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Only Joe Biden’s $2tn infrastructure plan can create the long-term demand the US economy so badly needsWith the Democrats’ stunning sweep of Georgia’s two Senate run-off elections giving them control of both houses of Congress as of 20 January, the idea of $2,000 stimulus cheques for every household is sure to be back on the agenda in the US. But although targeted relief for the unemployed should unquestionably be a priority, it is not clear that $2,000 cheques for all would in fact help to sustain the US economic recovery.One post-pandemic scenario is a vigorous demand-driven recovery as people gorge on restaurant meals and other pleasures they’ve missed for the past year. Many Americans have ample funds to finance a splurge. Personal savings rates soared following the disbursement of $1,200 cheques last spring. Many recipients now expect to save their recent $600 relief payments, either because they have been spared the worst of the recession or because spending opportunities remain locked down. Continue reading...

Facing a financial bind, the San Francisco Art Institute has considered selling the 1931 work, a testament to the power of laborThe Making of a Fresco Showing the Building of a City has occupied an entire wall at the San Francisco Art Institute since Diego Rivera painted it there in 1931. A remarkable depiction of labor power in San Francisco’s industrial heyday, it is valued at roughly $50m – an enticing windfall for a school in serious jeopardy.SFAI trustees have floated the idea of selling it as a last-ditch effort to keep one of the US’s oldest art colleges open after a years-long financial crisis. (George Lucas was reportedly an interested buyer.) Continue reading...

Plan includes $160bn in vaccination funds and $1tn in relief to families, including $1,400 stimulus checksJoe Biden has unveiled a $1.9tn coronavirus relief proposal, aimed at urgently combating the pandemic and the economic crisis it has triggered. As the US faces its deadliest stage of the pandemic, Biden described the moment as “a crisis of deep human suffering”.The ambitious, wide-ranging plan includes $160bn to bolster vaccination and testing efforts, and other health programs and $350bn for state and local governments, as well as $1tn in relief to families, via direct payments and unemployment insurance. Continue reading...

Members of Rick Snyder’s administration charged with manslaughter after contaminated water led to deadly disasterNine people have been charged following a new investigation of the Flint water disaster, including the former Michigan governor Rick Snyder and key members of his administration, nearly seven years after the deadly crisis that contaminated an entire community.

Rod Rosenstein publicly denounces ‘zero-tolerance’ policy for first time, following report showing US didn’t effectively coordinate care for childrenFor the first time, a senior Trump administration official who helped implement family separation has condemned the hardline immigration policy, which made it possible for the government to take more than 3,000 children, including infants, from their parents at the US-Mexico border in 2018.In response to a damning report published on Thursday by the US justice department’s internal watchdog on the “zero-tolerance” policy, which made family separation possible, the former deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein said the policy “should have never been proposed or implemented”. Continue reading...

These have been 10 days that shook America and the world. Congress has made the right responseThe wheels of justice are slowly but remorselessly closing in on Donald Trump and his gang. Mr Trump’s second impeachment is unprecedented in two extraordinary ways. No other president in American history has been institutionally censured with a second impeachment. Mr Trump must now carry this unique double burden of disgrace into history. But the second impeachment has also been the most rapidly crafted of them all. That is because, unlike its predecessors, it is an urgent response to a clear and present danger to American democracy.Only last week, Mr Trump was still actively using the presidential bully pulpit to promote his lies about the 2020 election result and urge his supporters to march on the US Capitol to challenge the vote. Today, rightly cut off from his social media following and in the wake of a 232-197 congressional vote against him on Wednesday, he is ineluctably becoming a humbled – though never a humble – figure. Mr Trump remained defiant and mendacious in a White House video this week, but he now faces a second Senate trial and the very real prospect, if he is found guilty, of being barred from holding office ever again. This is not the future that Mr Trump planned for himself. Continue reading...

Secret Service detail were forced to use porta-potties or neighbors’ bathrooms until government rented them an apartmentThe dying days of the Trump administration have been plagued by yet more scandal in the form of riots, Twitter bans and impeachment. Now the Washington Post has added another: water closet gate.In a multi-bylined article one of America’s top investigative news outlets has chronicled in leg-crossing detail the apparently extreme difficulty that the Secret Service detail assigned to Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump have had in finding a place to go to the bathroom. Continue reading...

Order overturns a stay from lower court to delay executions of condemned men to allow them to recover from Covid-19A US appeals court ordered that the last two scheduled federal executions under Donald Trump’s outgoing administration could proceed on Thursday and Friday, overturning a stay from a lower court delaying them until March to allow the two condemned men to recover from Covid-19.The US Department of Justice announced last month that Corey Johnson, 52, and Dustin Higgs, 48, had been diagnosed with Covid-19 but that it would proceed with their executions this month. Continue reading...

