The Pentagon has approved a request to continue National Guard support at the U.S. Capitol through May 23, 2021. About 2,300 troops will remain at the Capitol, which is about half the number currently deployed, the Department of Defense said Tuesday evening.
The National Guard personnel were expected to leave the Capitol on March 12 after remaining there since the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection attempt. But U.S. Capitol Police last week requested a 60-day extension following intelligence that showed a possible security threat from an identified militia group.
The U.S. Capitol Police said in a statement it is “extremely grateful” for the Defense Department’s partnership in protecting Congress.
The National Guard has been sharply criticized for its handling of the Jan. 6 riots and, in particular, a delayed response that left troops standing by for hours before being authorized to intervene.
The D.C. National Guard’s commanding general testified last week that the Department of Defense took more than three hours to approve a “frantic request” for support from USCP.
A staple of CBS, NBC and PBS, he was best known for his interview with Senator Edward M. Kennedy in 1979, when he asked a simple question: “Why do you want to be president?”
During more than 30 years on network television, starting with CBS in 1961, Mudd covered Congress, elections and political conventions and was a frequent anchor and contributor to various specials. His career coincided with the flowering of television news, the pre-cable, pre-Internet days when the big three networks and their powerhouse ranks of reporters were the main source of news for millions of Americans.
Besides work at CBS and NBC, he did stints on PBS’s “MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour” and the History Channel.
When he joined Robert MacNeil and Jim Lehrer’s show in 1987, Mudd told The Associated Press: “I think they regard news and information and fact and opinion with a reverence and respect that really is admirable.”
The Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership says it’s a twist on the British car boot sale tradition, where people will sell items from their cars’ trunks. There will also be live music, food and cocktails.
The House is poised to pass the COVID-19 relief plan with $1,400 checks, billions for vaccines, and money to reopen schools.
The Senate passed the bill over the weekend after a marathon session. Once the House has passed the legislation, it will go to Biden for his signature, and then stimulus checks will start to go out in a matter of weeks.
Here’s where the stimulus bill stands ahead of its likely passage this week:
When will the House pass the bill?
The House is expected to pass the bill Wednesday morning. The House Rules Committee must first set the parameters for debate, and then the House must vote to approve the rules of debate.
Biden said Monday that he would sign the legislation “as soon as I get it.”
The House very likely will pass the bill. House Democratic leadership has voiced confidence in their ability to pass it even if no Republicans vote for it.
“We’ll pass it, and it’ll get signed into law by the 14th,” Rep. Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., a member of House Democratic leadership, told reporters Monday. Democrats are aiming for that March 14 date because that’s when a federal boost to unemployment benefits expires for millions of Americans.
Although some progressives have voiced complaints about changes made by the Senate, Progressive Caucus Chair Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., told reporters Monday that the package “hits all of our progressive priorities” and that the Senate’s changes to the bill were “relatively minor in the grand scheme of things.”
Some progressives were concerned too many concessions had been made to moderate Democrats in the Senate, such as tightening the threshold for stimulus checks and lowering the weekly unemployment benefit to $300 a week.
“We spent a lot of time listening to the Senate nickel-and-dime what was going into the bill,” she said.
“As progressives,” she said, “we’re going to have to figure out where the line in the sand is.”
She announced Tuesday morning on WNYC’s Brian Leher show she would vote for the legislation.
Two Democrats from the party’s conservative wing voted against the bill when it first passed the House at the end of February, but one of the lawmakers, Rep. Kurt Schrader, D-Ore., said Monday he would vote for the final package.
The bill passed the House already. Why does it have to vote on it again?
The House first passed the bill at the end of February. The Senate took it up the next week, and it made changes to the bill’s provisions. A key Senate official, the parliamentarian, ruled that a provision increasing the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour could not stay in the final legislation, for example.
The changes mean the House had to pass the bill again. If the House does not make any changes of its own, then the bill can go straight to Biden for his signature.
When will I get a stimulus check?
Once the bill is signed into law, $1,400 stimulus checks could start going out in a number of weeks if they follow the same timeline as previous rounds.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Monday that the Biden administration was still working through the “mechanics” of sending out checks.
Under changes made by the Senate, most Americans earning up to $75,000 would receive a full payment, and those earning between $75,000 and $80,000 would receive a partial payment. The payments phase out for those earning above $80,000. Unlike previous rounds of checks, adult dependents would receive a full $1,400 payment.
