Politics

President Joe Biden honored the 500,000 American lives lost to coronavirus on Monday, speaking of the collective grief of a nation and in personal terms. “The people we lost were extraordinary. They spanned generations,” he said. “Just like that, they took their final breath alone, in America.” Biden will participate in a moment of silence

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas on Monday claimed election fraud is a threat to America, revealing in a forceful dissent some support for former President Donald Trump and Republicans who have refused to accept the result of the 2020 election. A longtime conservative, Thomas’ legal views naturally aligned with the Trump administration. But his dissent

Merrick Garland, President Joe Biden’s attorney general nominee, testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday, vowing to preserve the integrity of the Justice Department and to fully prosecute the “heinous” crimes committed during the attack on the US Capitol last month. The chief judge of the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit

A nightmare of this magnitude seemed unfathomable just a year ago. Half a million US lives have been lost to Covid-19. That’s more than the number of Americans killed in World War II. The victims of this silent enemy were young and old, spanning all backgrounds and corners of the country. And the pandemic is

The House Budget Committee voted Monday to advance President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion relief package, setting up the legislation aimed at fighting the Covid-19 pandemic and its economic fallout to go to the House floor for a vote later this week. The package includes direct aid to small businesses, $1,400 direct checks to Americans making

On the campaign trail, President Joe Biden promised to cancel at least $10,000 of federal student loans for all borrowers in response to the Covid-19 crisis. Over 60 lawmakers and 17 state attorneys general have called on him to go further and cancel up to $50,000 administratively. When Biden was asked if he would cancel

The Supreme Court cleared the way for a New York prosecutor to obtain former President Donald Trump’s tax returns, dealing a massive loss to Trump who has fiercely fought to shield his financial papers from prosecutors. The documents will be subject to grand jury secrecy rules that restrict their public release. The ruling is a

On the brink of a devastating milestone — 500,000 US Covid-19 deaths — the US is at a crossroads in the course of this pandemic. While numbers of new cases and hospitalizations go down, reports of new, highly contagious variants go up. And while vaccinations slowly increase, some Americans say they won’t get a Covid-19

The Biden administration is rolling back the controversial Trump-era naturalization civics test, reverting to a prior version of the exam, according to a policy alert published Monday. US Citizenship and Immigration Services, which administers the test, announced it will go back to using a 2008 version. The agency had received thousands of comments on the

Democrats have drafted a plan for the formation of a 9/11 style commission designed to investigate what led to the January 6 Capitol insurrection. A senior Democratic aide involved in the negotiations described the plan as a discussion draft to begin the process of crafting the legislation that will be used to form the group.

The confirmation of Neera Tanden to lead the Office of Management and Budget is on the brink of collapse after two key Republicans announced Monday that they will vote against her nomination, citing her past social media behavior. Tanden’s nomination in the evenly split Senate was jeopardized late last week when Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin

The Supreme Court on Monday denied an appeal from Republicans challenging a Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision that allowed ballots received up to three days after Election Day to be counted to accommodate challenges by the coronavirus pandemic. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a forceful dissent. Read it here: cnn.com/2021/02/22/politics/thomas-dissent-in-pa-election/index.html

The Biden administration announced several changes Monday to the Paycheck Protection Program in an effort to reach minority-owned and very small businesses that may have previously missed out on accessing loans to help weather the coronavirus pandemic. Starting Wednesday, small businesses with fewer than 20 employees will have a two-week exclusive window to apply for