Donald Trump has become the first president in US history to be impeached twice after the bipartisan vote in the House of Representative accusing him of inciting violence at the Capitol on 6 January.Trump has faced impeachment before, but for very different reasons. On 18 December 2019 the House charged him with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress for pressuring Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden and withholding military aid

Democratic presidential candidate says ‘We need to make New York the Covid comeback city’ and vows to fix ‘mass transit mess’The former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang formally announced his run as New York City mayor on Thursday morning, promising to rebuild a city that has been devastated by the Covid-19 pandemic.Related: Second impeachment puts Trump in first place among lords of misrule Continue reading...

Blake, who was shot in the back seven times by Wisconsin police officer, says in interview: ‘I was counting down my breaths’Jacob Blake feared becoming “the next George Floyd” when a Wisconsin police officer shot him in the back seven times in the city of Kenosha, he said in a national TV interview.Blake’s comments came as prosecutors asked a judge to order a white teen charged with killing two men at the resulting protests over Blake’s shooting to stay away from bars and white supremacist groups. Continue reading...

Letitia James’ lawsuit includes examples of alleged misconduct during George Floyd demonstrationsLetitia James, New York’s attorney general, sued the New York police department (NYPD) on Thursday, calling the rough treatment of protesters against racial injustice last spring part of a longstanding pattern of abuse that stemmed from inadequate training, supervision and discipline.James’ lawsuit includes dozens of examples of alleged misconduct during the spring demonstrations in the wake of George Floyd’s police killing, including the use of pepper spray and batons on protesters, trapping demonstrators with a technique called kettling and arresting medics and legal observers. Continue reading...

Some outlets refused to acknowledge the president or the rioters did anything wrong, while others depicted it as an opportunity for Pence to overturn the electionMany institutions were brought to a crisis point by Wednesday’s pro-Trump riot in Washington. One of them was conservative media.If the bond between Donald Trump and his supporters has been a shared, paranoid hostility towards governing institutions, as well as the media and the left, this mindset has been promoted and nurtured by conservative media over decades. Continue reading...

The prime minister’s boosterism, rooted in Brexit, is the last thing the country needs

Trump’s foreign policy chief has pursued confrontation with Iran and other perceived enemies, but his efforts to disrupt diplomacy will end in failureThe finale of Mike Pompeo’s reign at the state department has been as controversial and clamorous as the rest of his 32-month tenure, but it is unclear what traces will remain after he has gone.The last days of Pompeo have been played out in a blizzard of self-congratulatory tweets, at the rate of two dozen a day, as he seeks to write his own first draft of history. Continue reading...

Grassroots groups who worked to overcome severe voting barriers were an example of how democracy can workDear Fight to Vote readers,Welcome back! I’m Sam Levine, the voting rights reporter here at Guardian US. I’ll be taking over this newsletter from the stalwart Ankita Rao. Continue reading...

After Ossoff and Warnock wins, organizers fight for voting rights, criminal justice reform and more on state and local levelOn Wednesday, 6 January, Georgia Democrats Jon Ossoff and the Rev Raphael Warnock clinched two Senate seats, bringing the US Senate to a 50-50 split with a Democratic majority once the Biden administration begins. This historic win was due in large part to the work of Black and brown organizers across the state, who spent weeks canvassing Georgia and helping people register to vote, which was often complicated due to the Covid-19 pandemic.The election of Jon Ossoff and Rafael Warnock to Congress has a huge potential for new and progressive federal policy that would affect the country as a whole. However, this win has less sway on local laws. This is where many organizers in Georgia see their work turning to in the coming years. Continue reading...

President said to be offended by personal lawyer’s demand for a reported $20,000 a dayDonald Trump has fallen out with his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, and is refusing to pay the former New York mayor’s legal bills, it was reported, with the president feeling abandoned and frustrated during his last days in office.Giuliani played a key role in Trump’s failed attempts to overturn the results of November’s presidential election through the courts. The lawyer mounted numerous spurious legal challenges, travelling to swing states won by Joe Biden, and spread false claims the vote was rigged. Continue reading...

The world of work has changed – and the businesses owners that don’t understand that reality will fall behindNo kidding, 2021 will clearly be a strange year for small businesses and our employees. And while it might seem strange to say it, one thing you need to do is start thinking about 2022.Related: Outdoor dining has been a Covid bright spot. Let's make it permanent | Gene Marks Continue reading...

