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WASHINGTON (AP) — As President Joe Biden visited five cities in a multiday trip last week, former President Donald Trump was hardly seen in public, spending most of his time in South Florida. Trump has held just a single public campaign event since he locked up the Republican presidential nomination on March 12: a rally in Ohio funded not by his campaign but by backers of a Senate candidate whom he had endorsed. The events page on his campaign website has had nothing listed. Biden, meanwhile, has been barnstorming the country. After a trip to North Carolina on Tuesday, the...

NUSA DUA, Indonesia (AP) — For President Joe Biden, an international trip scheduled for just days after the midterm election looked like it would offer an escape hatch, allowing him to jet far away as he faced what many thought would be a crushing verdict from voters. Instead his journey, which included stops in Egypt, Cambodia and Indonesia, turned into an around-the-world victory lap. Biden spent the trip making congratulatory calls to Democrats who fared better than expected in the midterms, emboldening him during three global summits where he pushed for stronger action on climate change, closer economic ties in...

NUSA DUA, Indonesia (AP) — President Joe Biden said Wednesday it was “unlikely” that a missile that killed two in NATO-ally Poland was fired from Russia, but he pledged support for Poland's investigation into what it had called a “Russian-made” missile. Biden spoke after he convened an “emergency” meeting of the Group of Seven and NATO leaders in Indonesia Wednesday morning for consultations on the attack that killed two people in the eastern part of Poland near the Ukraine border. “There is preliminary information that contests that," Biden told reporters when asked if the missile had been fired from Russia....

President Joe Biden on Monday will raise the possibility of imposing a ‘windfall tax’ on energy companies, as his administration aims to combat high gas prices just days before the midterm elections. The White House said Biden will deliver remarks to respond ”to reports over recent days of major oil companies making record-setting profits even as they refuse to help lower prices at the pump for the American people." A person familiar with the matter said Biden will float imposing a tax on the profits of energy companies, as he seeks to pressure them to lower prices for consumers. The...

WASHINGTON (AP) — One handshake, one hug and one selfie at a time. If President Joe Biden could greet every American this way, longtime allies say, his approval ratings would soar. Biden has never been at his best in big speeches, where his delivery can be stilted, his stories sometimes meandering. It’s the end of his speech that often marks the beginning of Biden’s favorite part of an event — the rope line, in the parlance of political operatives. He whirls around, scans the crowd and zeroes in on his first target for a one-on-one connection. It might be with...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden will sound an alarm Thursday night about what he views as “extremist” threats to American democracy from the restive forces of Trumpism, aiming to reframe the November elections as part of an unceasing battle for the “soul of the nation.” Nearly two years after he defeated Donald Trump, it’s a reprise of Biden’s 2020 campaign theme, casting the midterm election stakes in as dire terms as those that sent him to the Oval Office. His prime-time speech at Independence Hall in Philadelphia will lay out what he sees as the risks from those he...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden on Wednesday announced his long-awaited plan to deliver on a campaign promise to provide $10,000 in student debt cancellation for millions of Americans — and up to $10,000 more for those with the greatest financial need — along with new measures to lower the burden of repayment for their remaining federal student debt. If his plan survives legal challenges that are almost certain to come, it could offer a windfall to a swath of the nation in the run-up to this fall’s midterm elections. Proponents say cancellation will narrow the racial wealth gap —...

WASHINGTON (AP) — 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. A summer lawmaking blitz has sent bipartisan bills addressing gun violence and boosting the nation’s high-tech manufacturing sector to Biden’s desk, and the president is now on the cusp of securing what he called the “final piece” of his economic agenda with the sudden resurrection of a Democrats-only climate and prescription drug...

“Enough, enough,” President Joe Biden exclaimed over and over Thursday night, as he delivered an impassioned address to the nation imploring Congress to take action against gun violence after mass shootings he said had turned schools, supermarkets and other everyday places into “killing fields.” If legislators fail to act, he warned, voters should use their “outrage” to turn it into a central issue in November’s midterm elections. [Snip] “How much more carnage are we willing to accept?” Biden asked after last week’s shootings by an 18-year-old gunman, who killed 19 students and two teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde,...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Tearfully embracing a history-making American moment, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson said Friday her confirmation as the first Black woman to the Supreme Court showed the progress of America, declaring, ″We’ve made it — all of us.” Jackson delivered emotional remarks on the sunny White House South Lawn a day after the Senate approved her nomination, saying, it was a moment the entire country could be proud of. “We have come a long way toward perfecting our union,” she said. “In my family, it took just one generation to go from segregation to the Supreme Court of the...

