“President Joe Biden on Thursday afternoon will sign into law the bill that makes Juneteenth a federal holiday, according to his official schedule. The Juneteenth National Independence Day Act moved through Congress this week, with the House and Senate both passing it just days before the holiday, which falls on Saturday. Juneteenth, also known as Freedom Day or Emancipation Day, commemorates the day that news of the Emancipation Proclamation reached Texas in 1865. Although Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation became effective Jan. 1, 1863, some holders of enslaved people didn't give them the message that they were free. On June 19, 1865, Union Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger brought the news to Galveston – and told the locals to get with the program.” Read more at USA Today.
Data: FederalPay. Chart: Connor Rothschild/Axios
“As hard as it is to get Ds and Rs to agree on anything, they came together to make Juneteenth a federal holiday: The Senate and House passed it back to back in the past two days, and President Biden will sign it.
Why it matters: Juneteenth will be the first new holiday since 1983, when Congress finally approved Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday, Alayna Treene writes in Axios Sneak Peek.
When Biden signs the bill into law, Juneteenth National Independence Day (June 19) will mark the end of slavery in the U.S.
Establishing MLK Day took almost 20 years.
Juneteenth became a reality in roughly a year. It gained momentum last year after George Floyd's murder.
‘It just seems like, given everything that's going on in terms of race relations in the country, it's an important reminder of how far we've come and how far we still have to go,’ Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), a co-sponsor of the Senate bill, told Axios.” Read more at Axios
“‘A day that transgender kids and their families have been waiting for’: Reversing previous Republican-authored guidance, President Joe Biden's administration said the rights of transgender and gay students are protected at school by Title IX.” Read more at USA Today
“A bipartisan deal on infrastructure may continue to garner support Thursday, a day after 10 senators endorsed the framework of a $1.2 trillion proposal. The bipartisan proposal now has the backing of a significant group of centrist lawmakers – 10 Republicans and 10 Democrats – and has emerged as the best opportunity for President Joe Biden to reach a broad deal with Congress on a sweeping plan to modernize America's deteriorating transportation systems. Many details of the proposal have not been released, but it would not include ‘soft’ infrastructure such as climate change and housing, which Biden had called for in his original $2.25 trillion American Jobs Act.” Read more at USA Today
“DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran’s tattered nuclear deal with world powers hangs in the balance as the country prepares to vote on Friday for a new president and diplomats press on with efforts to get both the U.S. and Tehran to reenter the accord.
The deal represents the signature accomplishment of the relatively moderate President Hassan Rouhani’s eight years in office: suspending crushing sanctions in exchange for the strict monitoring and limiting of Iran’s uranium stockpile.
The deal’s collapse with President Donald Trump’s decision to unilaterally withdraw America from the agreement in 2018 spiraled into a series of attacks and confrontations across the wider Middle East. It also prompted Tehran to enrich uranium to highest purity levels so far, just shy of weapons-grade levels.” Read more at AP News
“WASHINGTON (AP) — The Democratic-led House, with the backing of President Joe Biden, is expected to approve legislation to repeal the 2002 authorization for use of military force in Iraq, a step supporters say is necessary to constrain presidential war powers even though it is unlikely to affect U.S. military operations around the world.
A vote on Thursday would come one day after Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said he intends to bring repeal legislation to the Senate floor this year.
‘The Iraq War has been over for nearly a decade,’ Schumer said. ‘The authorization passed in 2002 is no longer necessary in 2021.’
The White House said in a statement that it supports the House bill and stressed that no ongoing military activities are reliant upon the 2002 authorization.
The growing momentum behind the repeal measure follows years of debate over whether Congress has ceded too much of its war-making authority to the White House. Many lawmakers, particularly Democrats, say passage of the 2002 authorization, or AUMF, was a mistake, and some Republicans agree the authority should be taken off the books. Some lawmakers say the 2001 resolution to fight terrorism, passed after the Sept. 11 attacks, should be reexamined as well.” Read more at AP News
“WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden spent his first trip overseas highlighting a sharp break from his disruptive predecessor, selling that the United States was once more a reliable ally with a steady hand at the wheel. European allies welcomed the pitch — and even a longtime foe acknowledged it.
