threshold in the Senate, but it wouldn’t guarantee that they will be able to pass the $4 trillion proposal Biden asked for. Still, it could pave the way for them to send a major piece of legislation to his desk.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

The No. 3 Senate Republican, John Barrasso of Wyoming, told a group of voters that he wants to make President Joe Biden a “one-half-term president.”

“Mitch McConnell’s come under a lot of criticism for saying, at one point, he wanted to make sure that Barack Obama was a one-term president,” Barrasso said last Thursday at an event hosted by the Ripon Society, a centrist Republican think tank, which posted the remarks Tuesday.

“I want to make Joe Biden a one-half-term president. And I want to do that by making sure they no longer have House, Senate, White House,” he said.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

The Manhattan district attorney’s office appears to have entered the final stages of a criminal tax investigation into Donald J. Trump’s long-serving chief financial officer, Allen H. Weisselberg, setting up the possibility he could face charges this summer, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

In recent weeks, a grand jury has been hearing evidence about Mr. Weisselberg, who is facing intense scrutiny from prosecutors as they seek his cooperation with a broader investigation into Mr. Trump and the Trump Organization, the people with knowledge of the matter said. The prosecutors have obtained Mr. Weisselberg’s personal tax returns, the people said, providing the fullest picture yet of his finances.

Read the rest of the story at The New York Times

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell made clear Monday that he would block a Supreme Court nominee in 2024 if Republicans take back the chamber — a comment certain to increase liberal pressure on Justice Stephen Breyer to step down before next fall.

In an interview with conservative talk radio host Hugh Hewitt, McConnell vowed that he would not view a high court pick made by President Joe Biden any differently than how he viewed now-Attorney General Merrick Garland in 2016. McConnell blocked Garland’s Supreme Court nomination from consideration that year, citing divided government ahead of a presidential election.

Read the rest of the story at Politico

President Biden wouldn’t say much about his upcoming meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, though it was the topic of several questions posed by reporters at his news conference Monday after meetings with NATO leaders in Brussels.

The president’s meeting Wednesday is perhaps the most-anticipated aspect of his week-long foreign trip to the United Kingdom, Belgium and Switzerland. 

“I’ll tell you that when it’s over,” Mr. Biden deflected, replying to a correspondent’s question about his expectations of the Russian president and concessions he hoped to get. He said he wouldn’t negotiate in the press. 

Read the rest of the story at CBS News

President Joe Biden makes his entrance at a NATO summit aiming to consult European allies on efforts to counter provocative actions by China and Russia while highlighting the U.S. commitment to the 30-country alliance that was frequently maligned by predecessor Donald Trump.

The summit Monday comes as Biden tries to rally allies for greater coordination in checking China and Russia, two adversaries whose actions on economic and national security fronts have become the chief foreign policy concerns in the early going of the Biden presidency.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

President Joe Biden on Thursday formally announced U.S. plans to procure and donate 500 million Covid-19 vaccine doses while making his first overseas trip, as part of a speech steeped in the imagery of World War II and other eras defined by their need for urgent collective action.

“This is a monumental commitment by the American people,” Biden said in St. Ives, England. “We’re a nation full of people who step up in times of need to help our fellow human beings, both at home and abroad. We’re not perfect, but we step up.”

Read the rest of the story at Politico

President Joe Biden and other world leaders are expected to focus on the global response to the coronavirus pandemic Friday, the first day of the G-7 meeting in Cornwall, England, while making the case for democratic institutions’ unique ability to respond to economic crises and disparities, senior administration officials said.

The Group of Seven, an organization of the world’s leading industrial countries — Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the U.S. — will also endorse a global minimum tax of at least 15 percent for companies, the White House said.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Bipartisan Senate negotiators have reached an agreement on an infrastructure deal that would spend hundreds of billions in new federal dollars while also not increasing taxes, a key GOP red line. But lawmakers face an uphill struggle as they work to sell this to the White House and their fellow lawmakers.

Conservatives previously opposed the more than roughly $300 billion in new spending and many Democrats are demanding more than double the price tag for traditional infrastructure and climate-related investments.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

The Biden administration is purchasing 500 million doses of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine to donate to the global supply, the White House said Thursday. That will provide enough shots to fully vaccinate 250 million people.

