“The Democratic-led House voted on Thursday to create a path to citizenship for an estimated four million undocumented immigrants, reopening a politically charged debate over the nation’s broken immigration system just as President Biden confronts a growing surge of migrants at the border.
In a near party-line vote of 228 to 197, the House first moved to set up a permanent legal pathway for more than 2.5 million undocumented immigrants, including those brought to the United States as children, known as Dreamers, and others granted Temporary Protected Status for humanitarian reasons. Just nine Republicans voted yes.
Hours later, lawmakers approved a second measure with more bipartisan backing that would eventually grant legal status to close to a million farmworkers and their families while updating a key agricultural visa program. This time, 30 Republicans, many representing agriculture heavy districts, joined nearly every Democrat to vote in favor.
The votes were significant milestones for the Dreamers and other activists who have waged a decade-long campaign, often at great personal risk, to bring the 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States without permanent legal status out of the shadows. Dreamers, those who have T.P.S. and agricultural workers have in many cases lived in the United States for long periods, and measures to normalize their status have broad public support.
In moving swiftly to consider both bills, House leaders wagered that singling out relatively narrow but publicly popular immigration fixes could shake up a deadlocked policy debate after years of failed attempts at more comprehensive immigration legislation, and deliver for a key constituency.
‘This House has another chance to pass H.R. 6 and once and for all end the fear and uncertainty that have plagued the life of America’s Dreamers, who have become an integral part of the fabric of American society,’ Representative Lucille Roybal-Allard, Democrat of California and an author of the Dreamer bill, said during a hard-fought debate inside the Capitol. ‘It is an issue about who we are as Americans.’
But after colliding with a wave of hardened Republican opposition in the House, the bills face steep odds in the evenly divided Senate. While some Republicans there have pledged support for Dreamers in the past, their party is increasingly uniting behind a hard-line strategy to block any new immigration law as it seeks to use the worsening situation at the border as a political cudgel against Mr. Biden and Democrats.
‘There is no pathway for anything right now,’ Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina and a key player in past bipartisan immigration pushes, said this week.
That means the immigration measures will join a growing pile of liberal agenda items, as well as broadly supported measures on pressing national challenges, that have passed the House but are destined to languish or die because of Republican opposition in the Senate. They include a landmark expansion of voting rights, new gun control measures, the most significant pro-labor legislation in decades and the Equality Act for L.G.B.T.Q. people.
Democrats in favor of eliminating or altering the filibuster believe the accumulating pressure could help break the dam in the months ahead, allowing them to change Senate rules to do away with the 60-vote requirement and let legislation pass with a simple majority.” Read more at New York Times
“In a new appeal for public help, the FBI Thursday released a series of graphic video clips in an attempt to identify 10 Capitol riot suspects allegedly involved in some of the most brutal assaults on police officers.
Assistant Director Steven D'Antuono, chief of the FBI's D.C. field office, said the suspects were drawn from videos showing rioters wielding clubs, flag poles, furniture pieces, stolen police shields and chemical spray as they stormed under-manned officer lines outside the Capitol. Others are shown in hand-to-hand combat.
Of the more than 300 arrested so far, D'Antuono said at least 65 have been charged with assaulting officers. But he said "some of the most violent offenders have yet to be identified," including the 10 featured in the newly released videos.” Read more at USA Today
“The Biden administration on Friday is expected to mark 100 million coronavirus shots administered in the country. That’s weeks ahead of President Joe Biden's goal of achieving the milestone within 100 days of his term. ‘Next week, I'll announce our next goal to put shots in arms,’ Biden said in announcing the news on Thursday. He had directed states to make doses available to all adults no later than May 1, a deadline that many states say they have no trouble meeting. In fact, Biden's directive doesn’t create an especially high bar. But former health officials said that wasn't the point.” Read more at USA Today
“Europe missed its chance to stop a third wave of the coronavirus pandemic before it got out of control. Now, with new lockdowns being imposed across the continent, it's paying a high price. Some experts blame Europe's current problems on politicians being too quick to ease restrictions. American public health officials worry the US could be next. States are pushing ahead with rolling back restrictions on businesses and large gatherings. And while Covid-19 vaccine access is rapidly expanding, two obstacles stand in the way of herd immunity and a return to normal life: highly contagious Covid-19 variants and vaccine hesitancy. In other news, the CDC is expected to update its physical distancing guidelines for schools from 6 feet to 3 feet today, saying it would make no significant difference in Covid-19 transmission rates.” Read more at CNN
“According to Bloomberg News’s vaccine tracker, the U.S. is averaging 2.5 million shots per day over the past week, including 2.7 million that individuals received on Thursday alone.
