Today's Top Political and Coronavirus News Compilation - Thursday, June 24, 2021 (1 Viewer)

A New York appeals court said there is "uncontroverted evidence" he made false statements about the election.

President Joe Biden has the chance to play the role he has long coveted on Thursday when a group of bipartisan senators brief him on an infrastructure "framework" deal.

Senate Judiciary Committee members voted along party lines on Thursday on President Joe Biden's nominee as head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.Eleven Democrats supported and 11 Republicans opposed moving the nomination of David Chipman for ATF director to the Senate...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced Thursday the House will create a select committee to investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

President Biden on Thursday said he won’t sign the bipartisan infrastructure deal if Congress doesn’t also pass a reconciliation bill, committing to a dual track system to get both bills passed.…

Congressional negotiators seeking a path forward on legislation aimed at overhauling the nation’s policing laws announced Thursday they’ve “reached agreement on a framework” for the package but said talks will continue over the next few weeks.

Two of former President Trump's allies who pushed false claims of a stolen election appeared in court as part of a pair of defamation lawsuits filed against them.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Thursday afternoon slammed President Biden for “caving” to his left flank after the president endorsed a bipartisan $579 billion, five-year infrast…

Sidney Powell, Rudy Giuliani and Mike Lindell are each facing billion-dollar lawsuits for allegedly defamatory claims they made about Dominion.

Lawyers for Mr. Trump and House Democrats told a federal court they are still at odds over a subpoena for the former president's financial records.

Former President Donald Trump labeled the Michigan state Senate’s election investigation that confirmed President Joe Biden’s victory a “cover up" Thursday.Trump, who acknowledged Monday that he hasn’t conceded the November race, ridiculed the state Senate Oversight Committee's investigation...

The three chief negotiators on a police reform package announced Thursday they had reached a bipartisan agreement on the issue. “After months of working in good faith, we have reached an …

The U.S. stood virtually alone at the United Nations this week as it defended sanctions that Cuban doctors say are costing lives.

The law goes into effect July 1.

The state of Texas is asking a federal court to order the Biden administration to follow the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's rules limiting the admission of people looking to enter the U.S. illegally or without proper documentation due to the coronavirus pandemic, and to stop...

Rudy Giuliani did not appear at a defamation case hearing attended by MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, lawyer Sidney Powell and Dominion Voting Systems CEO John Poulos.

The new bipartisan coalition, spearheaded by Sen. Joe Manchin, includes 11 Republicans, 9 Democrats and 1 independent.

Former President Trump on Thursday slammed the decision by a New York court to suspend his former personal attorney Rudy Giuliani’s license to practice law in the state, calling the form…

Sen. Marco Rubio called for a return to "commonsense conservatism," telling Fox News the Republican Party has an "enormous opening and opportunity" to shift its messaging closer to a pro-worker agenda, as those voters who traditionally gravitated toward Democrats have become turned off by the...

The House passed two bills on Thursday to promote credit fairness for LGBT-owned businesses and ensure that veterans can access contraceptive health care without copays, after both measures failed …

The U.S. is planning to evacuate Afghan interpreters, contractors to a safe location as the U.S. military withdraws and the Taliban threatens a takeover.

Progressives are toning it down on police reform as a growing stack of evidence suggests it is hurting the party with voters.While a number of liberal Democrats remain opposed to virtually any expa…

At least three people are dead and 99 others are unaccounted for after a 12-story residential building partially collapsed in southern Florida's Miami-Dade County.

The DOJ has helped local law enforcement better their body camera programs, but an audit found that many DOJ groups were “generally unprepared” to implement programs of their own.

A group of former President Trump’s allies urged a federal judge on Thursday to throw out a trio of Dominion Voting’s defamation suits over false claims of election fraud.

The narrow infrastructure deal leaves President Biden's proposals on climate change to a separate bill that Democrats would try to pass using reconciliation.

The former White House communications director testified about efforts to seek a post for Stephen Calk.