The U.S. is donating 200 million doses this year and 300 million doses in the first half of 2022, the White House said. All of the doses will be distributed through COVAX — the global entity that is working to ensure equitable access to COVID testing and vaccines — and will be given to 92 low- and middle-income countries and the African Union.

Read the rest of the story at CBS News

JBS, the largest beef supplier in the world, paid the ransomware hackers who breached its computer networks about $11 million, the company said Wednesday.

The company was hacked in May by REvil, one of a number of Russian-speaking hacker gangs, leading meat plants across the U.S. and Australia to shut down for at least a day. News of the payment was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

Like many other ransomware groups, REvil has made millions in recent years by hacking organizations, encrypting their files and demanding fees, often large bitcoin payments, in exchange for a decryptor program and a promise not to leak the files to the public.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

President Joe Biden’s infrastructure talks with Republicans collapsed Tuesday, the lead GOP negotiator said.

“I spoke with the president this afternoon, and he ended our infrastructure negotiations,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., said in a statement.

The end of the talks will increase pressure on Democrats to pass a sweeping package using a special process that doesn’t require any Republican votes in the Senate.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

The 25 richest Americans paid little to no federal income taxes, according to a report released Tuesday by the nonprofit news organization ProPublica, a claim that has reignited debate about the tax code and sparked an investigation by the IRS into the leak of private tax documents.

NBC News has not independently verified the documents, and ProPublica declined to disclose how it had gained access to what it called a “vast trove of Internal Revenue Service data on the tax returns of thousands of the nation’s wealthiest people, covering more than 15 years.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

The Department of Justice is investigating Postmaster General Louis DeJoy in connection with campaign contributions of former employees who worked for him when he was in the private sector, NBC News confirmed Thursday.

DeJoy’s spokesman, Mark Corallo, said in a statement to NBC that DeJoy, who has been a major Republican fundraiser and donor, has always been “scrupulous” in following campaign finance laws “and never knowingly violated them.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

President Joe Biden will reconnect with Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito on Friday to further discuss a possible bipartisan compromise on an infrastructure bill.

The two met in the Oval Office for just over an hour Wednesday afternoon to talk about the $928 billion GOP infrastructure proposal unveiled last week, but announced no major breakthroughs on how they plan to bridge their still substantive differences.

Kelley Moore, a spokeswoman for Capito, said the senator — who is leading negotiations on infrastructure — intends to connect with other Republicans working on the package before resuming talks with the administration.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

Democratic state Rep. Melanie Stansbury won the New Mexico special congressional election Tuesday, beating back Republican challenger Mark Moores to fill the seat of Deb Haaland, President Joe Biden’s interior secretary.

The race to represent New Mexico’s 1st Congressional District, which includes Albuquerque, was called by The Associated Press after polls closed at 9 p.m. ET. Stansbury prevailed in a four-way contest after campaigning in support of major initiatives of the Biden administration. Her victory shores up the Democrats’ narrow 219-211 majority in Congress ahead of the 2022 midterm elections.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Senate Republicans’ potential embrace of a $1 trillion infrastructure package is an encouraging sign a bipartisan deal could be reached, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.”

“They seem to be embracing the idea that about a trillion is appropriate. So there’s movement in the right direction,” he told “This Week” co-anchor Martha Raddatz. “But a lot of concerns — about things that are not in their counteroffer — they’re really important.”

The White House recently presented a reduced infrastructure package totaling $1.7 trillion, slashing about $550 billion from President Joe Biden’s initial infrastructure proposal. Senate Republicans countered that new offer on Thursday with a $928 billion proposal.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

Democrats vowed to continue to fight a Texas bill that would add restrictions on voting as Republican Gov. Greg Abbott threatened to cut off funding for the Legislature if they do so.

“I will veto Article 10 of the budget passed by the legislature. Article 10 funds the legislative branch,” Abbott tweeted Monday. “No pay for those who abandon their responsibilities. Stay tuned.”

Texas Democrats used every parliamentary tool at their disposal Sunday night to stop the bill, ultimately walking out to prevent a vote before the midnight deadline. Abbott said the bill would be added to a special session agenda to pass it. He did not announce a date for the special session.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Rep. Matt Gaetz, the Florida Republican who is currently the subject of a Justice Department investigation into whether he had sex with a 17-year-old girl and transported her across state lines in violation of sex trafficking laws, is considering a run for president in 2024. 

Gaetz made that disclosure Wednesday in a text message to the New York Post. 

