Obama Urges Bold Climate Action in Glasgow COP26 Speech
By Edward-Isaac Dovere and Paul LeBlanc, Former President Barack Obama went to the international climate conference in Glasgow on Monday because climate envoy John Kerry knew the Biden administration needed help convincing the world America was actually serious about combating climate change. But as much as Obama expressed regret for former President Donald Trump’s “four years of active hostility towards climate science” and the climate denialism which defines the modern Republican Party, he expressed a deeper, broader worry that politics all over the world is falling short of what needs to be done to save the planet. “I recognize that we’re living in
Kamala Harris Visits Paris to Mend U.S.–France Relations
By Jeremy Diamond, When President Barack Obama’s decision to scrap a planned missile defense system in the fall of 2009 left a pair of European allies feeling jilted, Vice President Joe Biden embarked on a three-day tour to coax relations back to health. Twelve years later, Biden — now the US President responsible for vexing another European ally — is entrusting his vice president with a similar mission. Arriving in Paris on Tuesday, Vice President Kamala Harris is setting off on a five-day effort to revitalize the French-American relationship less than two months after the longest American allies were blindsided by Biden’s decision to help
Dems Bet Big on Biden Agenda to Win Back Working-Class
by Ronald Brownstein Just as Democrats face another round of hand-wringing about their erosion among working-class and rural White voters — after last week’s daunting election results in Virginia and New Jersey — the long-delayed congressional approval of a historic infrastructure plan will test President Joe Biden’s central theory on how the party can reverse that decline. Biden and many of his advisers have long argued the best way for Democrats to regain ground with blue-collar voters — not only the White ones, who have drifted toward the GOP since the 1960s, but also increasingly Hispanic and even some Black ones — is to show that
Biden’s $1.2T Infrastructure Bill Passes After Party Clash
By Annie Grayer, Manu Raju and Clare Foran, Congress has passed a $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill, delivering on a major pillar of President Joe Biden’s domestic agenda after months of internal deliberations and painstaking divisions among Democrats. The final vote was 228-206. Thirteen Republicans voted with the majority of Democrats in support of the bill, though six Democrats voted against it. The bill now heads to the President’s desk to be signed into law, following hours of delays and internal debating among Democrats on Friday, including calls from Biden to persuade skeptical progressive members of the Democratic caucus. The legislation passed the Senate
VP Harris to Lead First Space Council Meeting on Dec. 1
By Kristin Fisher, Six months after being tapped to lead the White House’s National Space Council, Vice President Kamala Harris will announce the council’s first meeting of the Biden administration during a visit Friday to NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. The meeting will be held on December 1, according to a White House official, a full year after the council’s final meeting of the Trump administration. Friday’s event will mark the first time the vice president has delivered a speech centered entirely around space. Harris’ primary objective, according to a White House official, will be to “underscore how the
House Nears Vote on Biden’s Social Spending, Infrastructure
By Clare Foran and Daniella Diaz, The House will vote on both President Joe Biden’s sweeping social safety net plan and the bipartisan infrastructure bill today. House Democratic leaders had been hoping for a vote on the economic package on Thursday evening, but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that the Rules Committee would be meeting to handle an amendment to the social spending bill. Earlier in the day, in a closed-door meeting with Democrats, she had said her plan was to vote on it that night and then hold a vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill Friday morning, according to two sources. It was
Kamala Harris to Strengthen US-France Ties on Paris Visit
By Jeremy Diamond, Vice President Kamala Harris will pursue US efforts to strengthen a recently mended French-American relationship during a trip to Paris next week, where she will also attend a pair of international conferences. Harris will sit down for a bilateral meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron at the Élysée Palace next Wednesday before delivering remarks at the Macron-hosted Paris Peace Forum and participating in a multilateral conference on Libya. Harris’ trip comes less than two months after France temporarily recalled its ambassador to the US to protest a US nuclear submarine deal with Australia, which sank a separate French contract to build conventional
Byron Brown Claims Win Over Walton in Buffalo Write-In Race
By Gregory Krieg, Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown declared victory Tuesday night in his write-in campaign for a fifth term. Brown lost the Democratic primary earlier this year to Democratic Socialist India Walton. As of 12:30 a.m. ET, about 59% of votes had been cast for write-in candidates, and 41% had gone for Walton. Brown’s campaign likely accounts for the strong showing for write-in candidates on the ballot, but Erie County won’t begin to tabulate the write-in votes until November 17. That makes it impossible to say definitively who voters wrote in, despite Brown’s victory declaration. After effectively sitting out the nominating
Eric Adams Elected NYC Mayor, Vows Public Safety Reform
By Gregory Krieg, Democrat Eric Adams has been elected the 110th mayor of New York City, defeating Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa. Adams, a retired New York Police Department captain who embraced a public safety message, will be the second Black mayor in the city’s history, after the late David Dinkins. “I wanted people to know my story, being a dishwasher, having a learning disability, being arrested as a child, going to school at night, working in a mail room. That was the story I wanted to send New Yorkers, and they felt me. And because of that, I’m now going to be
Shontel Brown Wins Ohio 11th District in Special Election
By Chandelis Duster, Democrat Shontel Brown, a Cuyahoga County Council member, will win Ohio’s 11th Congressional District, CNN projected Tuesday. The seat was vacated by former Rep. Marcia Fudge, who became President Joe Biden’s secretary of housing and urban development earlier this year. CNN projected Brown’s win over Republican candidate Laverne Gore. Brown’s victory is not expected to impact the balance of power for the US House of Representatives, where Democrats hold a slim three-seat majority. That’s because Ohio is having another special election in the 15th Congressional District to fill the seat of GOP Rep. Steve Stivers, who resigned earlier this year.