The Supreme Court refused Thursday to block Indiana University’s requirement that students be vaccinated against Covid-19 to attend classes in the fall semester.

It was the first legal test of a Covid vaccination mandate to come before the justices. A challenge to the policy was directed to Amy Coney Barrett, the justice in charge of that region of the country, who denied it. There were no noted dissents from other justices.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

President Joe Biden is deploying about 3,000 troops to Afghanistan to help secure the withdrawal of most staff from the U.S. Embassy in Kabul amid growing alarm over a Taliban military offensive, officials said Thursday.

One Army and two Marine battalions will head to the Hamid Karzai airport in Kabul “within the next 24 to 48 hours,” Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said.

Additional troops will be deployed to Kuwait in case more forces are needed, officials said.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Sixteen months late, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on Wednesday filed a disclosure with the Senate revealing that on Feb. 26, 2020, his wife, Kelley, purchased stock in Gilead Sciences, a company that produces an antiviral drug used to treat COVID-19.

Under the STOCK Act, which prohibits members of Congress from using information not available to the public for private profit, the disclosure should have been filed within 45 days of the purchase, The Washington Postreports.

Read the rest of the story at Yahoo News

California will become the first state in the nation to require all teachers and school staff to get vaccinated or undergo weekly COVID-19 testing, as schools return from summer break amid growing concerns about the highly contagious delta variant, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Wednesday.

The new policy applies to both public and private schools and will affect more than 800,000 employees, including about 320,000 public school teachers and a host of support staff such as cafeteria workers and cleaners, the state Department of Public Health said. It will also apply to school volunteers.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

President Joe Biden on Tuesday marked the Senate’s passage of a bipartisan infrastructure plan earlier in the day with a White House speech touting the political win and thanking Republican senators who voted with Democrats for what he said was their “courage” to come together to strike a deal for the American people.

“After years and years of infrastructure week, we’re on the cusp of an infrastructure decade that I truly believe will transform America,” Biden said in triumphant remarks delivered from the White House East Room.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Tuesday that he will resign from office following accusations of sexual harassment and inappropriate conduct from a number of women, including former staffers and one current staffer.

His resignation will be effective in 14 days, Cuomo said.

After a five-month investigation, New York State Attorney General Letitia James announced in a 168-page report last week that “the governor engaged in conduct constituting sexual harassment under federal and New York State law.”

Read the rest of the story at ABC News 

The Senate Judiciary Committee has interviewed former acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and former acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue in its investigation into whether former President Donald Trump tried to enlist the Justice Department in his effort to overturn the 2020 election results.

A spokesperson for the committee confirmed that it held a closed-door interview with Donoghue on Friday and a seven-hour interview with Rosen on Saturday.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Senate Democrats unwrapped a budget resolution envisioning a massive $3.5 trillion, 10-year cascade of federal resources, aiming historic sums at family support, health and education programs and an aggressive drive to heal the climate.

The measure is a pivotal first step in what will likely be a tumultuous, months-long Democratic legislative march toward a progressive reshaping of the federal government that also hews to President Joe Biden’s top domestic policy ambitions.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

With multiple Republicans joining Democrats in the effort, the bipartisan infrastructure bill cleared another hurdle on its way to passing the Senate on Saturday afternoon.

By a vote of 67-27, the Senate voted to advance the bill toward final passage. It’s not yet clear when the bill will receive a final vote, but Saturday’s vote makes all but certain that it will pass the Senate.

At least 60 votes were necessary to move forward on Saturday, a hurdle easily cleared with 18 Republicans joining all Democrats.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

The Department of Homeland Security said Friday they have observed “an increasing but modest level of activity online” by people who are calling for violence in response to baseless claims of 2020 election fraud and related to the conspiracy theory that former President Donald Trump will be reinstated.

“Some conspiracy theories associated with reinstating former President Trump have included calls for violence if desired outcomes are not realized,” according to a DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis bulletin obtained by ABC News.

There is no evidence that shows there was widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

A top aide to embattled New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo resigned Sunday, saying in a statement that the last two years have been “emotionally and mentally trying.”

Melissa DeRosa resigned as secretary to the governor as Cuomo faces calls to step down after New York’s attorney general released a report less than a week ago alleging that Cuomo sexually harassed 11 women and violated state and federal laws.

Cuomo, who has resisted calls to resign from top Democratic lawmakers and President Joe Biden, has denied the allegations.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

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Nearing decision time, senators were struggling to wrap up work on the bipartisan infrastructure plan despite hopes to expedite consideration and voting on the nearly $1 trillion proposal.