“I support Donald Trump for president. I’ve directly encouraged him to run and he gives me every indication he will,” Gaetz told the paper. “If Trump doesn’t run, I’m sure I could defeat whatever remains of Joe Biden by 2024.”

Read the rest of the story at Yahoo News

Senate Republicans are poised to quash an effort Thursday to establish a bipartisan, independent commission to study the Jan. 6 attacks on the U.S. Capitol that that left five people dead.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell announced his opposition last week — along with his House GOP counterpart, Kevin McCarthy — ahead of the House vote approving the measure with 35 Republicans joining Democrats. The high-profile GOP move has provided political cover for most Republicans in both chambers to reject the legislation.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

The death toll rose late Wednesday night from the morning shooting at a San Jose, California light rail yard.

Authorities initially said an employee killed eight co-workers and wounded several others when he opened fire, but later said a ninth victim had succumbed to his wounds after being hospitalized in critical condition.

Officials said the suspect, 57-year-old Sam Cassidy, shot himself to death as officers closed in.

Read the rest of the story at CBS News

President Biden said Wednesday he has ordered the U.S. intelligence community to “redouble” its efforts to investigate the origins of COVID-19 after a new report fueled questions about whether the virus originated in a lab in Wuhan, China.

Mr. Biden said in a statement he is giving the intelligence community 90 days to “collect and analyze information that could bring us closer to a definitive conclusion” about where COVID-19 started and report back to him. As part of the requested report, the president asked for areas of additional inquiry that may be required, including specific questions for China. Mr. Biden said the effort will include work by Department of Energy’s National Labs and other government agencies to supplement the intelligence community in its investigation. 

Read the rest of the story at CBS News

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy joined a quick chorus of outrage at Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., on Tuesday after she double-down on her comparison of Covid-19-related rules to the Holocaust.

“Marjorie is wrong, and her intentional decision to compare the horrors of the Holocaust with wearing masks is appalling,” McCarthy said in a statement, after larging trying to ignore the controversial lawmakers. “The Holocaust is the greatest atrocity committed in history. The fact that this needs to be stated today is deeply troubling.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in Israel on Tuesday, beginning a tour of the Middle East aimed at solidifying the fragile cease-fire between Israel and Hamas. At least 253 Palestinians, including 70 children, and 14 people in Israel were killed during the 11-day conflict that was halted early on Friday by a tenuous truce agreement.

Blinken, the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit the region since President Joe Biden took office, told journalists after meeting Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu that Mr. Biden had sent him to reinforce America’s commitment to Israel’s security, to work for greater peace and stability in the region, and to address the urgent humanitarian needs and reconstruction in the Gaza Strip.

Read the rest of the story at CBS News

For the first time since June of last year, there are fewer than 30,000 new daily coronavirus cases in the United States, and deaths are as low as they’ve been since last summer. In much of the country, the virus outlook is improving.

Nearly 50 percent of Americans have received at least one vaccine shot, and though the pace has slowed, the share is still growing by about two percentage points per week.

Read the rest of the story at The New York Times

President Joe Biden will mark the first anniversary of George Floyd’s death on Tuesday by meeting with members of the Floyd family at the White House as Congress is poised to miss the president’s deadline for passing police reform legislation named in Floyd’s memory.

Floyd died a year ago Tuesday after former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin kneeled on his neck for over nine minutes, which Biden called “a wake up call to the country” and sparked protests around the world calling for police reform and an end to systemic racism.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

The Senate could vote as early as next week on House-passed legislation to create an independent commission to investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

But it’s unclear whether at least 10 Republican senators will support the bill, the threshold needed to move it forward. It could be the first bill this year to be blocked by a filibuster.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., began taking steps Wednesday to speed the bill to the floor, saying he intends to hold a vote after the House voted 252-175 to pass the legislation.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

A statement released Wednesday on Capitol Police letterhead, said to be authored by multiple officers on the force, delivered a rare public rebuke of top Republicans for opposing a proposed bipartisan commission to investigate the Jan. 6 Capitol riot that injured scores on their force.

The unsigned missive was sent to the offices of every member of Congress hours before the House was set to vote on legislation creating the commission. Both House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said this week they oppose the proposed panel, which they dismissed as an attempt by Democrats to politicize the investigation into the Capitol siege.