But while Biden returned Wednesday night to Washington after a week across the Atlantic that was a mix of messaging and deliverables, questions remained as to whether those allies would trust that Biden truly represents a long-lasting reset or whether Russian President Vladimir Putin would curb his nation’s misbehaviors.” Read more at AP News
President Biden ends his press conference in Geneva. Photo: Peter Klaunzer/Keystone via AP
“After eight days of talking on the world stage, President Biden got prickly — then blunt, then reflective — in the final minutes before Air Force One lifted off for home.
Why it matters: One wish that aides to generations of presidents have in common is that when their boss walks away from the podium, he'll keep walking. And reporters know that the most revealing comments often come when an interview or press conference is ‘over’: The newsmaker drops the talking points and is more likely to be real.
Biden was walking off the stage at his post-summit press conference in Geneva when CNN's Kaitlan Collins shouted a provocative, but totally fair question after his three hours with Vladimir Putin: ‘Why are you so confident he’ll change his behavior, Mr. President?’
Biden stopped and snapped as he waved his finger: ‘I’m not confident he’ll change his behavior. Where the hell — what do you do all the time? When did I say I was confident? ... [L]et's get it straight. I said: What will change their behavior is if the rest of [the] world reacts to them and it diminishes their standing in the world. I’m not confident of anything; I'm just stating a fact.’
After the correspondent persisted about how the meeting could be called constructive when Putin had shown no sign of changing his behavior, Biden retorted: ‘If you don’t understand that, you’re in the wrong business.’
Vladimir Putin gives his post-summit presser. Photo: Sergei Bobylev/Tass via Getty Images
Half an hour later, on the tarmac before boarding Air Force One, Biden came over to the press pool and said: ‘I owe my last question an apology. ... I shouldn’t have been such a wise guy with the last answer I gave.’
Asked again about the lack of concrete movement, Biden said: ‘Look, to be a good reporter, you got to be negative. You got to have a negative view of life — OK? — it seems to me, the way you all — you never ask a positive question.’
Of course, sharp questions are designed to do exactly what these had done — elicit what the person is really thinking.
Biden then said he had started ‘working on arms control agreements back all the way during the Cold War. If we could do one [during] the Cold War, why couldn’t we do one now? We’ll see.’
Then, with an aide telling him he really needed to go, Biden gave a window into how he sees the larger narrative of his presidency after 50 years on the public stage.
Biden said the Capitol riot had reinforced ‘what I got taught by my political science professors and by the senior members of the Senate that I admired when I got there — that every generation has to reestablish the basis of its fight for democracy. I mean, for real, literally have to do it.’
Go deeper: Summit takeaways ... Read Putin's press conference ... Biden's presser ... Biden's tarmac remarks.” Read at Axios
“Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) released a three-page memo yesterday outlining his demands for federal voting legislation, which include ID requirements opposed by most Democrats.
Why it matters: Manchin is the only Senate Democrat who hasn't signed on to the party's sweeping voting rights package.
⚡ Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer triggered the process last night to begin voting on election reform — including a potential Manchin amendment — as soon as next week.” Read more at Axios
“Trump-era asylum rules eased in violence cases. U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland overturned two cases decided by the Justice Department under the Trump administration that made immigrants fleeing domestic or gang violence in their home countries generally ineligible for asylum in the U.S.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“The Federal Reserve said it expects to raise interest rates by 2023.
Such a move by the central bank would come sooner than it anticipated in March, when officials said they expected rates to remain near zero through the end of 2023. The shift was spurred by indications that the economy is recovering rapidly from the pandemic and inflation is hotter than Fed officials anticipated. While Fed officials think that many effects of inflation will be temporary, the rate of inflation (at its highest since 2008) worries central bankers. They fear it could lead businesses and consumers to anticipate more inflation in the future, which can become self-fulfilling. The Fed, which has held interest rates near zero since last March, also said it would continue its purchasing of $120 billion a month in Treasury or mortgage bonds, which helps hold down long-term borrowing costs. Chairman Jerome Powell said that before any easy-money policies are lifted, markets will have plenty of advance notice.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“The Justice Department leaders were losing their patience.
For weeks, President Donald Trump and his allies had been pressing them to use federal law enforcement’s muscle to back his unfounded claims of voter fraud and a stolen election.
They wanted the Justice Department to explore false claims that Dominion Voting Systems machines had been manipulated to alter votes in one county in Michigan. They asked officials about the U.S. government filing a Supreme Court challenge to the results in six states that Joe Biden won. The president’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, even shared with acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen a link to a YouTube video that described an outlandish plot in which the election had been stolen from Trump through the use of military satellites controlled in Italy.