The package had appeared on track for eventual Senate passage, a rare accord between Republicans and Democrats joining on a shared priority that also is essential to President Joe Biden’s agenda. But senators hit new problems late Thursday as they worked late into the night on amendments. A procedural vote was set for Saturday.

“We’ve worked long, hard and collaboratively, to finish this important bipartisan bill,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., just before midnight. In announcing Saturday’s schedule, he said “We very much want to finish.”

Read the rest of the story at AP News

With only weeks before schools reopen in much of the country, Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said Thursday at the White House that while the Delta variant of the coronavirus is “providing new challenges,” he still anticipates a return to in-class instruction.

“We expect our students to be in the classroom every day,” Cardona said from the White House Briefing Room, as he and other administration officials embark on a campaign to convince the American public that schools are safe. To do that, he will have to keep powerful teachers’ unions in line while persuading Republican governors like Ron DeSantis of Florida and Greg Abbott of Texas to allow school districts to impose mask mandates. Both governors have strenuously resisted such measures, even as their states are pummeled by the Delta variant.

Read the rest of the story at Yahoo News

House investigators have interviewed a former Justice Department official who drafted – but never sent – a resignation letter over what he said were former President Donald Trump’s “direct instructions” to use the department to support his false election fraud claims.

Patrick Hovakimian, chief of staff to then-acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, wrote the resignation letter January 3 in anticipation that Rosen would be fired at an extraordinary meeting that day with the former President at the White House, according to people briefed on the matter.

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Over 80 New York state Assembly lawmakers said they would support starting the process of impeaching Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) if he decides not to resign, one day after an independent inquiry found that the governor had sexually harassed at least 11 women.

Of the legislative body’s 150 members, at least 86 lawmakers told The Associated Press or have publicly stated that they would support beginning the process to impeach Cuomo if he does not step down, the wire service reported.

Read the rest of the story at The Hill

Under heavy pressure from progressive Democrats to extend the eviction moratorium as millions of Americans faced being forced out of their homes, President Joe Biden on Tuesday said his administration would announce a new “safety valve” action.

Shortly afterward, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued an order barring evictions for 60 days in counties with “substantial and high levels” of community transmission.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

Dr. Anthony Fauci said he hopes Pfizer-BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine receives full approval from the Food and Drug Administration within the next couple of weeks.

Fauci, President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser, appeared on CNN Tuesday evening to react to the news the FDA was speeding up its timetable for giving final approval to the two-dose Pfizer vaccine, aiming to complete the process by the end of the month.

Read the rest of the story at Yahoo News

The report issued Tuesday by the New York attorney general’s office graphically detailed numerous accusations of sexual harassment by Gov. Andrew Cuomo. The governor forcefully denied the allegations and ignored renewed calls for his resignation after the report was released.

To read the rest of the story and see the list, go to NBC News

With the federal moratorium on evictions having expired over the weekend, the White House on Monday sought to limit the impact, demanding that states speed up disbursement of billions of dollars in bottled-up rental aid while pleading with local governments to enact their own extensions.

President Biden — under fire from the left of his party for not extending the freeze and eager to prove he was taking action to prevent evictions — directed federal agencies to consider targeted extensions for tenants in federally subsidized housing, asked state judges to slow-walk eviction proceedings and called for a review of problems that have slowed the flow of aid.

Read the rest of the story at The New York Times

A Washington, DC police officer who responded to the deadly riot at the US Capitol on Jan. 6 took his own life last month, making him the fourth law enforcement officer who took part in the events of that day to die by his own hand.

Officer Kyle DeFreytag helped enforce the curfew put in place after hundreds of supporters of then-President Donald Trump breached the Capitol building in an effort to disrupt the certification of the 2020 election results, The Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) told WUSA.

Read the rest of the story at The New York Post

Senators introduced the long-awaited text of their bipartisan infrastructure bill Sunday, aiming to pass the massive measure this week.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said he would push forward with amendments to the legislation, which senators were finalizing through the weekend.

“Given how bipartisan the bill is, and how much work has already been put in to get the details right, I believe the Senate can quickly process relevant amendments and pass this bill in a matter of days,” Schumer said on the Senate floor.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

The House voted 416 to 11 on Thursday to approve a roughly $2 billion Capitol Hill security spending bill in response to the deadly January 6 insurrection, clearing the measure for President Joe Biden’s signature.

The House vote came shortly after the Senate voted unanimously to pass the measure by a tally of 98-0.

The security supplemental funding bill will provide funding for the Capitol Police, the National Guard and other law enforcement partners to cover costs incurred during the insurrection. The legislation would help ensure the Capitol is protected in the future by paying for security upgrades at the Capitol complex. Funding is also set aside for expenses related to Covid-19 response at the Capitol and several other priorities.