Democratic leaders are trying to assure nervous progressives that their priorities for climate change, paid family leave and other “human infrastructure” can still be delivered even with President …

President Biden's pledged crackdown on “rogue” gun dealers is unlikely to put a dent in gun crime, only a tiny minority of which is committed with weapons bought from licensed dealers, according to federal statistics.

California Democrats are clashing with members of their party over a package of antitrust bills targeting the top tech companies in the country.Democratic lawmakers from California on the House Jud…

President Joe Biden announced a deal with Democratic and Republican senators on a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill after weeks of back and forth.“We have a deal," Biden told reporters outside the West Wing, surrounded by a group of 10 senators following infrastructure talks at the White House...

Two retired police officers hired by Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R) to investigate the state’s 2020 vote count are being paid thousands of dollars in taxpayer money.The As…

Texas voters show no great enthusiasm for Republican Gov. Greg Abbott serving a third term, nor for Democrat Beto O'Rourke replacing him in 2022.

The footage was released for public viewing after a coalition of media outlets, including CBS News, filed a motion to access the evidence.

Top Democrats said they won’t support a Senate bipartisan infrastructure deal unless there is a guarantee they can pass a massive spending package alongside it that would pay for free college, universal preschool, new healthcare subsidies, green energy initiatives, and other liberal wish list...

The U.S. expects to have American and coalition military command, its leadership and most troops out by July Fourth, or shortly after.

There has been a decided shift in how Democrats talk about voter ID over the past few weeks, and new comments from former Attorney General Eric Holder illustrate the change.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday announced the creation of a select House committee to investigate the Jan. 6 Capitol riot following the failure last month of a bipartisan effort to form an independent commission in the Senate.

Debt relief payments to farmers of color from the US Department of Agriculture were blocked nationwide Wednesday by a federal judge in Florida, the second halt on the payments as push back mounts against the assistance that some White farmers say is racially discriminatory.

The increased investment in cybersecurity follows a steady drumbeat of ransomware attacks that have directly impacted Americans and hampered services.

The pro-statehood movement has taken on new urgency – but it's not the only vision for Puerto Rico's future.

Earlier today, President Joe Biden said "we have a deal" on infrastructure. It doesn't include hiking corporate taxes, but the IRS could get bigger.

Rudy Giuliani, the former personal lawyer for former President Donald Trump, has been suspended from practicing law in New York state.

Hedge funds launch image revamp — Mutual insurers name new chief

President Biden said Thursday that the federal government is ready to step in to assist after a building collapsed in Miami, Fla., and left at least one person dead and 99 unaccounted for. Bid…

U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday created a new House committee to investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, after Senate Republicans in May blocked an independent commission to probe the assault. Some 500 people have now been arrested in the sweeping...

The president warned he would sign the agreed-upon package only if the “other half” of his economic agenda made its way to his desk.

Mike Pompeo has been making the biggest push into New York donor circles since the 2020 presidential election, according to people familiar with the efforts.

The delicate political balancing act of passing infrastructure legislation through a divided Senate hit a snag Thursday, with Sen. Joe Manchin saying he's not ready to commit to passing a progressive-backed companion bill that could hit $6 trillion in new spending.

Promises to build a wall. Plans to arrest border crossers and haul them to jail. The ambitious Republican is first among a group of GOP governors who have picked up where the former president left off when it comes to hard-line immigration measures.

Rep. Peter Meijer, a Republican from Michigan, condemned a recent segment from One America News where a host called for executing "traitors."

Afghan officials, women's rights activists, and U.S. lawmakers have warned that women and girls face a return to the country's grim past.

The U.S. government, once openly dismissive of UFO sightings that for decades sparked the popular imagination, is poised to issue an expansive account of what it calls "unidentified aerial phenomena," based heavily on observations by American military pilots. The U.S. intelligence community, in...