Read the rest of the story at Politico

New York Attorney General Letitia James’ decision to join forces with the Manhattan district attorney to investigate the Trump Organization “in a criminal capacity” doesn’t mean her office has found a smoking gun, legal experts said Wednesday.

But it doesn’t bode well for former President Donald Trump’s company, either.

“This is not a positive development for the lawyers representing the Trump Organization,” Dennis Vacco, a former New York attorney general, said in an interview Wednesday.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

The House approved a bill Tuesday to address the rise in hate crimes against Asian Americans during the coronavirus pandemic.

The COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act passed by a vote of 364 to 62, with all 62 “no” votes coming from Republicans. It was overwhelmingly approved last month by the Senate by a vote of 94 to 1. President Biden has previously expressed support for the bill, and is expected to sign it when it comes to his desk.

Read the rest of the story at CBS News

No charges will be filed against North Carolina sheriff’s deputies who shot and killed Andrew Brown Jr., a 42-year-old Black man whose family claims he was “executed” as he sat in his car.

Elizabeth City, North Carolina, District Attorney Andrew Womble said at a news conference Tuesday morning that the three deputies who opened fire on Brown, a father of seven, were justified in their use of deadly force because Brown drove his vehicle toward them and allegedly made contact with one deputy twice before officers fired their weapons.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

The Republican-dominated Maricopa County Board of Supervisors on Monday called for an end to the audit of the election results. The Republican-led Arizona state Senate has ordered a full hand recount and audit of the ballots and voting machines in Maricopa County, the state’s most populous county, despite that it will not change the outcome of the presidential election.

They also unanimously agreed to send a forceful response to claims made last week by Arizona’s Republican Senate President Karen Fann, who wrote to the board of supervisors last week alleging the county was not complying with legislative subpoenas, didn’t properly secure the chain of custody of ballots and deleted data.

Read the rest of the story at CBS News

President Joe Biden spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Monday afternoon, but made no direct call for an immediate end to violence as the deadly conflictbetween Israel and Hamas entered a second week with no signs of a nearing resolution.

The White House said that Biden “expressed his support for a cease-fire and discussed U.S. engagement with Egypt and other partners towards that end.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

When House Republicans ousted Congresswoman Liz Cheney from her leadership post, it spoke to the direction of the Republican Party in at least one specific way: what should happen to those who publicly break with former President Donald Trump? So, we surveyed the nation’s self-identified Republicans to learn what they thought of the week’s events. They still very much want their party to show loyalty to Mr. Trump and adhere to the idea that President Biden didn’t legitimately win. 

Their views on Cheney, in turn, now reflect those wishes.

Eighty percent of Republicans who’d heard about the vote agree with Cheney’s removal — they feel she was off-message, unsupportive of Mr. Trump, and that she’s wrong about the 2020 presidential election. To a third of them, and most particularly for those who place the highest importance on loyalty, Cheney’s removal also shows “disloyalty will be punished.”

Read the rest of the story at CBS News

The Republican official who heads up the Arizona county elections department that is subject to an ongoing audit of the results from the 2020 presidential election has publicly lashed out against former President Donald Trump for spreading lies. Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer didn’t just criticize Trump, he also pointed the finger at other fellow Republicans who allow the misinformation to continue. Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer took to Twitter on Saturday to call a Trump statement that claimed the county had deleted an elections database as “unhinged,” assuring absolutely nothing had happened to the archive. “We can’t indulge these insane lies any longer. As a party. As a state. As a country. This is as readily falsifiable as 2+2=5. If we don’t call this out…” Richer wrote on Twitter.

Richer sent the tweet after Trump issued a statement in which he said there had been a “DELETION of an entire Database and critical Election files,” which he characterized as “unprecedented.” Richer said Trump’s statement amounted a “plain-as-day lie.”

Read the rest of the story at Slate

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested Thursday the House Ethics Committee should look into Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene for her alleged “verbal assault” of Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. 

The Washington Post first reported the conservative lawmaker from Georgia confronted Ocasio-Cortez and falsely accused her of supporting “terrorists” as the New York congresswoman was exiting the House Chamber on Wednesday. Pelosi called Greene’s alleged behavior “egregious” and “not in keeping with the behavior of a member of Congress.”‘

Read the rest of the story at CBS News

Multiple Republican members of Congress on Wednesday offered a false retelling of the devastating events that occurred during the Capitol riot, with one calling the entire event a “bold faced lie” that more closely resembled a “normal tourist visit” than a deadly attack.