Read the rest of the story at CNN

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A number of House Republicans, including Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, are wrestling with Speaker Nancy Pelosi over the return of a mask mandate in the House, protesting the requirement and even calling for her removal from office.

“That is not a speaker for America. That’s a speaker only concerned about her own wealth, her own direction and our own control,” McCarthy said at a news conference Thursday morning. “This is the people’s house, not Pelosi’s house.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention put out new recommendations this week over mounting concerns about the highly contagious delta variant of the coronavirus. The CDC recommended indoor mask use in areas of the country with high transmission rates after new data suggested that fully vaccinated people not only are contracting Covid-19 but also could be infecting others.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

The Biden administration on Thursday called on Congress to extend a federal freeze on evictions set to expire on Saturday, arguing its hands are tied by the Supreme Court.

The new statement comes as the country grapples with a COVID-19 surge fueled by the highly contagious delta variant.

The moratorium, essentially a nationwide ban on evictions, was put in place by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last September. In June, the Supreme Court voted 5-4 to allow the eviction ban to continue through the end of July but signaled in its ruling that it would block any further extensions unless there was “clear and specific congressional authorization.”

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

Rep. Adam Kinzinger, one of just two Republicans on the House select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection, said Wednesday that “a lot” of GOP lawmakers have privately conveyed support to him, as he stressed that “nobody actually believes” the election was stolen from former President Donald Trump.

“There’s a lot of people, you know. They come up and say it,” Kinzinger told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on “The Situation Room” of his Republican colleagues privately signaling support. “It’s not any of the ones that go on TV and spout the ‘Big Lie,’ and then say it. It’s the ones that are staying more quiet that I think appreciate the stand. But it’s a lot.”

And while GOP lawmaker have publicly echoed Trump’s election lies, the Illinois Republican maintained that “nobody actually believes the election was stolen from Donald Trump. But a lot of them are happy to go out and say it was.”

Read the rest of the story at CNN

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy “a moron” for criticizing the reinstitution of a mask mandate in the House of Representatives.

“He’s such a moron,” Pelosi said as she entered an SUV outside the Capitol Wednesday morning, after a reporter asked her to react to McCarthy’s claim that the mandate was “not based on science.”

Pelosi had previously said that the mask mandate is within “the purview of the Capitol physician. I have nothing to say about that except we honor it.”

Read the rest of the story at CBS News

The Senate voted to move forward on a bipartisan infrastructure bill after weeks of negotiations on Wednesday, clearing a key procedural hurdle on a bill that includes $550 billion in new spending for infrastructure projects around the country.

The vote to advance the legislation Wednesday night was 67 to 32, with 17 Republicans joining Democrats in voting in favor. Sixty votes were required to move the bill forward. The text of the proposal had not yet been released when the vote took place. 

Read the rest of the story at CBS News

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy decried the 1/6 select committee after Speaker Nancy Pelosi added a second Republican to it.

McCarthy announced five Republicans for the committee last week. Pelosi rejected two of them — Jim Banks and Jim Jordan — so McCarthy pulled all five of them.

One of Pelosi’s appointments was Republican Liz Cheney, and on Sunday she added another Republican, Adam Kinzinger. Both Cheney and Kinzinger have been vocal calling out the big lie about the 2020 election.

Read the rest of the story at Mediaite

Tokyo hit another six-month high in new COVID-19 cases on Thursday, one day before the Olympics begin, as worries grow of a worsening of infections during the Games.

Thursday’s 1,979 new cases are the highest since 2,044 were recorded on Jan. 15.

Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, who is determined to hold the Olympics, placed Tokyo under a state of emergency on July 12, but daily cases have sharply increased since then.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

The state of Mississippi formally asked the U.S. Supreme Court Thursday to uphold its ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy and overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that gave women the unfettered right to end a pregnancy before a fetus is viable outside the womb.

“Under the Constitution, may a State prohibit elective abortions before viability? Yes. Why? Because nothing in constitutional text, structure, history, or tradition supports a right to abortion,” the state says bluntly in its opening brief in a blockbuster case that will dominate the court’s next term.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday that some Republican lawmakers have “expressed their interest” in serving on the select committee investigating the January 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol after House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy threatened to pull his picks from the panel.

Pelosi has not said whether she would appoint other GOP lawmakers to the January 6 select committee but, when asked whether she would make the call on adding more members to the panel, said Democratic leadership and the lawmakers tapped for it work together.