Bill Gates has reportedly been linked with a Chinese company U.S. officials are now calling a national security risk for nearly a decade. According to reports Monday, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has worked extensively with BGI Genomics since 2012, which was formerly known as the Beijing Genomics Institute.
Back in 2012, the billionaire’s foundation established a memorandum of understanding with the Chinese firm to “bring genomics research” to the global society. This occurred as U.S. Intelligence officials said the company used COVID-19 test kits supplied to the U.S. government to “collect, store and exploit bio-metric information.”
“They are the ultimate company that shows connectivity to both the communist state as well as the military apparatus,” stated Will Evanina, former director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center. “Current estimates are that 80 percent of American adults have had all of their personally identifiable information stolen by the Communist Party of China.”
The dogs joined the Bidens at the White House shortly after the Bidens relocated to Washington. Since then, they have been allowed to roam unleashed on the White House grounds.
President Joe Biden’s two dogs have been moved away from the White House after one of the dogs showed aggressive behavior to White House staff, according to a report first published by CNN.
The Bidens have two German shepherds — a 13-year-old named Champ and 3-year-old named Major. Reports indicate that it was Major who was involved in a “biting incident” with a “member of White House security.”
The condition of the biting victim is unclear, but the dogs were moved back to Biden’s home in Delaware shortly after the incident and have not returned.
The Bidens adopted Major in 2018 from a dog shelter in Delaware. According to a Facebook post from the Delaware Humane Society at the time, Major was born to a litter of pups “that were surrendered and not doing well at all.”
President Biden on Monday seemed to forget Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s name at a White House event — calling the Pentagon chief “the guy who runs that outfit over there.”
Biden was announcing the nomination of two female generals to lead US military combatant commands.
“And I want to thank the sec — the, the, ah former general. I keep calling him general, but my, my — the guy who runs that outfit over there,” Biden said.
“I want to make sure we thank the secretary for all he’s done to try to implement what we just talked about. And for recommending these two women for promotion.”
Earlier at the event, Biden mentioned the Defense Department leader by his name, “Secretary Austin,” while appearing to read from a teleprompter.
Biden, 78, has previously struggled with the names of his cabinet secretary selections. In December, he mispronounced the name of his nominee for the Department of Health and Human Services, Xavier Becerra, before correcting himself with a different mispronunciation.
A coalition of 12 states is suing President Biden’s administration over a climate executive order that they claim has the potential to have a serious economic impact across the country through the expansion of federal regulatory power.
The suit, which is being led by Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, was filed on Monday. State attorneys general from Arkansas, Arizona, Indiana, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Utah also joined the action.
It alleges that Biden’s Executive Order 13990, titled “Protecting Public Health and the Environment and Restoring Science to Tackle the Climate Crisis,” does not have the authority to issue binding numbers for the “social cost” of greenhouse gases to be used in federal regulations.
The breakdown of the social costs shows $269 billion for carbon dioxide, $990 billion for methane, and $8.24 trillion for nitrous oxide – totaling approximately $9.5 trillion, according to the lawsuit, which cited interim values determined by an interagency working group that was created by Biden’s order.
Since the Food and Drug Administration first issued a warning that grain-free dog foods may cause heart damage to pets, more than 200 dogs have died from the condition.
According to NBC News, scientists are still trying to find the actual connection and cause why grain-free foods cause potentially fatal canine dilated cardiomyopathy or DCM. They believe the source may be the ingredients dog food manufacturers have included in their products to replace the grains.
“Most of the diets associated with the reports of non-hereditary DCM have legume seed ingredients, also called pulses,” said FDA spokesperson Monique Richards. She added that foods such as peas and lentils were often in the ingredients list.
President Biden will mark International Women’s Day on Monday by signing two executive orders geared toward promoting gender equity, both in the United States and around the world.
According to an administration official speaking on background, the goal of the orders is “restoring America as a champion for gender equity and equality.”
The first executive order will establish a Gender Policy Council within the White House, reformulating an office from the Obama administration that was later disbanded by former President Donald Trump, and giving it more clout.
Under former President Barack Obama, the office was called the White House Council on Women and Girls. The name change to the Gender Policy Council is intentional, the administration official said, “to reflect the fact that gender discrimination can happen to people of all genders.”
But, the official said, “there will be a focus on women and girls, particularly women and girls of color, given the historical and disproportionate barriers that they face.”
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — A pair of B-52 bombers flew over the Mideast on Sunday, the latest such mission in the region aimed at warning Iran amid tensions between Washington and Tehran.
