President Joe Biden ends his first year in office as tensions with Russia hit a fever pitch. He warned his Russian counterpart to choose a diplomatic resolution and to not invade neighboring Ukraine — a message his secretary of state also is pushing in Kyiv this week. VOA White House correspondent Anita Powell reports from Washington. Producer: Kimberlyn Weeks …
Leave a commentVoting legislation that Democrats and civil rights groups argued is vital for protecting democracy was blocked Wednesday by a Republican filibuster, a setback for President Joe Biden and his party after a raw, emotional debate. Democrats were poised to immediately pivot to voting on a Senate rules change as a way to overcome the filibuster and approve the bill with a simple majority. But the rules change was also headed toward defeat, as Biden has been unable to persuade two holdout senators in his own party, Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Joe Manchin of West Virginia, to change the Senatemore
Leave a commentDuring his first press conference of the year, U.S. President Joe Biden spoke candidly at the White House on Wednesday about the possibility of a Russian invasion in Ukraine. “My guess is he will move in — he has to do something,” Biden said of Russian President Vladimir Putin. He warned that such an invasion would be met with the harshest measures. “He has never seen sanctions like the ones I promise will be imposed if he moves,” Biden said. “What I’m concerned about is this could get out of hand,” he said on the potential confrontation between Moscow andmore
Leave a commentFormer President Donald Trump’s legal troubles intensified Wednesday, as the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that he cannot use executive privilege to shield hundreds of pages of documents related to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol from a congressional committee empaneled to investigate its causes. The ruling, which was released by the court early Wednesday evening, came less than a day after the New York attorney general moved to compel Trump and two of his children to testify and produce documents in a fraud investigation. The ruling by the Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling that deniedmore
Leave a commentU.S. President Joe Biden on Wednesday said it was appropriate for the Federal Reserve to recalibrate the support it provides to the U.S. economy, in light of fast-rising prices and the strength of recovery. “Given the strength of our economy and recent price increases, it’s appropriate, as … Fed Chairman [Jerome] Powell has indicated, to recalibrate the support that is now necessary,” Biden told a news conference. “The critical job of making sure that the elevated prices don’t become entrenched rests with the Federal Reserve, which has a dual mandate: full employment and stable prices,” the president said. At themore
Leave a commentU.S. President Joe Biden said on Wednesday that Vice President Kamala Harris would be his running mate in the 2024 presidential election if he stood for office again. “She’s going to be my running mate,” Biden said of Harris during a press conference held to mark the first year of his presidency. In mid-December, Harris said she and Biden had not yet discussed the 2024 election, amid speculation she might not be in the running for the White House if Biden chose not to stand again. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, when asked about the possibility ofmore
Leave a commentPresident Joe Biden on Wednesday said that it was too soon to make commitments on lifting U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods, but that his chief trade negotiator, Katherine Tai, was working on the issue. “I’d like to be able to be in a position where I could say they’re meeting their commitments, or more of their commitments, and be able to lift some of them, but we’re not there yet,” Biden told a news conference at the White House. He was referring to China’s commitments under a Phase 1 trade deal signed by his predecessor, Donald Trump. China has fallen farmore
Leave a commentU.S. President Joe Biden said on Wednesday that he would need to shed some key elements of his signature $1.8 trillion Build Back Better legislation to get support from U.S. Senator Joe Manchin. Biden made a big push in December to win passage in Congress of the spending bill. It would provide billions of dollars to tackle climate change along with money for universal preschool, paid family leave and other social safety nets. However, Manchin, a conservative Democrat from West Virginia, pulled his support after citing concerns about the deficit and inflation. “I think we can break the package up,more
Leave a commentU.S. Democrats’ yearlong effort to overhaul the country’s voting rules comes to a head Wednesday night in the Senate, but indications are their quest likely will fail. As debate began in the politically divided 100-member chamber, there was no sign that any Republicans would support the plan, which would allow for national oversight of elections to override new voting rules enacted by 19 Republican-controlled state legislatures. There also was no indication that two key centrist Democrats — Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin — would drop their opposition to altering the Senate legislative rules so the election law legislation could bemore
Leave a commentAn effort to bar members of Congress from buying and selling stock in public companies is gaining momentum in Washington after a series of revelations that dozens of lawmakers violated financial disclosure requirements, often in ways that suggested they were profiting from advance knowledge of issues related to the coronavirus pandemic. Last week, Georgia Senator John Ossoff and Arizona Senator Mark Kelly, both Democrats, introduced the Ban Congressional Stock Trading Act, a proposal that would require members of Congress and their immediate families to place any stock they own into a blind trust, making it impossible for them tomore
Leave a commentA group of Republican U.S. senators is due to speak to reporters Wednesday in Washington about U.S. concerns of a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine. The group includes Republicans from the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees. Three of those members — Senators Kevin Cramer, Roger Wicker and Rob Portman — were part of a bipartisan congressional delegation that met with Ukrainian officials this week to reinforce U.S. support for Ukraine and its defensive needs. Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal, who was also on the trip, told reporters Monday after the lawmakers met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy that themore
Leave a commentPresident Joe Biden put the full weight of his presidency behind voting rights action last week, heading to Capitol Hill to push Democrats to change Senate rules to pass legislation. Vice President Kamala Harris — whom Biden tapped to take the lead on passing voting rights legislation in June — wasn’t there. Both White House press secretary Jen Psaki and Harris aides had no clear answer when asked why the vice president hadn’t joined Biden in the meeting. It was yet another example of the difficulty Harris has faced throughout her first year in office, as she’s struggled to definemore