Read the rest of the story at CBS News 

COVID-19 cases nearly tripled in the U.S. over two weeks amid an onslaught of vaccine misinformation that is straining hospitals, exhausting doctors and pushing clergy into the fray.

“Our staff, they are frustrated,” said Chad Neilsen, director of infection prevention at UF Health Jacksonville, a Florida hospital that is canceling elective surgeries and procedures after the number of mostly unvaccinated COVID-19 inpatients at its two campuses jumped to 134, up from a low of 16 in mid-May.

“They are tired. They are thinking this is déjà vu all over again, and there is some anger because we know that this is a largely preventable situation, and people are not taking advantage of the vaccine.”

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

Senate Republicans blocked moving forward on a bipartisan infrastructure bill that’s still being negotiated on Wednesday. Surprisingly, members of the group insist they’re unbothered.

The vote amounted to a setback to a key priority of President Joe Biden, although members of both parties expect at least one more try in the coming days. GOP centrists say they may be willing to provide the votes as early as Monday, when they think discussions will conclude over a bill expected to provide nearly $600 billion.

Read the rest of the story at Politico

President Biden said on Wednesday that he expected the Food and Drug Administration would give final approval quickly for coronavirus vaccines, as he pressed for skeptical Americans to get vaccinated and stop another surge of the pandemic.

Speaking to a town hall audience in Ohio, Mr. Biden said he was not intervening in the decisions of government scientists, but pointed toward a potential decision soon from the F.D.A. to give final approval for the vaccines, which are currently authorized for emergency use. Many medical professionals have pushed for the final approval, saying it could help increase uptake of the vaccines.

Read the rest of the story at The New York Times

As the Senate barrels toward a key test vote Wednesday on a bipartisan infrastructure deal, some Senate Republicans involved in trying to nail down the deal are pleading with Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to delay the vote until next week.

Key Republican negotiators in the bipartisan group of senators who have been trying to work out the deal say they believe they can firm up their proposal by Monday. The group huddled over Mexican food and wine behind closed doors for over two hours late Tuesday night, but left without squaring all of their differences on how to pay for the $1.2 trillion package.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

A fourth person who joined with members of the far-right Oath Keepers during the Jan. 6 Capitol riot pleaded guilty Tuesday and was cooperating with federal investigators.

The man, Caleb Berry, 20, of Tampa, Florida, admitted in federal court in Washington, D.C., that he and other group members planned for Jan. 6 and entered the Capitol in a single-file formation.

Prosecutors had asked a federal judge to keep records of his case under seal until Tuesday to avoid tipping off other Oath Keepers who face federal charges. Maintaining secrecy “will ensure the defendant’s safety while he cooperates pursuant to his plea agreement,” they said.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Days after Facebook publicly rejected President Joe Biden’s message to the platform that it’s “killing people” by allowing the spread of vaccine misinformation, even as COVID-19 infections rise and vaccinations fall around the U.S., he tried to clean up his comment about the social media giant Monday, saying he hopes Facebook doesn’t take it “personally.”

Following remarks on the economy at the White House, a reporter asked about his comment Friday to companies and platforms like Facebook, the president interjected to answer before the reporter could finish.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., has selected five members to join the select committee charged with investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, two Republican aides said Monday.

McCarthy tapped Reps. Jim Banks of Indiana, Jim Jordan of Ohio, Rodney Davis of Illinois, Kelly Armstrong of North Dakota and Troy Nehls of Texas to serve on the panel.

Banks will be the committee’s ranking member. Jordan has been a Trump firebrand in Congress, often haranguing witnesses and criticizing Democrats during high-profile hearings.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

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

The White House Saturday announced the passing of their dog Champ.

“He was our constant, cherished companion during the last 13 years and was adored by the entire Biden family,” the Biden family said in a statement.

“He loved nothing more than curling up at our feet in front of a fire at the end of the day, joining us as a comforting presence in meetings, or sunning himself in the White House garden.”

Champ was a German Shepherd, and was one of two dogs the Biden’s brought to the White House with them.

“We love our sweet, good boy and will miss him always.”

Forbes political reporter Andrew Solender posted a video of Pence’s summit speech to Twitter, in which audience members can be heard booing and chanting “traitor” at the former vice president.

The COVID-19 pandemic is increasingly becoming an arms race among the emerging variants of the virus, and at the moment, there’s no question which one is winning: the Delta variant—formally known as B.1.617.2—one of four strains to have emerged originally in India. It was just last month that the World Health Organization labeled Delta a “variant of concern”—joining with the Alpha strain, which emerged in the U.K.; the Beta strain, from South Africa; and the Gamma strain, first seen in Brazil. But Delta is fast becoming the most worrisome of the bunch.

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

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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