President Joe Biden has, for a second time, selected a nominee with ties to his son Hunter Biden for a top post at the Justice Department, picking a former longtime partner at the law firm where his son worked for years and that was involved in helping the younger Biden in his business dealings with

"Squad" member Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., said she still supports a "radical re-imagining" of law enforcement as crimes surge across America, including anti-police attacks.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) criticized the bipartisan infrastructure proposal shortly after President Biden confirmed the deal Thursday, condemning the lack of d…

The Biden administration on Thursday extended the nationwide ban on evictions for a month to help millions of tenants unable to make rent payments during the coronavirus pandemic, but said this is the last time it plans to do so. Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made clear on Thursday that the House won’t take up the bipartisan infrastructure bill until the Senate passes a larger, more sweeping infrastructure package through budget reconciliation.

Republican Ron DeSantis claims university campuses are ‘intellectually repressive environments’ The Florida governor, Ron DeSantis: ‘It used to be thought that a university campus was a place where you’d be exposed to a lot of different ideas.’ Photograph: Wilfredo Lee/AP Florida’s Republican...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says the body will aim to "establish the truth" of what happened.

Several people who were traveling last October on a campaign bus for Democratic President Joe Biden that was surrounded by supporters of Republican former President Donald Trump on a Texas highway filed a pair of federal lawsuits on Thursday over the incident. One lawsuit, which named more than...

When former President Trump contracted COVID-19 in October, the White House was reportedly so unprepared that officials had not briefed then-Vice President Mike Pence’s team on a plan to swear in P…

“This was an offensive comment which does not reflect who I am in both my private and public lives,” he wrote.

Nikki Haley is pounding the pavement on the campaign trail as she crisscrosses the country to help fellow Republicans running in elections this year and in 2022. But her trip this week to Iowa is sparking more 2024 speculation.

US Ambassador to Russia John Sullivan arrived back in Moscow Thursday, days after the Russian ambassador to the US resumed his post in Washington, DC.

Billionaire investor Peter Thiel managed to grow less than $2,000 into more than $5 billion of tax-free savings in just two decades, according to leaked IRS data. The enormous chunk of wealth was reported by investigative nonprofit site ProPublica on Thursday as part of a series of stories about...

The U.S. economy grew at a yearly pace of more than 6 percent in the first quarter of 2021, according to data released Thursday by the Commerce Department.U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) grew at …

The Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday advanced President Biden's nominee to run the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) on a party-line vote, setting the table for an uncertain confirmation effort on the Senate floor.

China unveiled ambitious plans to send humans to Mars and build a base on the red planet at a space exploration conference this week.

White farmers argued that redressing past discrimination against Black farmers violated their rights, an argument backed by former Trump aides.

The latest revelation comes a month after the remains of 215 children were found buried on the site of what was once Canada's largest Indigenous residential school.

"I have a hard time swallowing that," Manchin told reporters Thursday, leaving the pathway for Biden's major spending initiatives unclear.

Although trying to do the just thing, the federal government probably went too far in shutting out a specific class of business owners rightly pursuing funds.

President Joe Biden and a bipartisan group of senators have reached an agreement to significantly boost infrastructure spending, though considerable hurdles remain before the blueprint unveiled Thursday becomes reality. The White House says the agreement calls for about $579 billion in new...

The $1-trillion infrastructure deal, if successfully enacted, would mark the first major bipartisan legislative accomplishment for Biden.

Bipartisan group "wouldn’t be going to the White House if we didn’t think we had something,” Sen. Mark Warner says, though no details have been revealed.

The president also said he is holding out hope the Assault Weapons Ban will be reinstated.

President Biden received a 56 percent approval rating in a recent Fox News poll.The number marks a slight increase from the 54 percent who approved of his performance in April and May. The poll als…

Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Wednesday night vowed to advance a bipartisan infrastructure plan and Democratic-only bill next month.Schumer spoke to reporters alongside House S…

Five months into the post-Trump era, the promise of Democrat-occupied Washington is crashing into reality.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson and Bishop William Barber II were both arrested Wednesday while protesting against the filibuster and Republican opposition to a federal minimum wage increase outside the U.S. Capitol.