It’s also worth remembering that the success of candidates like Raphael Warnock is a product of years of voter engagement

A new age of political repression is coming at a time in which we need protests the most, and it will be a bipartisan affairFollowing the fascist riot at the US Capitol, progressives and liberals have begun to mimic the calls for “law and order” of their conservative counterparts, even going as far as threatening to expand the “war on terror”. While this may be well-intentioned, it fits neatly within the trajectory of attacks against civil liberties over the last two decades. A Biden administration with a 50-50 Senate will seek unity and compromise wherever it can find it, and oppressing political dissidents will be the glue that holds together Biden’s ability to govern.A wide array of actors within the United States government have long predicted, and begun to prepare for, a new age of protests and political instability. In 2008 the Pentagon launched the Minerva Initiative, a research program aimed at understanding mass movements and how they spread. It included at least one project that conflated peaceful activists with “supporters of political violence” and deemed that they were worth studying alongside active terrorist organizations. Continue reading...

House of Representatives votes to impeach Donald Trump a second time after his incitement to violence last week. Plus, more troops stationed in the Capitol than AfghanistanGood morning.The House of Representatives voted yesterday to impeach Donald Trump for inciting the violent insurrection at the Capitol last week, making him the first president in US history to be impeached twice. Ten Republicans supported the move, which also made it the most bipartisan impeachment vote in history. Continue reading...

The power structures in pro football have been in places for decades. But players now rightly want to have a say in how their teams are runThe issues at the Houston Texans can be neatly summed up by Cal McNair’s press conference to introduce the team’s new general manager, Nick Caserio.Jack. Nick. 99. 4. Throughout the mess, the CEO of the franchise and the son of the late owner, Bob McNair, rattled off the people most important to the success of the franchise: Jack Easterby, the executive vice president of football operations; Caserio, the new GM; JJ Watt, “99”, the team’s star defensive player; Deshaun Watson, “4”, the team’s quarterback. McNair was trying to show a united front. Words like “collaborative” and “team” and “culture” were chucked around. But it only served to show the divide: The men in suits were friends – Nick and Jack. The players in uniform were numbers. Continue reading...

Revelation raises prospect that president’s allies were pressing DoJ to dig up potentially damaging info on Trump accuserThe White House liaison to the Department of Justice (DoJ), Heidi Stirrup, sought out derogatory information late last year from a senior justice department official regarding a woman who alleges she was raped by Donald Trump, according to the person from whom Stirrup directly sought the information.The revelation raises the prospect that allies of the US president were directly pressing the justice department to try to dig up potentially damaging information on a woman who had accused Trump of sexually attacking her. Continue reading...

The House of Representatives has voted 232 to 197 to impeach the US president, Donald Trump, for a second time, formally charging him with inciting an insurrection. It was the most bipartisan impeachment vote in US history.After an emotional day-long debate in the chamber, 10 Republicans joined Democrats to hold Trump to account before he leaves office next week.

Most of us dread it, but the outgoing president has shown us why it’s a mistake to think that boredom is always to be avoidedBoredom is arguably the biggest outcome of lockdown. I don’t suffer from it as I can always default to worrying myself into a frantic state about something or other. And terror is never boring, I will say that for it. Boredom is generally regarded as a bad thing, and I have often taken it as saying more about the character of a bored person than the boringness of their situation.But now I am wondering if we need to embrace boredom a bit more. Professionally, as journalists, we dread boredom. This can lead us into an awful place where bad or even terrible news reaching us can feel darkly thrilling or at least better than the worst thing of all: plain boring. Continue reading...

Fences go up and roads and subway stations to close down as inauguration day approachesThe National Guard has started to move into Washington en masse in an attempt to prevent violence in the run up to the inauguration of Joe Biden next week.As Congress acted to impeach Donald Trump on Wednesday and the president urged his supporters to shun violence, the National Guard started to deploy 20,000 troops in the US capital. Continue reading...

Audio and chat logs show insurrectionists communicated via the app, which has avoided proactive content moderationAudio and chat logs reveal that at least two insurrectionists who broke into the Capitol on 6 January used Zello, a social media walkie-talkie app that critics say has largely ignored a growing far-right user base.“We are in the main dome right now,” said a female militia member, speaking on Zello, her voice competing with the cacophony of a clash with Capitol police. “We are rocking it. They’re throwing grenades, they’re frickin’ shooting people with paintballs, but we’re in here.” Continue reading...

