Politics

As Democrats cut President Joe Biden’s social spending package from $3.5 trillion to nearly $2 trillion, they’re also working out how to raise the revenue to pay for it. Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema’s opposition to raising corporate taxes and taxes on the wealthiest Americans, as the Biden administration had proposed, …

President Biden told progressive House Democrats during a virtual meeting Monday that the price tag for the $3.5 trillion social safety net bill would need to come down, and he gave them a range between $1.9 and $2.2 trillion, according to sources familiar with the discussion.  The White House believes …

Moderate Democrats Senator Joe Manchin and Senator Kyrsten Sinema held separate meetings with President Biden at the White House Tuesday, as the White House and most Democrats push an up-to $3.5 trillion bill to expand the social safety net.  Mr. Biden’s first-term domestic agenda is packed into the massive bill, …

A new memo issued Wednesday by Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin urges all Pentagon employees and contractors to report suspected cases of “Havana Syndrome,” the mysterious neurological illness that emerged years ago among U.S. personnel in Cuba. The memo, which refers to the cases as “Anomalous Health Incidents,” said that …

The Biden administration has released its plan for combating the next pandemic, warning that a future pandemic could be even worse than COVID-19.  In a call with reporters, White House officials described an Apollo-like mission to coordinate all aspects of pandemic response in a centralized command. The administration’s plan, which …

The U.S. intelligence community remains divided about the origin of COVID-19, according to an unclassified summary of its 90-day investigation into the matter. All agencies agreed that two hypotheses are possible – natural exposure to an infected animal and a laboratory-associated incident.  But the report failed to draw a definitive …

The Biden administration will automatically wipe out federal student loan debt for borrowers who have a total and permanent disability, as it has done for veterans with a severe disability, meaning more than 323,000 borrowers who receive more than $5.8 billion in automatic student loan discharges.  The federal government currently …

An Arkansas judge on Friday temporarily blocked the state from enforcing its ban on mask mandates after lawmakers left the prohibition in place, even as COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations rise.  Earlier this week, Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson said he wished the law he signed could be undone, in particular, so …

President Biden is imposing sanctions on the head of the Cuban military and the division of the Cuban Ministry of the Interior to “hold them accountable for the actions,” he announced in a statement Thursday afternoon. And the president said this is “just the beginning” of sanctions.  Mr. Biden said …