The vaccination effort on the administration’s part was not limited to those in the U.S. as the White House announced that it will loan 4 million doses of the vaccine by AstraZeneca and Oxford University to Canada and Mexico. According to White House press secretary JenPsaki, Canada will receive 2.5 million doses of the vaccine, while Mexico receives 1.5 million. She added that the U.S. has 7 million “releasable” doses of AstraZeneca vaccine overall, adding that the administration could share those with other countries.
‘Our first priority remains vaccinating the U.S. population, but the reality is the pandemic knows no borders,’ Psaki told reporters. ‘Ensuring our neighbors can contain the virus is mission critical to ending the pandemic.’ Read more at The Hill
“A Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation poll finds barely half of front-line health-care workers (52 percent) said they received at least their first coronavirus vaccine dose at the time they were surveyed. More than 1 in 3 said they are not confident vaccines were sufficiently tested for safety and effectiveness.
While about 2 in 10 health-care workers said they had scheduled a shot or were planning to, 3 in 10 said they are unsure about getting vaccinated or not planning to do so. As many as 1 in 6 health workers said that if employers required them to get vaccinated, they would leave their job.” Read more at Washington Post
“President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will meet with Asian American leaders in Atlanta on Friday in response to fears after a gunman's shooting rampage killed eight people, six of them women of Asian descent, at three spas in the area . Zheng Yu Huang, president of the Chinese American leadership group Committee of 100, praised the Biden administration for starting to address the concerns of the Asian American and Pacific Islander communities. ‘But there is a huge amount of work that needs to be done around education, training, funding and community outreach at the federal, state and local levels to put an end to the anti-Asian xenophobia and hate,’ Huang said. The trip to Atlanta was arranged prior to the shootings for the president to tout benefits of his recently approved $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package. That political piece of the trip now has been postponed, the White House said, ‘given the tragedy in Georgia.’” Read more at USA Today
“A 75-year-old Asian American woman who was suddenly attacked and punched by a man on a San Francisco street fought back, leaving him battered, bloodied and hospitalized. ‘You bum, why did you hit me?’ Xiao Zhen Xie said in Chinese.” Read more at USA Today
“Capt. Jay Baker, a spokesman for the Cherokee County Sheriff's Office which isinvestigating the Georgia massage parlor shootings, was removed from the case Thursday after social media posts went viral showing him promoting a T-shirt with controversial language about China and the coronavirus.” Read more at USA Today
“Russia recalled its ambassador to the U.S. after Biden said he thought that President Vladimir Putin was a ‘killer’ and vowed that Putin would ‘pay’ for interfering in the 2020 election.” Read more at New York Times
“When it was announced that US and Chinese officials would be meeting in Alaska this week, it seemed like this could mark the start of a new relationship between the two countries. ‘So much for a reset,’ writes CNN's James Griffiths. The first meeting got off to a particularly heated start. After US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the Biden administration would bring up ‘deep concerns’ about some of China's actions around the world, Chinese officials pushed back. They warned the US against meddling in their ‘internal affairs’ and said it should ‘stop advancing its own democracy in the rest of the world.’ For now, it appears that not much has changed since the major deterioration in relations we saw in the final year of President Trump's term. A final set of talks is expected to begin today.” Read more at CNN
“The third former staffer to publicly accuse New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo of inappropriate conduct answered questions from investigators yesterday about her time in the governor's office between 2013 and 2015. ‘It was a toxic, verbally abusive, retaliatory workplace, especially for young women like myself,’ Ana Liss said. It's the latest development regarding the investigation into multiple sexual harassment allegations facing the governor. Two other former staffers met with investigators earlier this week. Cuomo has repeatedly denied the allegations.” Read more at CNN
“The US Supreme Court justices are expected to meet privately today to consider whether to take up Mississippi's ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. Conservative justices on the bench have shown that they want to topple abortion rights, but they can't seem to agree on how far they will go, writes CNN's Joan Biskupic. Their aims, based on recent writings, range from reversing Roe v. Wade, to forbidding clinics from challenging restrictions on behalf of women, to relaxing the standard that states must meet to limit women's access to the procedure. Though the justices could decide to take up the case, they may also wait to take up one of several other abortion laws heading their way.” Read more at CNN
“The U.S. economic recovery is picking up steam. Americans are increasing their spending, particularly on in-person services that were battered by the pandemic, driving a surge that is arriving sooner than many economists had expected at the start of the year.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“Remote schooling strains parents and children. Virtual learning has taken a toll on schoolchildren and their parents, a new CDC report finds. Surveyed parents were more likely to report strains on themselves and their kids.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“NFL deals bring Thursday football to Amazon. The league’s new long-term media deals, valued at more than $100 billion, make Amazon the new home of Thursday Night Football and ABC will join the rotation of broadcasters that televise the Super Bowl.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“4 million — The number of AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine doses the U.S. is sending to Canada and Mexico. The shipments will be considered a loan with the expectation that the countries will ship doses to the U.S. later. The agreement comes as the Biden administration is in talks with Mexico to stem a surge of migration at the border and after the U.S. has faced pressure to share more of its vaccine supply.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“Xavier Becerra narrowly won confirmation Thursday to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, the agency pivotal to President Biden’s urgent goal of defeating the coronavirus pandemic and expanding access to health care.
