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WASHINGTON - President Joe Biden will exercise his empathy skills Friday during a Texas visit with a dual mission: surveying damage caused by severe winter weather and encouraging people to get their coronavirus shots. Biden and his wife, Jill, were traveling to Houston for the president’s first trip to a major disaster site since he took office a little over a month ago. Biden, whose life has been marked by personal tragedy, is known for his ability to empathize with others and their suffering. His first wife and infant daughter were killed in a car collision in 1972. His son,...

When Wyoming U.S. Sen. John Barrasso snapped at Deb Haaland during her confirmation hearing, many in Indian Country were incensed. The exchange, coupled with descriptions of the Interior secretary nominee as “radical” — by other white, male Republicans — left some feeling Haaland is being treated differently because she is a Native American woman. “If it was any other person, they would not be subjected to being held accountable for their ethnicity,” said Cheryl Andrews-Maltais, chairwoman of the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head Aquinnah in Massachusetts. Barrasso, former chairman of Senate Indian Affairs Committee, said his uncharacteristic reaction was a...

A faction of local, county and state Republican officials is pushing lies, misinformation and conspiracy theories that echo those that helped inspire the violent U.S. Capitol siege, online messaging that is spreading quickly through GOP ranks fueled by algorithms that boost extreme content. The Associated Press reviewed public and private social media accounts of nearly 1,000 federal, state, and local elected and appointed Republican officials nationwide, many of whom have voiced support for the Jan. 6 insurrection or demanded that the 2020 presidential election be overturned, sometimes in deleted posts or now-removed online forums. “Sham-peachment,” they say, and warn that...

<p>WASHINGTON - A gathering of conservatives this weekend in Florida will serve as an unabashed endorsement of former President Donald Trump’s desire to remain the leader of the Republican Party — and as a forum to fan his false claim that he lost the November election only because of widespread voter fraud.</p>

In Britain, soldiers and politicians who came out of the world wars with enhanced reputations were said by their peers to have “had a good war.” Similarly, in coronavirus America, some politicians have had a “good pandemic.” But no politician in the country turned in as Churchillian a performance over the past year as New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Cuomo became a hero to Democrats across the country last spring, his stature on par with President Barack Obama, with live-streamed daily press briefings that projected steely resolve and paternal authority in the face of a deadly menace. The New York...

At a CNN town hall on Tuesday night, President Biden was asked if he supported the idea of forgiving up to $50,000 of student loan debt for individuals. His answer: No. He supports cancelling $10,000 in debt, he explained. But he said he is wary of erasing big chunks of loans for people who went to Ivy League schools: "The idea that ... I'm going to forgive the debt, the billions of dollars in debt, for people who have gone to Harvard and Yale and Penn ..." Instead, he explained, he'd rather use that money for other priorities, like early...

WASHINGTON - One month into the job, President Joe Biden is on the cusp of securing a bigger economic rescue package than during the 2009 financial crisis. He has wiped out his predecessor Donald Trump’s policies from climate change to travel bans, while the U.S. daily COVID-19 vaccine distribution rate grew 55%. That may have been the easy part. The White House’s broad strategy - avoid unwinnable political fights, focus on policies with mass voter appeal, and mostly ignore Republican attacks - will be increasingly difficult in the months ahead, Democrats and Republicans say, even as millions more are vaccinated...

Washington (AFP) - US President Joe Biden's attorney general nominee pledged Saturday to depoliticize the Justice Department and to vigorously prosecute the Donald Trump supporters who attacked the US Capitol. In testimony prepared for his confirmation hearing on Monday and Tuesday, federal appeals court judge Merrick Garland indicated he wants to remove the taint of political interference left on the department by Trump. He also promised to create clear guidelines for FBI investigations, amid allegations that the agency strayed deeply into politics in investigating Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in 2016 and then Trump in 2017-2018. In an apparent reference...

WASHINGTON - When Joe Biden walked into the Oval Office for the first time as president a month ago, his pens were ready. Already. Lining a fine wooden box, they bore the presidential seal and an imprint of his signature, a micro-mission accomplished in advance of his swearing-in. Four years ago, pens were just one more little drama in Donald Trump’s White House. The gold-plated signature pens he favored had to be placed on rush order in his opening days. Over time, he came to favor Sharpies over the government-issued pens. On matters far more profound than a pen, Biden...

