One year after the violent assault on the U.S. Capitol, Americans remain deeply concerned about the health of their democracy and about a third say violence against the government can sometimes be justified, according to two polls published Sunday. The January 6 attack on the seat of Congress, led by supporters of Donald Trump, was “a harbinger of increasing political…
read moreThe congressional investigation into the riot at the U.S. Capitol last January is zeroing in on why then-President Donald Trump did nothing for more than three hours to stop his supporters from ransacking the building and clashing with police as lawmakers sought to certify that he had lost the 2020 election, the panel’s chairman said…
read moreA new year brings a new mayor for New York City and new laws in many of the 50 U.S. states. Democrat Eric Adams was elected in November to be the next leader of the largest city in the United States. He succeeds Bill de Blasio, who served two terms as mayor, beginning in 2014. …
read moreAfrican American voters helped propel President Joe Biden to the White House and were instrumental in securing Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress. A year later, some of Biden’s most loyal supporters are increasingly frustrated about 2020 campaign promises not realized. “I voted for Biden but feel disappointed his administration hasn’t delivered more for…
read moreThe Biden administration came into office vowing “America is back,” with Secretary of State Antony Blinken pledging to work closely to boost ties with allies. But unexpected crises, coups and conflicts in Ethiopia, Haiti, Myanmar, Sudan and Ukraine have also commanded the top U.S. diplomat’s attention in 2021. VOA’s Senior Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports.…
read moreFrom insurrection and impeachment to infrastructure and COVID relief funding, 2021 was one of the most significant years on Capitol Hill in decades. Lawmakers had to deal with the impact of a global pandemic while trying to pass an ambitious legislative agenda during the first year of a new presidency. VOA’s Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson…
read moreHarry Reid, the former Senate majority leader and Nevada’s longest-serving member of Congress, has died. He was 82. Reid died Tuesday, “peacefully,” surrounded by family, “following a courageous, four-year battle with pancreatic cancer,” Landra Reid said of her husband in a statement. “Harry was a devout family man and deeply loyal friend,” she said. “We…
read morePresident Joe Biden signed the National Defense Authorization Act into law Monday, authorizing $768.2 billion in military spending, including a 2.7% pay raise for service members, for 2022. The NDAA authorizes a 5% increase in military spending and is the product of intense negotiations between Democrats and Republicans over issues ranging from reforms of the…
read morePresident Joe Biden came into office at a time when U.S. standing in the world had reached a record low point. Across 60 countries and areas surveyed by Gallup’s U.S. Leadership Poll during the last year of Donald Trump’s presidency, median approval of U.S. leadership stood at 22%. Six months into Joe Biden’s presidency, American global…
read moreFormer President Donald Trump on Thursday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to block the release of White House records sought by the House of Representatives committee investigating the deadly Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Trump’s request came two weeks after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that the…
read moreThe U.S. Supreme Court said Wednesday it will hear oral arguments in challenges to the Biden administration’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for businesses with at least 100 workers and another vaccine mandate for health care workers. The court set both hearings for Jan. 7. A group of 27 mostly Republican-led states, along with businesses and business…
read morePresident Joe Biden urged people to not panic as he announced on Tuesday an updated three-pronged plan to fight an expected rise in COVID-19 cases after the emergence of the highly transmissible omicron variant. He also pleaded with the millions of unvaccinated Americans to get their shots. VOA’s Anita Powell reports from the White House.…
read moreU.S. President Joe Biden laid out a new concerted effort Tuesday to combat the surging omicron variant of the coronavirus, dispatching federal health care workers to short-handed hospitals, pre-positioning the national stockpile of medical equipment around the country and offering 500 million free COVID-19 test kits to Americans. Biden detailed his attack plan in a…
read moreU.S. President Joe Biden’s administration says it is looking to push ahead with work on a social safety net spending bill after a key Democrat in the Senate said he could not support it. White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters at a briefing Monday that the administration is ready to “work like hell”…
read moreWarning that extremism in the ranks is increasing, Pentagon officials issued detailed new rules Monday prohibiting service members from actively engaging in extremist activities. The new guidelines come nearly a year after some current and former service members participated in the riot at the U.S. Capitol, triggering a broad department review. According to the Pentagon,…
read morePresident Joe Biden has welcomed a new addition to the family, a puppy named Commander. Biden shared a photo Monday on his official Twitter account with a caption that said, “Welcome to the White House, Commander” as well as a brief video of him tossing a ball to Commander and walking the leashed dog into…
read moreWhen the Biden administration and congressional Democrats revealed the climate change elements of the Build Back Better Act, environmentalist groups in the United States and around the world celebrated. The proposed $555 billion investment in renewable energy and other climate-friendly efforts would have been the largest in history, and it came with a promise that…
read moreFormer President Donald Trump sued New York Attorney General Letitia James on Monday, seeking to end a yearslong civil investigation into his business practices that he alleges is purely political. In the lawsuit, filed two weeks weeks after James requested that Trump sit for a Jan. 7 deposition, Trump contends the probe into matters including…
read moreU.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Monday the Senate will vote “very early in the new year” on President Joe Biden’s social safety net spending plan, expressing a need to push forward after a key Democrat said he could not support it. In a letter to Democratic colleagues, Schumer cited frustration and disappointment among…
read moreJohnny Isakson, an affable Georgia Republican politician who rose from the ranks of the state legislature to become a U.S. senator known as an effective, behind-the-scenes consensus builder, died Sunday. He was 76. Isakson’s son John Isakson told The Associated Press that his father died in his sleep before dawn at his home in Atlanta.…
read moreA centrist U.S. Democratic lawmaker, Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, said Sunday he is definitively opposed to President Joe Biden’s roughly $2 trillion social safety net spending plan, likely dooming its passage without further sharp revisions in its scope and cost. Manchin’s vote was essential in the politically divided Senate for passage of one…
read morePresident Joe Biden pledged Friday to fight for stalled voting rights and police reform legislation, addressing graduates of South Carolina State University amid the harsh reality that months of talks with lawmakers have failed to move the measures closer to becoming law. Biden spoke at the historically Black school a day after conceding that his…
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