Becerra, a congressman from Los Angeles for two dozen years and then California attorney general, squeaked by on a vote of 50 to 49, the closest margin for any of the Biden Cabinet members the Senate has confirmed so far.
He becomes the first Latino secretary of HHS, the largest federal department in terms of spending. The department includes agencies at the core of the federal response to the pandemic that has infected more than 29.6 million people in the United States and killed more than 535,000. They include the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the vaccine-approving Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which oversees the country’s vast public insurance programs.” Read more at Washington Post
“The upper chamber also confirmed William Burns, a longtime diplomat, to serve as CIA director on Thursday. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) lifted his hold on Burns’s nomination earlier Thursday, with his confirmation taking place shortly after by voice vote.” Read more at The Hill
The Washington Post: “Biden expected to nominate former Sen. Bill Nelson(D-Fla.) to be NASA administrator.”
“The New York Attorney general has subpoenaed his lawyers, his bankers, his chief financial officer — even one of his sons.
And that’s just in New York. Former president Donald Trump is also facing criminal investigations in Georgia and the District of Columbia related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. And Trump must defend himself against a growing raft of lawsuits: 29 are pending at last count, including some seeking damages from Trump’s actions on Jan. 6, when he encouraged a march to the Capitol that ended in a mob storming the building.
No charges have been filed against Trump in any of these investigations. The outcome of these lawsuits is uncertain. Trump has raised more than $31 million for his post-presidential political action committee, which he could tap to pay legal fees.
But the sheer volume of these legal problems indicates that — after a moment of maximum invincibility in the White House — Trump has fallen to a point of historic vulnerability before the law.
He has lost the formal immunities of the presidency and the legal firepower of the Justice Department, but he is also without some of the informal shields that protected him even before he was president: his reputation for endless wealth and his clout as a political donor in New York.
Now, prosecutors roam free in his financial records. New lawsuits keep arriving. Some of his key lawyers have quit. A man who once used the law to swamp his enemies, overwhelming them with claims and legal bills, is finding himself on the other side of the wave, unable to control what comes next.” Read more at Washington Post
“The fallout from USA TODAY's reporting on the actions of the athletic department administrators at Louisiana State University continues as Oregon Gov. Kate Brown called on the Oregon State University Board of Trustees to fire President F. King Alexander if its independent review finds he did not uphold his ethical and legal responsibilities to protect students during his time at Louisiana State University.” Read more at USA Today
“A commission created to relabel U.S. Army bases named for Confederate leaders has quietly undergone a major shakeup under the Biden administration, Axios race and justice reporter Russell Contreras writes.
The eight-member commission — established last year, after George Floyd's death brought attention to systemic racism — will include the first African American woman to command a Navy ship, and a retired West Point historian who has compared the Confederacy to treason.
Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III, the first Black American to hold the position, last month replaced four appointees assigned by the Trump administration. The new members are expected to approach the task with an emphasis on racial and ethnic diversity.
The big picture: An Axios review of U.S. history shows several of the men for whom bases are named held white supremacist views and had poor military records.” Read more in Axios
“A congressional subcommittee has asked Elanco to voluntarily recall its Seresto flea and tick collars, after a March 2 story by the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting and USA TODAY on thousands of reports about pet and human harm linked to the use of the collar.” Read more at USA Today
“A woman accused movie star Armie Hammer of raping and beating her in Los Angeles in April 2017. Los Angeles police say they're investigating the allegation. ‘He abused me mentally, emotionally and sexually,’ the 24-year-old woman named Effie said during a Zoom press conference with her lawyer Gloria Allred. Hammer, 34, denies the allegations.” Read more at USA Today
“The new editor in chief of Teen Vogue resigned before her first day on the job over racist and homophobic tweets she posted a decade ago.” Read more at New York Times
“Lives Lived: Dick Hoyt finished more than a thousand road races, but he didn’t run them alone. His partner was always his son Rick, a quadriplegic with cerebral palsy, whom he pushed in a wheelchair. Hoyt died at 80.” Read more at New York Times
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