‘Pure insanity,’ Rosen’s deputy Richard Donoghue wrote to him privately.
In the last weeks of 2020 and the first of 2021, the demands from Trump and his allies pushed the department to the brink of crisis. Though most scoffed at their increasingly far-fetched and desperate claims, one relatively high-ranking Justice Department lawyer seemed to entertain Trump’s requests — pushing internally to have the department assert that fraud in Georgia was cause for that state’s lawmakers to disregard its election results and appoint new electors. Trump contemplated installing him as attorney general, as other Justice Department leaders considered resigning en masse.
The new details laid out in hundreds of pages of emails and other documents released Tuesday by the House Oversight and Reform Committee show how far Trump and his allies were willing to go in their attempts to use the Justice Department to overturn Biden’s win — a campaign whose full contours are still coming into view five months after Trump left office.” Read more at Washington Post
“AUSTIN — Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced Wednesday he was putting a $250 million down payment on a state-led project to build ‘hundreds of miles’ of border wall as part of a security plan he said was made necessary by the federal government's neglect of communities along the state's international river boundary with Mexico.
Flanked by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R) and more than two dozen cheering Texas lawmakers, Abbott (R) signed documents authorizing several actions to address the ‘tidal wave’ of immigration that is overwhelming border law enforcement and stoking acrimony in some communities.
Abbott, who is seeking a third term in 2022 and was recently endorsed by former president Donald Trump, opened his remarks by crediting the previous administration’s policies for slowing migration and tying his state’s perceived woes to the Biden administration’s dismantling of those programs. Trump announced Tuesday that he had accepted Abbott’s invitation to visit the border this month.” Read more at Washington Post
“The Justice Department has abandoned its effort to claw back profits of a book by former Trump national security adviser John Bolton and closed a grand jury investigation into whether he criminally mishandled classified information without charging him, according to court filings and Bolton’s defense attorney.
In a one-sentence court filing Wednesday, the Justice Department asked a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit it filed in a failed attempt to block the release last June of Bolton’s White House memoir, ‘The Room Where It Happened.’ The filing indicated each side would pay its own legal fees.
Justice Department officials also notified Bolton’s defense team that it was closing all aspects of his case, his attorney said.” Read more at Washington Post
“Members of Myanmar’s military junta set ablaze a village of about 800 people after clashing with opponents of their rule, witnesses said. Most of the village's residents remained in hiding in nearby forests after much of the area was reduced to ash. As security forces continue violent crackdowns in the wake of February’s military coup, tens of thousands of Myanmar residents have taken to the country’s jungles to escape the violence. There is a precedent for this kind of incident: Human rights groups have accused Myanmar's forces of burning hundreds of villages in 2017 during an offensive that drove about 700,000 minority Rohingya Muslims to flee to Bangladesh. One activist group estimates the junta has killed about 860 people since February's coup. Myanmar’s security forces have denied that figure and have also denied burning villages in the past.” Read more at CNN
“The heat wave in the Western US is hitting historic proportions. About 300 high temperature records could be broken this week, and more than an eighth of the US population -- over 40 million people -- is on alert for potentially deadly conditions. The heat and an exceptional drought are also fueling one of Arizona’s largest wildfires. There have always been heat waves, but climate change is making them worse, and not just in the US. The UK’s Climate Change Committee warned that heat-related deaths could triple in the country by 2050 unless urgent efforts to tackle climate change are made.” Read more at CNN
“NASHVILLE — Delegates at the Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to have a floor debate on a proposed investigation into the denomination’s handling of sexual abuse.
The SBC’s business committee had planned to refer the proposal to its Executive Committee — the same entity alleged to have failed in its response to abuse cases — but the vote put the measure back out on the floor for discussion.
The previous day, Tennessee pastor Grant Gaines proposed setting up an independent task force to lead the investigation. That came in response to leaked letters and secret recordings purporting to show some leaders tried to slow-walk accountability efforts and intimidate and retaliate against those who advocated on the issue.” Read more at Boston Globe
“U.S., EU forge closer ties to counter Russia and China. In a sign of increased coordination, the allies unveiled a new high-level Trade and Technology Council. The council aims to boost innovation and investment within and between their economies and better compete with China and Russia on developing and protecting critical and emerging technologies.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“LIMA, Peru — In the face of a deficit of tens of thousands of votes in a close count following Peru’s June 6 presidential election, Keiko Fujimori, the 46-year-old doyen of a right-wing political dynasty, declined to concede. Instead, she has appeared to a take page from former president Donald Trump’s playbook, levying unsubstantiated accusations of fraud.