Leave a commentThe House committee investigating the Capitol insurrection issued subpoenas Tuesday to Rudy Giuliani and other members of Donald Trump’s post-election legal team who filed multiple lawsuits claiming election fraud that were roundly rejected by the courts but gave rise to the lie that Trump did not really lose the 2020 presidential contest. The committee is continuing to widen its scope into Trump’s orbit, this time demanding information and testimony from Giuliani, Jenna Ellis, Sidney Powell and Boris Epshteyn. All four publicly defended the president and his baseless voter fraud claims in the months after the election. “The four individuals we’vemore
Leave a commentU.S. President Joe Biden began his term under the long shadow of the January 6 Capitol riot, a grinding pandemic and an increasingly divided America. As he now rounds the one-year mark, he faces many of those same challenges – all as he tries to push through a sweeping and expensive legislative agenda. The difficulty of governing through the triple threat of a seemingly never-ending pandemic, increasing consumer prices and political polarization from Congress to city halls across America is neatly reflected in Biden’s approval ratings, which hover around 45%. Since he took office on January 20, his approval ratingsmore
Leave a commentVoting legislation that Democrats and civil rights leaders say is vital for protecting democracy appeared headed for defeat as the Senate opened debate Tuesday, a devastating setback enabled by President Joe Biden’s own party as two holdout senators refuse to support rule changes to overcome a Republican filibuster. The Democratic senators, Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Joe Manchin of West Virginia, faced strong criticism from Black leaders and civil rights organizations for failing to take on what critics call the ” Jim Crow filibuster.” The debate carries echoes of an earlier era when the Senate filibuster was deployed in lengthymore
Leave a commentFormer U.S. President Donald Trump recently addressed 15,000 ardent supporters in Arizona, making his first major public appearance since the one-year anniversary of the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol that sought to keep him in office despite having lost the 2020 presidential election. In 93 minutes of remarks late Saturday, Trump repeated the false claim that the election had been stolen from him and predicted a Republican victory in the 2024 presidential contest, hinting at what political observers already assume: that he is planning a bid to return to the White House. Trump is expected tomore
Leave a commentSouth African university students are fighting mandates that require they be vaccinated against COVID-19 before returning to the classroom on February 14. Even students who are vaccinated, and want others to get inoculated, are against the policy and the students’ union is threatening protests across the country. Linda Givetash reports from Johannesburg. Camera – Zaheer Cassim. Video editors – Zaheer Cassim and Marcus Harton. …
Leave a commentDescendants of slain U.S. civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. and their supporters marched on Washington Monday to urge Senate Democrats to overcome Republican opposition and obstruction within their own ranks to push through a national overhaul of voting rights. They rallied on the national holiday honoring King on the 93rd anniversary of his birth. The march occurred just days after two centrist Senate Democrats, Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin, said they would oppose attempts to change legislative rules in the politically divided 100-member chamber to allow Democrats to set uniform national election rules over the objections of allmore
Leave a commentAs the U.S. approaches the federal holiday honoring the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., modern-day civil rights advocates are facing the reality that despite years of increasing public focus on racial injustice, they appear likely to fall short of their goal of improving minorities’ access to the vote. Last week King’s family requested that celebrations of civil rights leader’s legacy be suspended this year, unless Congress passes legislation to expand voting rights in America. Democrats have championed legislation that would give Washington a stronger say in how federal elections are administered in each of the 50 U.S. states. While themore
Leave a commentOhio’s Republican-drawn congressional map was rejected by the state’s high court Friday, giving hope to national Democrats who had argued it unfairly delivered several potentially competitive seats in this year’s critical midterm elections to Republicans. In the 4-3 decision, the Ohio Supreme Court returned the map to the Ohio General Assembly, where Republicans hold supermajorities in both chambers, and then to the powerful Ohio Redistricting Commission. The two bodies have a combined 60 days to draw new lines that comply with a 2018 constitutional amendment against gerrymandering. The commission was in the process of reconstituting so it can redraw GOP-drawnmore
Leave a commentDartmouth College, the Ivy League university in New Hampshire, has announced that it will admit international students through a “need blind” process, meaning that their ability to pay tuition will not dictate their admission. Dartmouth already had a policy of “need blind” admissions for U.S. applicants, but now foreign students will be considered for admission regardless of their or their families’ financial status. The decision represents an effort to increase the number of international students at the university. “Talent is spread all across the world. We want to remove any financial barriers,” Darthmouth President Philip Hanlon told the Financial Times.more
Leave a commentU.S. President Joe Biden and Democratic lawmakers are maneuvering this week to alter Senate rules to allow for debate on key voting rights legislation that has been blocked for months by Republicans. The showdown is the culmination of a fierce debate over the democratic process. VOA’s Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson has more. …
Leave a commentThe U.S. House committee investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol subpoenaed Meta, Alphabet, Twitter and Reddit on Thursday, seeking information about how their social media platforms were used to help fuel misinformation in a failed bid to overturn the 2020 presidential election. “Two key questions for the Select Committee are how the spread of misinformation and violent extremism contributed to the violent attack on our democracy, and what steps – if any – social media companies took to prevent their platforms from being breeding grounds for radicalizing people to violence,” the House Select Committee’s chairman, Representative Bennie Thompson,more
Leave a commentU.S. President Joe Biden met Thursday with Senate Democrats in a last-ditch plea to overhaul the country’s election laws even as one fellow Democrat pointedly said she would not support changing the Senate’s legislative rules to circumvent uniform Republican opposition to establishing national voting rules. Biden met with most of the Senate Democratic caucus over lunch to voice his support for two measures that would greatly increase federal oversight over congressional and presidential elections and establish uniform voting rules across the country. The bills would erase more restrictive regulations adopted by Republican-controlled legislatures in at least 19 states. As hemore
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