Senators involved in bipartisan negotiations say they and White House officials have agreed to an infrastructure “framework,” and they’ll meet with President Biden Thursday to bri…

Republicans in Congress are clamoring to take action after Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg donated hundreds of millions of dollars last year to a group that distributed money to election precincts nationwide in a seemingly partisan fashion.Rep. Claudia Tenney, a New York Republican who...

Policymakers are divided over whether conservative governors’ policies on Covid-19 restrictions are actually helping their economies or if their states’ industries simply didn’t fall as far behind during the pandemic.

Milley, the nation's highest ranking military officer, was offended by accusations against the military of being 'woke' for studying race theories.

Lawmakers don't want confirmation of wild theories about alien life. They're looking to see those debunked and get more data on an earthbound national security threat.

Iran claimed on Wednesday that the U.S. would lift oil and shipping sanctions on the country but the State Department said nothing has been agreed to.Iran claimed the concession was made durin…

The White House announced on Wednesday that it is now the “appropriate time" for Harris to travel down South to see the border after the veep dismissed the idea of a visit as a “grand gesture” earlier this month.

In an exclusive interview with NBC News’ Peter Alexander, second gentleman Doug Emhoff addresses criticism as Vice President Kamala Harris is set to visit the border. “She’s just focused on the work,” Emhoff says.

Rescue crews picked through tons of rubble on Thursday looking for survivors after the collapse of part of an oceanfront apartment tower overnight near Miami, where officials reported at least one person dead and nearly 100 missing.

A bipartisan group of senators said they reached an agreement in principle with the Biden White House on infrastructure funds for U.S. transportation.

The first publicly released congressional redistricting map could bolster Republicans' chances to recapture the House majority.

A federal judge on Wednesday agreed to a plea that spared Anna Morgan-Lloyd from prison time for her role in the riot and insurrection on Jan. 6.

Senior White House officials met twice with a bipartisan group of senators Wednesday to discuss the framework of a massive infrastructure bill and made enough progress to warrant another meeting Thursday at the White House.

The embattled Florida Republican immediately deleted a post about the law enforcement agency investigating him for possible sex trafficking.

Sweeping antitrust bills aimed at tech giants provoked schisms in both parties and a debate that stretched past daybreak.

The law is meant to exempt firearms in Wisconsin from federal gun laws and regulations. Similar measures have been found unconstitutional elsewhere.

Pressure is building on Biden to address the law's underlying problems now that it has survived the latest Supreme Court challenge.

President Joe Biden on Wednesday announced a "comprehensive strategy" to combat rising gun violence.

“So what is wrong with understanding, having some situational awareness of the country which we are here to defend?” asked Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

A former NRA president and gun rights advocate both unknowingly delivered commencement speeches at a fake high school graduation that represented thousands of children who died from gun violence be…

Lawmakers and activists have begun going after the president directly, after failures on voting rights and amid prolonged infrastructure negotiations.

John Lott, a pro-Second Amendment activist, lashed out after being duped into speaking at a fake high school graduation in a ploy by a little-known gun control group.On Wednesday, Change the Ref, an organization aiming to raise awareness about mass shootings, released a video titled "The Lost...

"I didn’t realize this, I have to admit, that federal firefighters get paid $13 an hour. That’s going to end in my administration," Biden said on Tuesday.

The influential moderate Democrat wants to roll back Trump's "unfair" tax cuts and he supports completely paying for a multitrillion-dollar package.

The UFO report to congress is expected to be released later this month, on government information on unidentified flying objects and aerial phenomena.

The move is another sharp rebuke by the U.S. against China, which dominates the supply chain for the renewable energy equipment.

As the GOP-led Arizona Senate's 2020 election audit in Maricopa County comes to a close, strategists in the state agree Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs stands to emerge as one of its main benefactors.Not quite a household name before the November election, Hobbs barnstormed into the...

