Biden signs historic $1.9 trillion Covid-19 relief law
By Kate Sullivan, CNN President Joe Biden signed his sweeping $1.9 trillion Covid-19 economic relief package into law on Thursday afternoon. “This historic legislation is about rebuilding the backbone of this country and giving people in this nation, working people, middle class folks, people who built the country, a fighting chance,” Biden said in the Oval Office before signing the legislation. “That’s what the essence of it is.” Congress on Wednesday passed the relief package, which has been Biden’s first and most pressing legislative priority since taking office in January. Biden had originally been expected to sign the bill on
‘I need you’: Biden asks Americans to do their part to help country emerge from Covid crisis
Analysis by Stephen Collinson and Maeve Reston, CNN The light at the end of the tunnel may be the fireworks bursting in air on the Fourth of July. President Joe Biden on Thursday offered Americans the tantalizing hope of a return to an all but forgotten pre-pandemic normalcy within months, escalating the “war footing” on which he has placed the nation to beat the virus that has caused the worst domestic crisis in generations. In his first prime-time address, Biden shouldered the theatricality, responsibility and pastoral nature of the presidency as never before, laying down a personal challenge to every
Senate confirms Ohio Rep. Marcia Fudge as HUD secretary
By Veronica Stracqualursi, CNN The Senate voted Wednesday to confirm Ohio Democratic Rep. Marcia Fudge as secretary of Housing and Urban Development, adding another African American woman to the ranks of President Joe Biden’s Cabinet. She was confirmed 66-34. Vice President Kamala Harris will administer the oath of office and swear in Fudge during a virtual ceremony Wednesday night. Fudge has represented Ohio in Congress since 2008 and previously chaired the Congressional Black Caucus. Her appointment to Biden’s Cabinet leaves a vacancy in the House, where Democrats hold a narrow majority. She formally resigned from her House seat shortly after
Former Presidents Carter, Clinton, Bush and Obama urge Americans to get vaccinated
By Dan Merica, CNN Former Presidents Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and their respective former first ladies are part of a newly released ad campaign urging Americans to get the coronavirus vaccine when it is their turn, a push that is aimed squarely at combating vaccine skepticism. There are two ads in the campaign: a minute-long, more personal spot that shows the four former presidents and former first ladies receiving their vaccines, and another that features Clinton, Bush and Obama standing together to urge Americans to step up and get vaccinated. The ad campaign reunites almost
5 ways the stimulus package is expected to reduce poverty
By Tami Luhby, CNN President Joe Biden’s sweeping $1.9 trillion relief package represents one of the largest federal efforts to reduce povertyin the last half century. The massive legislation, which the President is expected to sign Friday, provides aid to low-income Americans in numerous ways. Attention has focused on the third round of direct stimulus payments, but the bill also offers parents a guaranteed stream of income and gives childless workers a bigger tax break. And it will extend enhanced food stamp benefits and federal help for the unemployed, along with providing housing assistance and more generous health insurance subsidies.
Biden seeks to chart a path out of the pandemic in prime-time address
Analysis by Stephen Collinson, CNN President Joe Biden can report in his first prime-time address Thursday that a vaccination drive now reaching 2 million people daily has brought America far closer to exiting the pandemic than when he took office 50 days ago. With new infections and deaths way down from their peaks of a horrific winter, Biden can afford to conjure hope that better days may be imminent and will speak to the nation from a position of political strength. He is also armed with a newly passed $1.9 trillion Covid-19 rescue package — his first major legacy achievement
Vice President Kamala Harris waits for her own portfolio as she settles into new role
By Arlette Saenz and Jasmine Wright, CNN Vice President Kamala Harris was in the middle of an Oval Office meeting last Thursday when, before her turn to speak had come, a staffer delivered a note calling her to Capitol Hill. “She got up and left,” said one person who was in the room for the untimely departure. “She had a job to do up in the Senate.” To be sure, the job was an important one. Harris’s tie-breaking vote paved the way for Senate passage of the new Covid relief deal, an enormous win for the administration. But Harris never
Stimulus checks could come quickly, but the jobless may have a wait for unemployment benefits
By Tami Luhby and Katie Lobosco, CNN The $1.9 trillion Covid relief bill that President Joe Biden championed even before taking office is expected to land on his desk in coming days, but it could take some time for struggling Americans to see all the benefits. While the $1,400 stimulus payments could hit people’s bank accounts within days of Biden signing the bill, the extension of federal unemployment benefits as well as the enhanced child tax credit and more generous Affordable Care Act subsidies may take a few weeks — or even a few months — to arrive. The exact
One year after Ahmaud Arbery was killed, Georgia’s House passes bill to overhaul citizen’s arrest law
By Morgan Rimmer, CNN Georgia’s House of Representatives has unanimously passed a bill that would roll back citizen’s arrest law in the state. Monday’s passage of the bill came just over a year after Ahmaud Arbery was shot and killed in Brunswick, Georgia, while jogging. If HB 479 makes it through the state Senate and is signed by Gov. Brian Kemp, Georgia would be the first state in the nation to overhaul a citizen’s arrest law. Arbery, who was black, was out jogging on February 23, 2020, when Gregory McMichael and his son, who are white, chased him after him,
Biden’s Covid relief bill is huge, ambitious and about to pass
Analysis by Stephen Collinson, CNN President Joe Biden plans to use the $1.9 trillion Covid-19 relief bill expected to pass Congress on Wednesday as a platform for a generational transformation of the economy to benefit the least well-off Americans and alleviate poverty. The passage of a bill of this scale and ambition two months into any new president’s term would represent a power-affirming win. The political payoff for Biden of his first legacy achievement may be even greater. He had to navigate the measure through thin congressional majorities and a Democratic caucus riven by ideological divides — and amid the