WASHINGTON - Add Mother Nature to the pile of crises on President Joe Biden’s plate. A month into the job and focused on the coronavirus, Biden is seeing his disaster management skills tested after winter storms plunged Texas, Oklahoma and neighboring states into an unusual deep freeze that left millions shivering in homes that lost heat and power, and in many homes, water. The White House announced on Saturday that the president had declared a major disaster in Texas, and he has asked federal agencies to identify additional resources to address the suffering. Biden came into office Jan. 20 promising...

When President Joe Biden announced two weeks ago that he was dramatically shifting the United States' approach to refugees, it was celebrated in some corners as a swift end to former President Donald Trump's years of rhetorical attacks and antagonistic policies. "It's very good to know that there are countries like the U.S., there are people like the president willing to welcome more refugees," Amira Kherrallah, a 25-year-old refugee from Central African Republic who lives in Utah, told ABC News. But while advocates and refugees are hopeful, those fleeing conflict and oppression around the world will not feel the impact...

As vice president, Joe Biden oversaw an array of issues important to the Obama administration: implementing an economic recovery act, shaping foreign policy from Iraq to Ukraine, and strengthening cancer research.But now that Biden is president, his vice president, Kamala Harris, asked in a recent interview what her signature issue would be, replied she has one focus: "Making sure Joe Biden is a success."It is a delicate, new role for someone used to being in charge, as a senator from California and the state's attorney general -- one she has said she is basing off how Biden himself handled eight...

As snow and ice slam much of the southern United States, migrant communities along the U.S.-Mexico border are enduring freezing temperatures with scarce resources. At a migrant camp in Matamoros, Mexico, directly across the border from Brownsville, Texas, tents made out of blue tarp have iced over as a winter blast brought freezing temperatures and icy rain to the region this week. Water used for cooking and bathing has also frozen. Many of those living at the camp are waiting in Mexico while their asylum applications are processed in the U.S., under the Trump administration's so-called "Remain in Mexico" policy....

WASHINGTON - A new-old ritual is taking shape in the Biden White House, one that starts with bulky briefing packages, war-gaming the “what-ifs,” and Oval Office discussions about how to talk to this or that particular U.S. ally or adversary. Twelve times since he took office, President Joe Biden has dialed up a world leader after reinstituting what was a long-held White House standard mothballed by Donald Trump: vigorous preparation. Gone are unnecessary digressions and over-the-top cajoling or haranguing of fellow heads of state. The changes to telephone diplomacy have been about both style and substance as Biden has sought...

In a text message, a radicalized Trump supporter suggested getting a boat to ferry “heavy weapons” across the Potomac River into the waiting arms of their members in time for Jan. 6, court papers say. It wasn’t just idle talk, authorities say. Investigators found invoices for more than $750 worth of live ammunition and for a firearm designed to look like a cellphone at the Virginia home of Thomas Caldwell, who’s charged with conspiring with members of the far-right Oath Keepers militia group in one of the most sinister plots in the U.S. Capitol siege. Right-wing extremists, blessed by Donald...

The veteran New York Times reporter who tendered his resignation after allegations he used the N-word during a 2019 trip with high-schoolers also argued that “racism is over” and that black people “can get out of the ghetto if they want to” during the trip, according to a student who attended. Donald McNeil — the Grey Lady’s public health reporter during the coronavirus pandemic — allegedly made the remarks during a July 2019 trip to Peru as part of the broadsheet’s “Times Journeys” program, a student on the trip told the paper. Sophie Shepherd recalled that one of her first...

WASHINGTON -- President Joe Biden spent his third week in office visiting the Pentagon, touring the National Institutes of Health and working on the administration’s COVID-19 response. He capped it off by beating one of his granddaughters at Mario Kart during his first presidential visit to Camp David, the historic retreat for U.S. leaders. Biden told reporters before departing Washington for the compound that his main plans for the long weekend were to “just hang out with the family and do what we always do.” His granddaughter Naomi posted on her Instagram Saturday night a clip of Biden playing the...

One of the easiest things to predict about the end of Donald Trump’s presidency was that anti-Trump journalists would eventually feel a heated rush of nostalgia about their heroic crusade to keep democracy from dying. But it came earlier than expected.

Communist-China Cuomo Busted Fabricating Anti-Trump Communist Chinese Propaganda #Traitors

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Interior Department will start consultations with Native American tribal leaders next month on COVID-19, economic security, racial justice and climate change, part of efforts by President Joe Biden to get more tribal input in federal policy deliberations. The Interior Department, which oversees the country’s tribal and federal lands, will be led by New Mexico Representative Deb Haaland, who would become the first Native American to head a cabinet-level agency if she is confirmed by Congress. Some tribes felt sidelined after major decisions by former President Donald Trump’s administration, such as approving the Dakota Access Pipeline and...