The flight by the two heavy bombers came as a pro-Iran satellite channel based in Beirut broadcast Iranian military drone footage of an Israeli ship hit by a mysterious explosion only days earlier in the Mideast. While the channel sought to say Iran wasn’t involved, Israel has blamed Tehran for what it described as an attack on the vessel.
The U.S. military’s Central Command said the two B-52s flew over the region accompanied by military aircraft from nations including Israel, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. It marked the fourth-such bomber deployment into the Mideast this year and the second under President Joe Biden.
WATERFORD, Pa. (AP) — Jill Biden sees a teachable moment in the depths of the coronavirus pandemic.
The first lady sat in a socially distanced circle in the library at Fort LeBoeuf Middle School in Pennsylvania, listening and taking notes as parents expressed relief that the school had reopened and their kids were back in the classroom.
One mother talked about the “bumpy patches” of online learning and said reopening “has been so to the T” that she doesn’t worry about her son and daughter. Another mom said the district included parent input and she was comfortable her children were in a “safe environment.”
A teacher herself, Biden praised the small circle of parents, teachers and administrators for working together to help reopen Fort LeBoeuf. And she repeated a message she had delivered earlier that day while visiting Benjamin Franklin Elementary School in Meriden, Connecticut.
“We’ve been through really tough, hard times, but I think the one good thing about educators that I love — and that includes the cafeteria workers, the bus drivers, the teachers, everyone involved — is we’ve all learned from this,” Biden said of the pandemic and its emotional, social and human toll.
“We’re all going to take everything that we’ve learned and are going to turn it into opportunity to make things better for students as we move forward,” she said.
In this March 3, 2021, file photo Jill Biden speaks with students as she tours Fort LeBoeuf Middle School in Waterford, Pa. The first lady seems intent on turning every aspect of her new job into an opportunity, for that matter, especially anything related to her triple passions for education, fighting cancer and supporting military families. (Mandel Ngan/Pool via AP, File)
The first lady seems intent on turning every aspect of her new job into an opportunity, for that matter, especially anything related to her triple passions for education, fighting cancer and supporting military families.
A few days after she became first lady, Biden told governors’ spouses during a virtual meeting at the White House that her new platform is “one that I would never let go to waste.”
She’s long been focused on education, having taught at a high school, a psychiatric hospital and community colleges for more than three decades. She’s still teaching, virtually from the White House, and pining for the day she can go back to the classroom.
Finding a cure for cancer also motivates her and President Joe Biden.
The couple lost son Beau to brain cancer in 2015 at age 46. Her parents died of cancer, and one of her sisters had a stem cell transplant. Doctors also gave the dreaded breast cancer diagnosis to four of her girlfriends within a one-year period in the 1990s.
The Bidens also advocate for service members and their families, an appreciation that stems from Beau Biden’s service in the Delaware Army National Guard, including a deployment to Iraq. Jill Biden intends to revive a military family support program that she led with former first lady Michelle Obama when Biden’s husband was President Barack Obama’s vice president.
The US secretary of state seeks to jump start stalled talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban.
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has made a blunt new push for a UN-led peace effort in Afghanistan.
In a letter to the Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, Mr Blinken called for a 90-day reduction in violence and a transitional government formed from both sides.
Mr Blinken also said no decision had been made about whether to stick to a planned US troop withdrawal by 1 May.
He called on President Ghani to show “urgent leadership”.
Mr Blinken’s letter, a copy of which was obtained by the obtained by the BBC on Sunday, reflected the difficult position the US finds itself in as it reviews whether to withdraw its last 2,500 troops.
A deal struck with the Taliban during the Trump administration in February 2020 committed the US to withdrawing by 1 May, but Afghan officials fear the move would create enormous security challenges.
Mr Blinken warned in his letter that the Taliban could make “rapid territorial gains” across the country in a “spring offensive”.
ilk Sonic, Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak‘s new act, was not on Sunday’s list of performers announced for the 2021 Grammy Awards — and now they seem to be petitioning to become a last-minute addition to the lineup.
“Dear Grammys,” Mars wrote in a note to the Recording Academy that he whipped up for Twitter Sunday evening (March 7), after .Paak implied their names should have been on the bill of performers. “If you can see it in your hearts to allow two out of work musicians to perform at your show, we would really appreciate it.”
“We just released a song and could really use the promotion right now. We have a lot riding on this record (and the Pelicans game next week, but that’s another story),” he quipped.
The dashboard compiles data from the Pittsburgh Bureau of EMS to map monthly opioid overdose calls and Public Safety’s responses.