During a House Oversight Committee hearing on the Jan. 6 riot, Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., said the House floor was not breached and that the supporters of former President Donald Trump who stormed the Capitol behaved “in an orderly fashion.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Colonial Pipeline, operator of the largest U.S. fuel pipeline, said Wednesday it is restarting operations after being shut down for five days due to a cyberattack.

The company shut down its entire operation Friday after its financial computer networks were infected by a Russia-tied hacker gang known as DarkSide, fearing that the hackers could spread to its industrial operations as well.

The shutdown led to widespread gasoline shortages and caused temporary price spikes. The U.S. saw the problem as serious enough to issue an emergency order that relaxed restrictions for drivers carrying fuel in affected states.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky was forced to defend her agency’s guidance and even its integrity on Tuesday as Senate Republicans grilled her over CDC messaging on masks and other restrictions, arguing it’s frustrating and unreasonable as more Americans get vaccinated.

The Senate Health Committee hearing came hours after the Food and Drug Administration authorized coronavirus vaccinations for children ages 12 and up, widening the U.S. population that will be protected against the virus and bolstering chances for a safe return to full-time school in the fall.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

More rockets were fired from Gaza into Israel on Wednesday, and Israel’s military said it was striking more targets as the violence that has so far killed at least 40 people continued, officials said.

Gaza’s health ministry said Wednesday that 35 people had been killed. An Israeli police spokesman said Wednesday that two people died in a rocket strike overnight, bringing their death toll to five.

The fighting between Hamas, a militant group that controls Gaza, and Israel has involved hundreds of rockets and airstrikes in the most intense exchange of fire since 2014.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy told House Republicans on Monday that there would be a vote to recall Wyoming Congresswoman Liz Cheney as chairwoman of the GOP conference on Wednesday, saying it’s “clear” there needs to be a change in the ranks of House Republican leadership.

“If we are to succeed in stopping the radical Democrat agenda from destroying our country, these internal conflicts need to be resolved so as to not detract from the efforts of our collective team,” he said in a letter to House Republicans obtained by CBS News. “Having heard from so many of you in recent days, it’s clear that we need to make a change.”

Read the rest of the story at CBS News

President Joe Biden is plunging into the next phase of his administration with the steady approval of a majority of Americans, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. The survey shows Biden is buoyed in particular by the public’s broad backing for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

In the fourth month of his presidency, Biden’s overall approval rating sits at 63%. When it comes to the new Democratic president’s handling of the pandemic, 71% of Americans approve, including 47% of Republicans.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

While there seems to be a light at the end of the tunnel for the stricken Colonial Pipeline, as the company said Monday that it expects the outage to be resolved by the end of the week, oil analysts say drivers in the Southeast, from roughly Alabama to potentially as far north as the nation’s capital, could see brief supply disruptions.

Exactly where those sporadic shortages could occur are hard to predict, experts say, but they agree about what could make it much worse: panicking.

The Colonial Pipeline, which typically moves 2.5 million barrels of fuel per day, including gasoline, diesel and jet fuel, has been shut down since Friday, when the company’s technology infrastructure was targeted in a ransomware cyberattack.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

The operator of the largest petroleum pipeline between Texas and New York, which was shut down after a ransomware attack, declined on Sunday to say when it would reopen, raising concerns about a critical piece of infrastructure that carries nearly half of the East Coast’s fuel supplies.

California could reach herd immunity by June 15, according to projections by doctors at UCSF.

“I am predicting that Gov. Newsom was actually right,” said Dr. Monica Gandhi, an infectious disease physician with UCSF. “June 15th is when we’re going to be done…get to herd immunity.”

June 15 is about six weeks away. Gov. Gavin Newsom announced plans last month to fully reopen the economy on that date.

Read the rest of the story at ABC7 Bay Area.

Standing before an aging bridge in Lake Charles, Louisiana, Thursday afternoon, President Joe Biden once again said he’s ready to work across the aisle with Republicans to pass his $2.3 trillion infrastructure-focused American Jobs Plan.

“I’m willing to hear ideas from both sides,” Biden said. “I’m ready to compromise. What I’m not ready to do, I’m not ready to do nothing. I’m not ready to have another period where America has another infrastructure month and doesn’t change a damn thing.”

Read the rest of the story at ABC News