Secretary of State Tony Blinken on Tuesday formally dismissed the statements of a controversial Trump-era committee that argued that some rights may not be worthy of protection — an initiative that civil liberty groups and advocacy organizations feared would have damaging effects on human rights abroad and the freedoms of women and LGBTQ people. Blinken
Continue Reading The Bidens’ dog Major has been involved in another biting incident that required medical attention, two people with knowledge of the incident tell CNN. The incident, which involved a National Park Service employee, took place on the White House South Lawn on Monday afternoon. The employee was working at the time and needed to stop
Continue Reading After two years of searching for problems with the investigation into Donald Trump’s campaign advisers in 2016 and their ties to Russia, federal prosecutor John Durham hasn’t found wrongdoing by Obama-era intelligence officials involved who were outside of the FBI. But Durham is still at work, looking at early aspects of the FBI investigation into
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Attorney General Merrick Garland has launched a 30-day “expedited review” to figure out how the Justice Department can “deploy all the tools at its disposal” to combat hate crimes across the country, according to a memo released Tuesday. The effort comes on the heels of a rise in hate crimes and hate incidents — specifically
Continue Reading Kentucky’s Republican-led General Assembly this week passed bipartisan voting reform legislation setting rules for absentee and early voting — an exception to increasingly polarized partisan efforts in multiple states to remake election rules in the wake of the 2020 presidential race. The bill, which received widespread support from both Democrats and Republicans in the Republican-led
Continue Reading The Internal Revenue Service will start sending stimulus payments to low-income Social Security recipients this weekend, and expects most of the money to be received electronically on April 7. Most eligible households have already received the stimulus payments approved by Congress in the latest Covid relief bill passed earlier this month. Roughly 127 million payments
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The Biden administration is expanding the pause on student loan interest and collections to the more than a million borrowers who are in default on loans made by private lenders, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Tuesday. “This step particularly protects 800,000 borrowers who are at risk of having their tax refunds seized,” Psaki
Continue Reading NATO scrambled fighter jets 10 times Monday to track and intercept an unusually “rare peak” of Russian bombers and fighters flying over the North Sea, Black Sea and Baltic Sea, according to a NATO official. “NATO aircraft intercepted six different groups of Russian military aircraft near alliance airspace in less than six hours,” the organization
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President Joe Biden is not scheduled to toss out the Opening Day first pitch on Thursday for the Washington Nationals, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on Tuesday. But she added that baseball fans will be hearing from him in the next few days. “I know the President’s eager to get out to Nationals’
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Republican Kelly Tshibaka, a former Alaska Department of Administration commissioner, launched her Senate campaign on Monday against Sen. Lisa Murkowski, pitching the election as an outsider versus a powerful, longtime insider. “We know what Washington, DC thinks about Alaska: We’re here for their benefit; we’re not going to put up much of a fight,” said
Continue Reading The chairwoman of the House Progressive Caucus said Tuesday that she is convinced that in order to ensure that President Joe Biden’s infrastructure package can include all of the green energy initiatives, worker protections and other key progressive priorities, the Senate must either gut the filibuster or overrule the Senate parliamentarian. The comments from Democratic
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President Joe Biden on Tuesday unveiled a diverse slate of 11 judicial nominees, including three African American women for Circuit Court vacancies and a candidate who, if confirmed, would be the first Muslim federal judge in US history. The list, first reported by The Washington Post, is Biden’s first wave of judicial nominations, and also
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Joseph Biggs, a Proud Boys leader who is charged with conspiracy related to the January 6 insurrection, claims the FBI had checked in on him several times in recent years, according to a new defense filing arguing that Biggs’ contact with law enforcement shows he’s not a threat to the public and should stay out
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President Joe Biden is aiming to pass his sweeping infrastructure and jobs proposal this summer, a senior White House official told CNN, setting an ambitious timeline to achieve his next major legislative goal. The package, which could cost between $3 and 4 trillion, includes two pieces: one piece investing in domestic manufacturing, research and development,
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Several civil rights groups announced on Tuesday that they have filed a joint federal lawsuit over the Georgia election overhaul bill, the third federal lawsuit challenging the legislation since it was signed into law last week. The American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of Georgia, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., Southern Poverty Law Center,
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US Customs and Border Protection is deploying more agents to the US-Mexico border as the agency continues to face a growing number of migrants, an agency spokeswoman told CNN. Stephanie Malin, a CBP spokeswoman, said more than 300 agents, including those that were part of an initial deployment earlier this year, are being moved primarily
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Several civil rights and voting rights groups have filed a lawsuit challenging the Georgia’s new voting law, which was signed last week by Republican Gov. Brian Kemp. The suit — filed by the Georgia NAACP, Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda, League of Women Voters of Georgia, GALEO Latino Community Development Fund, Common Cause and
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President Joe Biden will lay out the first of a sweeping two-pronged infrastructure and jobs proposal Wednesday, with the administration launching its expected months-long effort to pass proposals that will total between $3 trillion and $4 trillion, according to senior administration officials. Biden, who will detail the infrastructure and climate piece of the proposal in
Continue Reading With the money from his $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief law starting to flow, President Joe Biden is turning his attention to his next massive investment package — a two-part infrastructure and jobs proposal that could total $3 trillion. The funding is sorely needed, experts say. From roads to public transit, from dams to airports, the
Continue Reading Vigilant community members attuned to warning signs from potential shooters were instrumental in thwarting many school attacks between 2006 and 2018, according to a report from the US Secret Service that gives new insight into how attention to concerning behavior can stave off mass shootings beyond schools. The Secret Service’s National Threat Assessment Center explored
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