Biden news - live: Trump Jr deposed over inaugural funds as White House defends migrant camp after AOC attack

The Southern Poverty Law Centre has that more than 160 Confederate symbols were removed from public spaces or renamed last year after the death of George Floyd.

The watchdog - that has long campaigned to remove to remove Confederate statues and monuments - said the amount removed more than the previous four years combined.

“These dehumanizing symbols of pain and oppression continue to serve as backdrops to important government buildings, halls of justice, public parks, and US military properties, including 10 bases named after Confederate leaders across the South,” Lecia Brooks, the centre’s chief of staff, said in a statement.

Neil Vigdor and Daniel Victor have the details.

Mitt Romney has predicted that Donald Trump will win the Republican presidential nomination if he decides to run in 2024.

The Utah senator said: “I’m pretty sure he will win the nomination. I look at the polls and the polls show that, among the names being floated as potential contenders in 2024, if you put President Trump in there among Republicans he wins in a landslide.”

James Crump has the latest

More than 150 business leaders have backed Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus rescue plan, it has been revealed.

The top executives at companies ranging from banking giant Goldman Sachs to tech firms such as Google have penned a letter to the president urging congress to approve the stimulus plan, as reported by CNN.

The letter addressed to congressional leaders said: “Previous federal relief measures have been essential, but more must be done to put the country on a trajectory for a strong, durable recovery.

“Congress should act swiftly and on a bipartisan basis to authorize a stimulus and relief package along the lines of the Biden-Harris administration’s proposed American Rescue Plan.”

A copy of the first book on the US 2020 presidential election seen by The Guardian reveals that senior adviser Anita Dunn made the remark to an “associate”, its reporting coming as the US passes the grim milestone of half a million deaths from coronavirus.

The quote is taken from Lucky: How Joe Biden Barely Won the Presidency by Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes and finds Ms Dunn suggesting the Democrat might not have won without the onset of Covid-19, which saw President Trump’s economy demolished and provoked a hapless and inconsistent response to the crisis from his administration, ultimately leading to Mr Biden’s election win.

It was, the book’s authors add, a necessarily private comment that “campaign officials believed but would never say in public” as the US reeled from the impact of the pandemic with hospitals stretched to breaking point.

Ms Dunn is known as a Washington powerbroker whom The Atlantic called “The Mastermind Behind Biden’s No-Drama Approach to Trump”.

The book also says Mr Biden considered Hillary Clinton “a terrible candidate” in 2016.

The extreme weather has bred some extreme anti-government paranoia among conservatives in the Lone Star State, from wild claims the power blackouts were a Biden administration plot to the snow being “synthetic”.

Here’s my report on why that might be.

The Senate Homeland Security Committee is postponing a confirmation hearing scheduled for 10am today for Neera Tanden, Axios reports, a potential death knell for Biden's nominee to lead the Office of Management and Budget.

“We are postponing the business meeting because members are asking for more time to consider the nominee,” a committee aide told the site. “The president deserves to have a team in place that he wants, and we’re going to work with our members to figure out the best path forward.”

While Tanden has faced questions aboout her qualifications from senators, it’s a number of mean tweets from her past that they’re apparently unhappy about.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki is backing their candidate, however:

Here’s Andrew Naughtie with a little back story.

For Indy Voices, here’s an exasperated Ahmed Baba on yesterday’s Senate hearings on the Capitol riot, which saw Ted Cruz attempting to team up with fellow election-doubter Josh Hawley - when he wasn’t playing on his phone.

FoxNews host Tucker Carlson has been widely derided after saying on his show that he cannot find any evidence online of the far-right conspiracy QAnon.

“We spent all day trying to locate the famous QAnon, which in the end we learned is not even a website. If it’s out there, we could not find it,” said Mr Carlson said on Tuesday.

Max Burns, a columnist, said: “Before he resigned in disgrace, Tucker Carlson’s top writer was an active member of popular Qanon message boards like 4chan and 8chan. Tucker should’ve just called him.”

Get all the details from Mayank Aggarwal

Senator Rick Scott has declared the GOP “civil war” over, a letter seen by Fox News declares.

The chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) said in a two-page memo: “The Republican Civil War is now cancelled.”

The Florida Senator added: “The long running impeachment show is now over. “This political theater should have been held at the other end of Washington in the Kennedy Center instead of the US Capitol.

“It was an unserious circus. It’s over. Now it’s time to look ahead.”

Despite losing out the Democratic presidential primary to eventual-President Joe Biden, there is still a lot of love for Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.

The left-wing Democrat has so much support that in a poll released by The Economist/YouGov on Tuesday he has a net favourability rating of 10 points among survey respondents, while the US president had a net favourability rating of 8 points, and the vice president 5 points.

The Independent’s Gino Spocchia reports