Biden news - Trump blames Cuomo for ‘witch hunt’ after Scotus tax ruling as US hits 500,000 Covid deaths

Joe Biden announced the two-week application period for Payment Protection Program loans would be exclusive to businesses and non-profits of under 20 employees.

His administration would also remove barriers to apply, including applicants that have a student loan default, or non-fraud related criminal record.

Businesses of 1 person would also have easier access to forgivable loans.

“These changes would bring long-overdue help to small businesses who really need help staying open, maintaining jobs and making ends meet,” Biden says.

At least three rockets were fired at the US embassy in Baghdad, according to the AFP News Agency.

The report was corroborated by sources to Politico reporter Lara Seligman, who quoted a defence official source that the three Katyusha rockets hit the Green Zone at 7:25pm local Iraq time (11:25am EST).

Press secretary Jen Psaki says Joe Biden ordered the lowering of flags to half-staff for the next five days to mark 500,000 Americans who died of Covid-19.

The governor of Virginia was expected to sign a bill that will end the use of the death penalty after state lawmakers gave the legislation their final approval on Monday.

Virginia has executed more people than any other state in the country since the birth of the nation, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, reportedly killing an estimated 1,400 people in total. It would become the 23rd state to end the use of the death penalty, which the Supreme Court reinstated in 1976.

Since then, Virginia has executed 113 people and was among the top two states in the country that had most frequently used the death penalty, alongside Texas.

Chris Riotta reports.

Asked if past statements Biden’s OMB nomination, Neera Tanden, were inflammatory and would impact the ability of senators to work with the budget office, the White House press secretary ignored the question in her response. And nary a circle back to be seen.

“The president would not have nominated her if he did not think she would be an excellent OMB director, and he nominated her because she is qualified, because she is somebody who has a proven experience and record, as I outlined, earlier or working with different groups and organizations of different political beliefs and because he believes that her own experience will contribute to taking a fresh perspective and fresh approach to this position,”

“So we simply disagree with whether she’s the right person for the job.”

Pressed if Biden had no concerns on her past concerns, Psaki says she’ll “leave it at what I’ve said”.

This is what Psaki said earlier today on the controversy around the OMB pick, who they think they can still have confirmed this week.

But not this week, says Jen Psaki.

Both Trump and Obama had held their first press conference this week, as pointed out at today’s White House press briefing by CNN reporter Kaitlan Collins.

Jen Psaki just de facto fact-checked the president on Covid vaccines before the Biden administration took office.

During his CNN townhall last week, Biden said that there was no vaccine before he took office, despite taking one publicly on television himself.

As he told Anderson Cooper: “And the biggest thing, though, as you remember when you and I — no, I shouldn’t say it that way, ‘as you remember’ — but when you and I talked last, we talked about — it’s one thing to have the vaccine, which we didn’t have when we came into office,” Biden said, before talking about the importance of having a vaccinator to administer the vaccine.

Psaki said during today’s media briefing that, in fact, there was a vaccine prior to the president taking office and up to 900,000 were being administered per day.

“We have vaccinated, we have significantly expedited the rate of vaccination over the past couple of weeks, we’re at about, in the last week or so, we’re at about 1.7 million in a day, or last two weeks or so, prior to the president taking office it was more around 800,000 or 900,000,” she says.

“He wants to go and show his support. He also is fully aware of the footprint of a president of the United States and everything that comes with travelling to a disaster area,” Psaki says.

“But we are hopeful that that trip can happen as early as this week.”

During his nomination hearing, Biden’s nomination for attorney general choked back tears as he remembered his grandparents fleeing anti-Semitism.

The country took us in and protected us. And I feel an obligation to the country payback. This is the highest, best use of my own set of skills to pay back," he says.

“And so I want very much to be the kind of attorney general that you're saying I could become.”

The former VP has broken his relative silence to pen a Fox News column remembering Rush Limbaugh, saying he would never have entered congress if not for the influence of the conservative radio host.

“I scarcely think I would have been elected to the Congress in 2000 without the years that I spent in talk radio, years that were inspired and sustained by the matchless voice of Rush Limbaugh, and I will always be grateful,” Pence wrote.

The piece was focused on Limbaugh, and didn’t make any mention of Pence’s own future or his absence from this weekend’s Conservative Political Action Conference.

The Independent’s Gino Spocchia has this story on Pence’s decision to an invitation to CPAC.