Ukraine says it has agreed with Russia to create safe corridors backed by cease-fires to evacuate civilians, deliver aid.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden hit back Thursday against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, unleashing robust new sanctions, ordering the deployment of thousands of additional troops to NATO ally Germany and declaring that America would stand up to Russia's Vladimir Putin. He also acknowledged that the invasion -- and efforts to thwart Putin -- will have a cost for Americans. But he sought to reassure that the economic pain that may come with rising energy prices will be short lived in the U.S. As for the Russian president, Biden said, “He’s going to test the resolve of the West to...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is hoping to use his upcoming State of the Union address to nudge the pandemic into the nation’s rear-view mirror. But it could turn into yet another disruptive display of national tensions and frustration over trying to move past COVID-19. The White House has taken extraordinary precautions to keep Biden from getting the virus, including requiring high-quality masks in his vicinity and limiting his travel and participation in large events. A speech to a full House chamber would be by far the densest audience of his presidency to date.

U.S. special operations forces conducted a large-scale counterterrorism raid in northwestern Syria overnight Thursday, in what the Pentagon said was a “successful mission.” Residents and activists reported multiple deaths — including civilians — from the attack. Residents and activists in the area described witnessing a large ground assault, with U.S. forces using loudspeakers asking women and children to leave the area. They described the raid as the biggest operation since the October 2019 killing of Islamic State group leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. There was at least one major explosion. A U.S. official said that one of the helicopters in the...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Inflation is soaring, businesses are struggling to hire and President Joe Biden’s poll numbers have been in free-fall. The White House sees a common culprit for it all: COVID-19. Biden’s team views the pandemic as the root cause of both the nation’s malaise and his own political woes. Finally controlling COVID-19, the White House believes, is the skeleton key to rejuvenating the country and reviving Biden’s own standing. But the coronavirus challenge has proved to be vexing for the White House, with last summer’s premature claims of victory swamped by the more transmissible delta variant, stubborn millions...

ROME (AP) — President Joe Biden wrapped up his time at the Group of 20 summit on Sunday trying to convince Americans and the wider world that he’s got things under control — and taking Russia, China and Saudi Arabia to task for not doing enough to deal with the existential threat of climate change. Biden’s overall take on his efforts: On climate change, he’s got $900 billion planned for renewable energy, and Congress will vote this coming week. On supply chains, he has plans to make the ports run better and tamp down inflation. For workers, he’s building an...

Biden discussed meeting with other world leaders in Rome to enact climate change initiatives. After his talk, he opened the floor to questions but admitted that he was told to start with the Associated Press. "And now I’m happy to take some questions. And I’m told I should start with AP, Zeke Miller," Biden said. Biden has previously alluded to the idea that he had a list of pre-approved reporters to call on back in June following his Geneva visit with Russian President Vladimir Putin. "I’ll take your questions, and as usual, folks, they gave me a list of the...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden on Thursday is announcing sweeping new federal vaccine requirements affecting as many as 100 million Americans in an all-out effort to increase COVID-19 vaccinations and curb the surging delta variant that is killing thousands each week and jeopardizing the nation’s economic recovery.The expansive rules mandate that all employers with more than 100 workers require them to be vaccinated or test for the virus weekly, affecting about 80 million Americans. And the roughly 17 million workers at health facilities that receive federal Medicare or Medicaid also will have to be fully vaccinated.Biden is also signing...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden and other top U.S. officials were stunned on Sunday by the pace of the Taliban’s nearly complete takeover of Afghanistan, as the planned withdrawal of American forces urgently became a mission to ensure a safe evacuation. The speed of the Afghan government’s collapse and the ensuing chaos posed the most serious test of Biden as commander in chief, and he was the subject of withering criticism from Republicans who said that he had failed. Biden campaigned as a seasoned expert in international relations and has spent months downplaying the prospect of an ascendant Taliban...

When the pace of vaccinations in the U.S. first began to slow, President Joe Biden backed incentives like million-dollar cash lotteries if that’s what it took to get shots in arms. But as new coronavirus infections soar, he’s testing a tougher approach. (snip) Still, while more severe measures — such as mandating vaccines for interstate travel or changing how the federal government reimburses treatment for those who are unvaccinated and become ill with COVID-19 — have been discussed, the administration worried that they would be too polarizing for the moment.That’s not to say they won’t be implemented in the future,...