Data includes the number of people who overdose, neighborhood-level mapping, demographic information and statistics regarding care provided by first responders.
OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso — A series of explosions at a military barracks in Equatorial Guinea killed at least 20 people and wounded more than 600 others on Sunday, authorities said.
President Teodoro Obiang Nguema said the 4 p.m. explosion was due to the “negligent handling of dynamite” in the military barracks located in the neighborhood of Mondong Nkuantoma in Bata.
“The impact of the explosion caused damage in almost all the houses and buildings in Bata,” the president said in a statement, which was in Spanish.
The defense ministry released a statement late Sunday saying that a fire at a weapons depot in the barracks caused the explosion of high-caliber ammunition. It said the provisional toll was 20 dead and 600 injured, adding that the cause of the explosions will be fully investigated.
The country’s president said the fire may have been due residents burning the fields surrounding the barracks.
State television showed a huge plume of smoke rising above the explosion site as crowds fled, with many people crying out “we don’t know what happened, but it is all destroyed.”
Images on local media seen by The Associated Press showed people screaming and crying running through the streets amid debris and smoke. Roofs of houses were ripped off, and wounded people were being carried into a hospital.
Equatorial Guinea, an African country of 1.3 million people located south of Cameroon, was a colony of Spain until it gained its independence in 1968. Bata has roughly 175,000 inhabitants.
GOP Sen. John Barrasso on Sunday hit President Biden for pushing his $1.9 trillion coronavirus stimulus package through Congress despite pledging to work with Republicans — calling the bill a “liberal wish list”
“Ten Republicans went to the White House and said, ’All right, let’s work together.’ Instead, the White House chief of staff said this is the most progressive, the most progressive piece of domestic legislation in a generation,” Barrasso (R-Wyo.) said on NBC News’ “Meet the Press,” referring to Ron Klain.
“This was never about getting people back to work or kids back to school or the disease behind us. That’s where it should have been focused.”
Instead of enlisting Republican support for a bipartisan bill, he said the president and Democrats passed “a liberal wish list of liberal spending just basically.”
The top Democratic lawmaker in New York called for the resignation of Gov. Andrew Cuomo Sunday amidst allegations of sexual harassment and an ongoing investigation around botched counts of COVID-19 deaths in the state’s nursing homes.
New York Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins became the highest-ranking state lawmaker and most prominent state Democrat to request Cuomo quit.
“Everyday there is another account that is drawing away from the business of government. We have allegations about sexual harassment, a toxic work environment, the loss of credibility surrounding the Covid-19 nursing home data and questions about the construction of a major infrastructure project,” Stewart-Cousins said in a statement. “New York is still in the midst of this pandemic and is still facing the societal, health and economic impacts of it. We need to govern without daily distraction. For the good of the state Governor Cuomo must resign.”
At least five women have accused Cuomo of inappropriate behavior. In an article published Saturday, former policy and operations aide Ana Liss told The Wall Street Journal Cuomo touched her lower back, kissed her hand and made inappropriate comments. Another former aide, Karen Hinton, told The Washington Post that Cuomo had asked her personal questions in his hotel room and hugged her in a way that was “very long, too long, too tight, too intimate.”
President Joe Biden‘s lack of press conferences has raised questions about the administration’s communications strategy in recent days as some have criticized the Democrat for not being more available to journalists’ questions.
Biden has been president for more than 40 days but has not yet held a solo press conference. Both former President Donald Trump and former President Barack Obama had both done so by this point in their presidency. Biden has often taken reporters’ questions during or after events, but has not yet held any formal press conferences.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Sunday at a high-level press conference that the U.S. needs to remove “unreasonable restrictions” and stop interfering in what Beijing considers its domestic affairs.
U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration has maintained a tough position on China and raised concerns about Beijing’s stance around Taiwan, Hong Kong, Xinjiang and Tibet.
Wang did not specify what the restrictions were, and pointed to a phone call between the two countries’ leaders in February as a positive basis for rebuilding the bilateral relationship.
(CNN)President Joe Biden is expected to sign an executive order Sunday expanding voting access in what the White House calls “an initial step in this Administration’s efforts to protect the right to vote and ensure all eligible citizens can freely participate in the electoral process.”
The move comes just three days after the House of Representatives passed HR1, a sweeping ethics and election package aimed at ensuring voting rights, with provisions expanding early and mail-in voting, restoring voting rights to former felons, and easing voter registration for eligible Americans.
