Biden news – live: President promises Kentucky more aid, calling floods part of ‘dangerous’ climate crisis
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Your support makes all the difference.Fresh out of Covid-19 isolation after a second negative test, President Joe Biden is resuming in-person duties and events. On Monday he visited flood-stricken eastern Kentucky where he and First Lady Jill Biden met with families impacted by the disaster that saw 37 people killed.
During his isolation in the White House due to a rebound case of the coronavirus, the president remained busy, overseeing several legislative victories, the killing of the leader of Al-Qaeda, and an impressive jobs report.
Most importantly, Senate Democrats managed to pass their signature legislation — the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 — which aims to help tackle the climate crisis, reduce the costs of prescription drugs, and create a 15 per cent minimum tax for corporations making over $1bn in income. The bill goes before the House of Representatives late this week.
On Tuesday, Mr Biden will sign CHIPS and Science Act which will make the US less dependent on semiconductor chips made in China and promote manufacturing. The following day he will sign PACT Act into law which expands access to health care for veterans exposed to toxic burn pits during their service.
Bernie Sanders sparks new memes for posing on Senate steps
A moment from Senator Bernie Sanders has been compared to music album covers and more after he was photographed sitting on the steps of the US Capitol.
The Vermont senator was taking a break from a marathon 27-hour voting session on Saturday when he was caught by Los Angeles Times photojournalist Kent Nishimura.
Mr Sanders, who has previously been at the centre of viral internet memes, appeared exhausted in the photo, which was taken in the 13th hour of the Senate’s “vote-a-rama”, which ended with the passing of the $430bn Inflation Reduction Act.
Gino Spocchia reports:
Bernie Sanders sparks album cover comparisons for Capitol steps photo
Vermont senator had been taking a break 13 hours into marathon ‘vote-a-rama’
What’s in Democrats’ much vaunted big bill?
Not as robust as the proposal President Joe Biden once envisioned to rebuild America’s public infrastructure and family support systems, the Democrats‘ compromise of health care, climate change, and deficit-reduction strategies is still a substantial undertaking.
The estimated $740 billion package — passed Sunday by the Senate and heading to the House — is full of party priorities.
What's in Democrats' big bill? Climate, health care, savings
The estimated $740 billion economic package from Democrats is nowhere near what President Joe Biden first envisioned with his effort to rebuild America’s public infrastructure and family support systems
Battle between progressive and centrist Dems for Vermont House seat
Lt Gov Molly Gray and Senate President Pro Tempore Becca Balint are the leading candidates in a Democratic US House primary that could make either of them the first female member of Vermont’s congressional delegation.
Gray has the backing of the centrist lane of the party, with endorsements from former Govs. Madeline Kunin and Howard Dean. Retiring US Sen Patrick Leahy donated $5,000 to her campaign and cast a ballot for her.
Balint has been endorsed by an all-star list of progressive leaders, including the state’s other US senator, Bernie Sanders; Rep Pramila Jayapal, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus; and Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, the founders of Vermont’s famously progressive ice cream company, Ben & Jerry’s.
Progressive and centrist Dems battle for Vermont House seat
Vermont Lt. Gov. Molly Gray and Senate President Pro Tempore Becca Balint are the leading candidates in a Democratic U.S. House primary that could make either of them the first female member of the state's congressional delegation
How Schumer’s messy style delivers for Democrats
With a willingness to broker politically unpleasant compromises and a New Yorker’s drive to keep pestering his colleagues, Schumer is using his party’s fragile control of the Senate to substantive, sizable accomplishments unseen in recent years.
“Persistence. I persist,” Schumer said in an interview late Sunday evening after the round-the-clock session and Senate passage of Biden’s bill.
How Schumer's messy style delivers for Dems: 'I persist'
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer effectively became the leader of the U.S. Senate on the morning of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection
ICYMI: US unemployment rate drops to 3.5 per cent
The US unemployment rate dropped to 3.5 per cent last month as the US economy added 528,000 jobs, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced on Friday.
Despite persistent inflation, the Department of Labor said job growth in the US was “widespread” in July, with “leisure and hospitality, professional and business services, and health care” sectors all adding jobs.
The department also said the number of employed non-farm workers and the US unemployment rate are now at the same levels they were in February 2020, before the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. The number of “long-term unemployed” — meaning persons without a job for more than six months — also decreased to pre-pandemic levels with a drop of 269,000 last month.
US unemployment rate drops to 3.5 per cent amid ‘widespread’ job growth
‘Both total nonfarm employment and the unemployment rate have returned to their February 2020 pre-pandemic levels’
ICYMI: Yellen insists US not in recession
The US economy shrank by 0.9 per cent during the second quarter of the year, further stoking fears the country is heading into a recession.
Thursday morning’s data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, part of the Commerce Department, posted a second straight quarterly contraction in gross domestic product – the broadest measure of economic output.
Back-to-back negative GDP quarters constitute an informal definition of recession, but most economists point to a still-robust labour market, with 11 million job openings and an uncommonly low 3.6 per cent unemployment rate. They argue that a recession, if one were to occur, is still a way off.
Yellen insists US not in recession as economy shrank 0.9 per cent in second quarter
Two negative quarters meets the informal definition of recession but many economists disagree
Legacy-defining wins as Biden steps out of the room
Over five decades in Washington, Joe Biden knew that the way to influence was to be in the room where it happens. But in the second year of his presidency, some of Biden’s most striking, legacy-defining legislative victories came about by staying out of it.
Biden steps out of the room and finds legacy-defining wins
Over five decades in Washington, Joe Biden knew that the way to influence was to be in the room where it happens
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