Joe Biden talks coronavirus battle with Boris Johnson as US cases pass 25 million

On the 48th anniversary of Roe v Wade, the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision establishing a constitutional right to abortion, the Biden administration vowed to protect reproductive rights after numerous rollbacks during the Trump years.

“In the past four years, reproductive health, including the right to choose, has been under relentless and extreme attack,” the administration said in a statement on Friday. “We are deeply committed to making sure everyone has access to care – including reproductive health care – regardless of income, race, zip code, health insurance status, or immigration status.”

It outlined an agenda that included “codifying Roe v. Wade and appointing judges that respect foundational precedents like Roe,” as well as expanding health care access and promoting reproductive rights worldwide through international aid, though to accomplish these goals, the new administration will face an uphill battle through a divided Congress, a deeply conservative Supreme Court, and a thicket of restrictive state abortion laws.

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Democratic senator Amy Klobuchar has urged her Republican colleagues to convict Donald Trump in his upcoming impeachment trial following fresh allegations the former president plotted to oust the acting attorney general in a bid to overturn Georgia’s presidential election result. 

The New York Times reported that Mr Trump worked on a plan with Justice Department lawyer Jeffrey Clark that would have seen Mr Clark replace Jeffrey Rosen as the country’s chief law enforcement officer. 

Mr Rosen had reportedly refused Mr Trump’s pleas to carry out plans to overturn the Georgia result.

“Days before inciting failed physical attack on Congress, Trump plotted another kind of insurrection...this time against the Attorney General.  Different weapons, same intent: illegally remain in power,” Ms Klobuchar wrote.

“For colleagues still on the fence on impeachment.”

The heads of three federally funded international broadcasters were abruptly fired late Friday as the Biden administration completed a house-cleaning of Donald Trump-appointees at the US Agency for Global Media.

Two officials familiar with the changes said the acting chief of the USAGM summarily dismissed the directors of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks just a month after they had been named to the posts.

The changes came a day after the director of the Voice of America and his deputy were removed and the chief of the Office of Cuba Broadcasting stepped down. The firings follow the forced resignation of former president Donald Trump’s handpicked choice to lead USAGM only two hours after Joe Biden took office on Wednesday.

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Joe Biden has said an impeachment trial of Donald Trump occurring in February would allow his administration “some time to get up and running".

"The more time we have to get up and running to meet these crises the better," the US president said.

President Joe Biden, vowing to restore environmental protections frayed over the past four years, has ordered the review of more than 100 rules and regulations on air, water, public lands, endangered species and climate change that were weakened or rolled back by his predecessor.

But legal experts warn that it could take two to three years – and in some cases, most of Mr Biden’s term – to put many of the old rules back in place.

“People should temper their expectations about what can be done quickly,” said Kevin Minoli, who served as a lawyer at the Environmental Protection Agency in the Clinton, Bush, Obama and Trump administrations. He added, “It’s very possible, more possible than not, that some of the Trump rules will still be in effect for a couple of years.”

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Daniel Goldman, a lawyer who prosecuted Donald Trump’s first impeachment, has suggested that the longer the delay to the former president’s trial, the less likely he is to be impeached. 

The tweet came in response to a a tweet which said a delay could lead to more evidence coming to light, and so be bad for Mr Trump. 

“We thought the same with Ukraine (Bolton) and, while a different animal all together, it didn’t happen that way,” Mr Goldman tweeted. “In this case, the longer it takes, the more emotions ebb and the more Trump is in the rear view mirror, so I’m not sure that conviction is more likely.”

Senator Chris Coons has said that Donald Trump and “his team caused more harm than expected” during the transition period after Joe Biden’s transition team was not permitted access.

The revelation came during an interview on MSNBC during which the Democratic senator was asked for his opinion on the flurry of executive actions passed by the president since Wednesday.

Senator Coons, who holds Mr Biden’s old seat and has known the president for 30 years, said the president had been thoroughly preparing since he won the election in November.

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Joe Biden has said the US has the “tools to get this virus under control” in a video statement urging Americans to pull together to fight the health and economic crisis engulfing the country. 

Republican senator Josh Hawley has claimed he was “never attempting to overturn the election” when he objected to the result of the election in Congress earlier this month. 

“I was very clear from the beginning that I was never attempting to overturn the election," Mr Hawley told CNN.

But as CNN’s Jake Tapper points out, not only did Mr Hawley object to the results in Arizona and Pennsylvania, despite there being no evidence to justify such a move, he also told Fox News on 4 January that Mr Trump could remain as president depending “on what happens on Wednesday. It’s why we have the debate". 

Republican Congresswoman Lauren Boebert is attempting to block President Biden from rejoining the Paris Agreement.

One of Mr Biden’s first acts in office was signing an executive order to recommit the US to the global climate pact, to cut the greenhouse gas emissions heating the planet.

On Thursday, the Colorado congresswoman introduced the “Paris Agreement Constitutional Treaty Act” intending to block funding for the executive order until passed as a treaty by the Senate.

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