She is not alone. While politicians the world over have long sought to contest election outcomes, with and without basis, some experts say Fujimori’s approach, following Trump’s effort to discredit the outcome of the 2020 US presidential election over false fraud claims, could signal the emergence of a trend.” Read more at Boston Globe
“Lives Lived: Brigitte Gerney became known as the ‘Crane Lady’ after a collapsed crane in Manhattan trapped her for six hours in 1985, crushing her legs. She survived and, miraculously, walked again. Gerney died at 85.” Read more at New York Times
“Commodities crime | The theft of lumber, metals, crops and other raw materials is nothing new. But a combination of soaring prices, the coronavirus pandemic, and economic deprivation has created fertile ground for crimes targeting commodities. Now there’s a spike in groups grabbing everything from copper in Chile to cocoa in Nigeria and car parts in Germany.” Read more at Bloomberg
“Skipping pride | Like other automakers, South Korea’s Hyundai has courted the American LGBTQ community for years, backing a film series in 2019 that featured Shangela — a breakout star of the reality show RuPaul’s Drag Race — and sponsoring a festival for queer artists of color. But back in Korea, there’s little sign of such support for diversity.” Read more at Bloomberg
“A diamond believed to be the world’s third-largest has been discovered in Botswana, according to the semi-state owned mining company.
The 1,098-carat stone, roughly the size of a lemon, was unearthed on June 1 presented for inspection to Botswanan President Mokgweetsi Masisi on Wednesday. The world’s second-largest diamond—the 1,109-carat Lesedi La Rona—was also found in Botswana in 2015.
The find comes at a difficult time for Botswana’s diamond mining industry, as a global economic downturn has sapped demand, with its diamond sales falling 30 percent in 2020. Back in February, Masisi warned that Botswana would need to diversify beyond sparkling commodities and tap into its estimated 233 billion tons of coal.” Read more at Foreign Policy
“For the second consecutive game, the Philadelphia 76ers frittered away a big lead as the Atlanta Hawks rallied and grabbed a 109-106 win in Game 5 of their Eastern Conference semifinals series. The Hawks can advance to their first conference finals since 2015 with a win in Game 6 Friday.” Read more at USA Today
“‘Agua!’: Coca-Cola shares dropped $4 billion after soccer superstar Cristiano Ronaldo gestured to drink water instead of Coke at a Euro 2020 press conference.” Read more at USA Today
“Bryson DeChambeau , eight-time PGA Tour winner and defending U.S. Open champion, will tee it up alongside U.S. Amateur champion Tyler Strafaci and Masters champion Hideki Matsuyama in the first two rounds of the 121st U.S. Open at Torrey Pines in San Diego this week. The betting favorite, John Rahm, is scheduled to begin his round in the late afternoon. The South Course plays host to the national championship for the first time since Tiger Woods’ epic win with a broken leg in 2008. The South Course is also known for its wild rough, which 2015 U.S. Open champion Jordan Spieth described as ‘wicked.’” Read more at USA Today
“Automation has been the single biggest factor in America's widening income inequality over the past 40 years, Axios Future author Bryan Walsh writes from a new paper by two prominent economists.
Why it matters: Automation will only grow.
The real wages of less educated workers have declined significantly over the past four decades: The real earnings of men who lack a high-school degree are 15% lower than they were in 1980.
Over the same time, real wages for workers with a postgraduate degree — and to a much lesser extent, those with a bachelor's degree — rose sharply.
MIT's Daron Acemoglu and Boston University's Pascual Restrepo calculate in the paper that 50-70% of changes in U.S. wages since 1980 can be accounted for by wage declines among workers who specialize in routine tasks in industries hit by rapid automation.
What's next: The pandemic accelerated automation, and newer forms of AI will increasingly automate higher-skilled tasks, including some done by lawyers.” Read more at Axios
“‘Someone is intentionally breaking wings’: A California wildlife organization is searching for answers after 32 brown pelicans were attacked and mutilated.” Read more at USA Today
A brown pelican after receiving surgery for a broken wing.Coutesy: Wetlands and Wildlife Care Cente