Sunday’s order directs the heads of all federal agencies to submit proposals for their respective agencies to promote voter registration and participation within 200 days, while assisting states in voter registration under the National Voter Registration Act. In addition, the order would instruct the General Services Administration to modernize the federal government’s Vote.gov portal.”
The President’s commitment to democracy includes making it easier and more equitable for all eligible Americans to exercise their fundamental right to vote,” an administration official told reporters Saturday, adding Sunday’s executive order would “leverage the resources of the federal government to expand citizens’ opportunities to register to vote, and to learn about and participate in the electoral process.”
President Biden on Saturday announced that the $1,400 coronavirus stimulus checks will begin being distributed in March.
The payments come after the Senate passed the nearly $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill Saturday in a 50-49 partisan vote.
This is the first round of stimulus checks that will be given out under Biden. Former President Trump passed two stimulus checks last year, one for $1,200 and another for $600.
The payments will go to 85 percent of Americans, Reuters reported.
The $1.9 trillion bill was debated for weeks among senators, with provisions such as an increase to a $15 minimum wage being taken out in order to get the bill through.
MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) – One person has died after reports of shots fired near the George Floyd Memorial in Minneapolis on Saturday.
Police say they received ShotSpotter reports along with 911 calls for two people who were shot in the area of East 38th Street and Chicago Avenue, the site of the George Floyd Memorial in the Powderhorn Park neighborhood.
Initially, officers were told by callers the victim would be brought to a barricade that blocks off the memorial from traffic. However, when police arrived, they say they learned the victims had been transported to a nearby hospital. Officers say they were also met with “interference” from people at the memorial.
At Hennepin County Medical Center, police learned a shooting victim, a man in his 30s, had arrived at the hospital but later died from their injuries. At the same time, police say the second victim never arrived at the hospital and has not yet been located.
So far, police say they’ve learned that the victim in the shooting had been involved in an argument with the shooter prior to shots being fired. The suspect then reportedly left the scene in a cream or light-colored Suburban, believed to be a 2005 to 2016 body style, headed northbound on Chicago Avenue. Police believe the Suburban was hit by gunfire during the incident.
They are asking anyone with information on the shooting to call the police department or CrimeStopper with information at 800-222-TIPS.
A number of migrants seeking asylum and released by Border Patrol have tested positive to Covid-19 tests in Brownsville, Texas. Some plan to continue their journey to other cities and states.
BROWNSVILLE, Texas — Miriam Izaguirre, a 35-year-old asylum-seeker from Honduras, crossed the Rio Grande at dawn Monday with her young son and turned herself in to the authorities.
A few hours later she was released, and the first thing she did was take a rapid test for Covid-19 at the Brownsville bus station. They told her her test came out positive.
“Right now we were tested for Covid and they separated about eight of us because we were positive,” she told Noticias Telemundo Investiga. “We are waiting right now.” She was waiting to catch a bus to Houston.
Why it matters: European countries reported around 1 million new cases last week, around a 9% increase from the week prior. Last week’s surge ended a six-week decline in new infections, the WHO said Thursday, according to AP.
By the numbers: The variant first found in the United Kingdom, which may be more transmissible and more deadly than the original strain of the virus, is spreading in 27 European countries monitored by WHO, according to AP.
It’s now the dominant strain in at least 10 countries: Britain, Denmark, Italy, Ireland, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Israel, Spain and Portugal.
Meanwhile, the variant first discovered in South Africa has been found in 26 European countries. Vaccine producers Moderna, Pfizer and Novavax have each reported their vaccines, while still effective, offer less protection against the South African variant.
The Brazilian variant, detected in 15 European countries, may be able to reinfect people who survived infections with earlier versions of the coronavirus, according to Reuters.
American taxpayers are footing the bill to ship migrant drug dealers all over the country, Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, says of President Joe Biden’s free-wheeling immigration plan.
”I’ve been down there on the border too many times, all hours of the day and night, and I’ve seen them standing in the dark. They’re lined up, they’re being processed,” Gohmert said Friday during an appearance on Newsmax TV’s ”Chris Salcedo Show.”
”The border patrolmen starting at the other end and you’ve got people that are passing kids around. Who’s going to be the parent? They’re pushing kids around to decide who’s going to act like their parent. I’ve seen them addresses that the drug cartel gets them on where they want them to be shipped, by ICE, by border patrol taking them in.
”Then they tell the border patrol, ‘This is where my relative is,’ and the government pays to ship them all over the country.
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