Bab al-Hawa, the crossing between Turkey and Syria that is the last authorized humanitarian corridor, is at risk of closing if Russia could vetoes a U.N. resolution requiring it to stay open.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) overstated California’s wildfire prevention efforts, according to an investigation published Wednesday by CapRadio and NPR’s California Newsroom.California&#82…

A group of Democratic senators led by Sen. Amy Klobuchar (Minn.) is calling on the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to step up efforts to eliminate toxic heavy metals that have been rep…

Michael M. Santiago/Getty“Social media does not pick a candidate,” NYC mayoral frontrunner Eric Adams said Tuesday night during what sounded like a victory speech in all but name. “People on Social Security pick a candidate.”Adams isn’t lying. The poorest Black and brown boroughs of New York...

A bill ending the pandemic federal unemployment supplement passed the North Carolina House and Senate.The bill passed along party lines with no Democrats in the Senate and only three Democrats…

President Biden on Wednesday designated Sandra Thompson as the acting director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) after ousting the agency’s previous chief earlier in the day.Thompson wil…

Vice President Kamala Harris will make her first visit on Friday to the U.S.-Mexico border since taking office, following criticism from members of both parties for failing to go earlier despite her role leading the Biden administration’s response to a steep increase in migration. Harris will...

Tulsa city officials on Wednesday said that hackers responsible for a ransomware attack last month are now sharing residents’ personal information online.Over 18,000 city files, including pol…

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has signed into law, a new bill that will, among other things, allow college students to use recordings of their college professors’ lectures as evidence in complaints about political bias to the university.

President Joe Biden made the joke in a White House speech outlining his administration's plan to combat gun violence in the US.

Former Minnesota Sen. Al Franken (D) is launching a comedy tour nearly four years after he resigned over sexual misconduct claims.The 15-stop tour, dubbed “The Only Former U.S. Senator Currently on…

A package of bills aimed at reining in the industry's biggest players drew support from both Republicans and Democrats — but encountered fierce bipartisan opposition.

As crime rates rise across America, President Biden released plans today for five new strike forces to deal with firearms trafficking. Included in his plan: hiring more police officers and bringing violence intervention programs to 15 cities.

The View’s Sunny Hostin said African Americans are buying guns to protect themselves from “white supremacy.” “If you listen to the FBI’s statistics, we had FBI Director [Christopher] Wray testify that the greatest threat in the United States is white supremacy, and who are the victims of white...

An oversight committee in Michigan on Wednesday confirmed the results of the November 2020 general election, which declared President Biden the winner last year.

The recall effort of California Gov. Gavin Newsom will move forward after organizers collected enough signatures. Only 43 signatures were removed in the allotted 30-day period from April 26 to June 8 allowing voters to request theirs to be removed, and 1,719,900 verified signers remain, well...

A witness in the Colorado shooting that left a police officer dead said another onlooker shot the suspect during the incident, The Associated Press reports.Bill Troyanos was working at an Army…

North Korea said on Wednesday that it would not be engaging in talks with the United States that it believes would not make any progress.”We are not considering even the possibility of any co…

Texas voters are divided Gov. Greg Abbott’s push to build a wall along his state’s border with Mexico and are split over whether the two-term Republican governor deserves to be reelected next year, according to a new poll.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said this would be its "final extension."

Rep. Steve Scalise said the hearing will feature testimony from doctors, scientists and "members of Congress who've been investigating this on their own."

RALEIGH, N.C. — The White House on Thursday engaged in an all-out blitz to urge Americans to get vaccinated, scattering top officials around the country to tout the shots even as the administr…

Anthony Fauci resisted a White House directive in April of last year to cancel a research grant for a nonprofit linked to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, only complying after he learned that former President Donald Trump had explicitly ordered its cancellation, according to an exclusive excerpt...

The red states’ moves potentially set up court fights over who has the power to police campus health just as schools prepare to reopen for in-person instruction.

Morgan Stanley will prohibit unvaccinated staff members and clients from entering its New York offices. Employees at the financial services firm were informed Tuesday they would be required to “attest to their vaccination status by July 1.” Additionally, the memo obtained by the Washington...

The United States has administered 319,872,053 doses of COVID-19 vaccines in the country as of Wednesday morning, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.