The state’s vaccination plan has been decidedly sluggish – but now every Californian aged 65 and older is eligible for the vaccineCalifornia leaders are facing mounting pressure to speed up distribution of the new coronavirus vaccine, announcing major steps this week to makes doses available to more people.On Wednesday the state’s governor, Gavin Newsom, said that all residents 65 and older will be able to get a vaccine. The move follows the announcement of new mass-vaccination sites at locations such as Disneyland and Dodger Stadium. Continue reading...

Ten House Republicans joined every Democrat in voting yes, in the most bipartisan impeachment in US historyTen Republican members of the US House of Representatives voted to impeach Donald Trump over the deadly insurrection at the Capitol, making it the most bipartisan presidential impeachment in US history.The break with the president stood in sharp contrast to the unanimous support for Trump among House Republicans when he was first impeached by Democrats in 2019. Continue reading...

A presidency of fear, rage and division came to an appropriate climax in the House of Representatives but his loyalists stay true to his lies

The House voted 232-197 to impeach the president for a second time, the most bipartisan impeachment in US history

It was a historic day filled with emotional speeches as members of Congress argued to impeach Trump a second timeAs Democrats impeached Donald Trump for the second time by accusing him of inciting a violent mob to attack the United States capitol last week, a day of drama played out in Washington DC.It was a day of emotional speeches, appeals for peace, warnings of danger and remorse over how the country has found itself caught up in times of chaos amid a real fear of civil unrest, triggered by a president who has refused to accept he lost an election. Continue reading...

The US House of Representatives voted by a margin of 232 to 197 to impeach Donald Trump on the charge of incitement of insurrection, making him the first president in history to have been impeached twice. Ten House Republicans voted in favour of the motion

The House of Representatives voted by 232 to 197 to impeach the president for ‘incitement of insurrection’. What happens next?Donald Trump’s fiery speech at a rally just before the attack on the Capitol was at the center of the impeachment charge against him, even as the falsehoods he spread for months about election fraud are still being championed by some Republicans.A Capitol police officer died from injuries suffered in the riot, and police shot and killed a woman during the siege. Three other people died in what authorities said were medical emergencies. Continue reading...

Effort gains momentum as senior House Republicans join Democrats in calling for Trump’s removal from office for role in Capitol attackThe US House of Representatives was poised on Wednesday officially to charge Donald Trump with inciting violence against the government of the United States one week after he rallied a mob of loyalists to storm the US Capitol, a historic measure that would make him the only American president to be impeached twice.The unprecedented effort gained momentum overnight as senior Republican leaders in the House joined Democrats in support of removing Trump from office. Continue reading...

Rental platform takes action amid concerns of violence on 20 January as Joe Biden takes officeAirbnb will block and cancel all reservations in the Washington DC area during the week of the presidential inauguration.The decision, announced by the San Francisco-based short-term rental site on Wednesday, comes amid concerns over renewed violence during the 20 January event following the attack on the US Capitol last week. Continue reading...

The federal execution of a woman who was mentally ill was the act of a morally bankrupt administrationIn the early hours of Wednesday morning, Lisa Montgomery became the first woman to be put to death by the United States government for almost seven decades. At the Indiana penitentiary where she was executed by lethal injection, there are no facilities for female prisoners. So during prolonged legal wrangling over her fate, Montgomery was cruelly placed in a holding cell in the execution-chamber building itself.Her crime was horrific. In 2004, Montgomery strangled a young woman, Bobbie Jo Stinnett, who was eight months pregnant. She then cut a baby girl from her womb, and attempted to pass her off as her own. The pain and suffering of Ms Stinnett’s family can barely be imagined. But the political context of this week’s execution, and overwhelming evidence of Montgomery’s longstanding mental illness, suggests a gross miscarriage of justice has taken place. Continue reading...

It is misleading to suggest that elaborate lies are “theories”, writes Harriet Friedmann – it’s time to change the discourseI was pleased when the Guardian began to use the phrase “global heating” instead of “global warming”. In the same vein, I ask you to reconsider repeated use of the term “conspiracy theory” (Authorities on high alert across US as fears over far-right violence intensify, 12 January).It is misleading to suggest that elaborate lies are “theories”. Undergraduate students have occasionally responded to objections to unsupported claims as “that’s just your theory”. Theory is serious. Continue reading...

New York congresswoman said on Instagram Live she had a ‘very close encounter’ that put her life at riskThe Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told thousands of followers via her Instagram Live on Tuesday that she “thought [she] was going to die” as a pro-Trump mob stormed the US Capitol last week.Related: More than 70 charged so far over Capitol attack as FBI inundated with tips Continue reading...