VOL. 45 | NO. 21 | Friday, May 21, 2021
BRIEFS
The newly redesigned 2022 Nissan Pathfinder has begun rolling off the assembly line at the company’s Smyrna assembly plant.
NEWSMAKERS
Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP has named Lauren B. Jacques managing partner of the firm’s Nashville office. She succeeds Lela M. Hollabaugh, who has served as the Nashville office managing partner since 2015. Hollabaugh will continue as a litigation partner in the Nashville office.
BEHIND THE WHEEL
The launch of Ford’s Bronco, its highly anticipated Jeep Wrangler-like SUV, won’t likely happen until late this year. But there already is a Bronco-badged alternative at dealer lots: the 2021 Ford Bronco Sport. It’s related to Ford’s Escape crossover SUV but has more squared-off bodywork and enhanced off-roading capabilities.
PERSONAL FINANCE
Starting in July, most families with children will start getting monthly payments of as much as $300 per child as part of the American Rescue Plan’s expansion of the child tax credit.
MILLENNIAL MONEY
Maybe you’re cringing at the thought of going back to an office. The seed of a business idea floats around in your head between work videoconference calls, after the children are asleep or while you tend your pandemic garden.
MUSIC INDUSTRY
NASHVILLE (AP) — Singer-songwriters Jason Isbell and Amythyst Kiah are both up for three nominations at this year's Americana Honors and Awards show, which will resume in-person after the pandemic forced the cancellation of last year's awards ceremony.
PREDATORS
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Coach Rod Brind'Amour figured the puck would eventually have to bounce the right way for his Carolina Hurricanes.
NASHVILLE AREA
NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennessee State University announced on Wednesday that it will begin offering an online app design and coding class in two African countries this fall.
STATEWIDE
MEMPHIS (AP) — The first step toward repairing a crack in a steel beam in the Interstate 40 bridge linking Tennessee and Arkansas has been completed, two weeks after the span was closed to vehicles, officials said.
COURTS
GREENEVILLE (AP) — A former assistant district attorney in Tennessee has pleaded guilty to soliciting a sexual bribe in exchange for expunging a woman's criminal charges.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Wednesday granted Oklahoma's request to retain custody of a man who has been on death row for killing three Native Americans, a sign the court may be willing to limit the fallout from last year's ruling that much of eastern Oklahoma remains a tribal reservation.
DALLAS (AP) — San Diego authorities charged a 28-year-old woman with felony battery after an attack on a Southwest Airlines plane in which a flight attendant lost two teeth and suffered other injuries to her face.
AUTO INDUSTRY
DETROIT (AP) — Ford expects 40% of its global sales to be battery-electric vehicles by 2030 as it adds billions to what it's spending to develop them.
BEIRUT (AP) — Former auto magnate Carlos Ghosn expects to get hit with at least one preliminary charge after French investigators travel to Beirut next week to question him over suspicions of financial misconduct. But he insists he's done nothing wrong and hopes their investigations are eventually dropped.
MEDIA
If you post a photo to social media and you don't know how many people liked it, did you really post it?
LONDON (AP) — European Union officials unveiled plans Wednesday to beef up the bloc's code of practice on online disinformation, with the aim of preventing digital ad companies from profiting off of "fake news."
NEW DELHI (AP) — The messaging app WhatsApp has sued the Indian government seeking to defend its users' privacy and stop new rules that would require it to make messages "traceable" to external parties.
ENVIRONMENT
LOS ANGELES (AP) — California and the U.S. government announced an agreement Tuesday to open up areas off the state's central and northern coasts to the first commercial wind energy farms on the Pacific Coast.
VIRUS OUTBREAK
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden on Wednesday asked U.S. intelligence officials to "redouble" their efforts to investigate the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, including the unlikely possibility that the origins of the virus trace to Chinese lab.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department announced charges Wednesday against more than a dozen people from Florida to California in a series of Medicare scams that exploited coronavirus fears to bill tens of millions of dollars in bogus claims.
LONDON (AP) — Boarding pass, suitcase, passport and ... digital vaccination certificate?
TOKYO (AP) — Japan's Asahi Shimbun newspaper on Wednesday called for the Tokyo Olympics to be canceled with the games set to open in less than two months.
BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union took on vaccine producer AstraZeneca in a Brussels court on Wednesday and accused the drugmaker of delivering shots to other nations when it had promised them for delivery among the 27 member states.
BRUSSELS (AP) — Belgium on Wednesday suspended the use of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine for people under age 41 following the death of a person who had received the shot.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
U.S. stocks are closing higher Wednesday as investors continued to monitor the economic recovery and rising inflation.
NEW YORK (AP) — Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has picked a date to step down as CEO.
NEW YORK (AP) — Online shopping giant Amazon is buying MGM, the movie and TV studio behind James Bond, "Legally Blonde" and "Shark Tank," with the hopes of filling its video streaming service with more stuff to watch.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The CEOs of the biggest banks went before Congress on Wednesday with plans to discuss how helpful Wall Street was for borrowers and businesses during the pandemic. Senators, reflecting the deep partisan divide between Democrats and Republicans, spent much of the hearing wanting to talk about political hot button issues like climate change, guns and voting rights.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Yum Brands has partnered with the University of Louisville to launch a business program that will focus on franchise opportunities for underrepresented minorities and women, officials announced Wednesday.
A year after safety fears led to the cancellation of baseball and other team sports, Dick's Sporting Goods is having a comeback year as bats, balls and jerseys fly off shelves.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans are poised to block legislation that would create a commission on the Jan. 6 insurrection, despite both a bipartisan effort to salvage the bill and a last-minute push by the mother of a Capitol Police officer who collapsed and died after the siege.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Senators labored to find a path forward for legislation creating a commission on the Jan. 6 insurrection, debating potential changes in a long-shot attempt to overcome growing GOP opposition.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Republicans revived negotiations over President Joe Biden's sweeping investment plan, preparing a $1 trillion infrastructure proposal that would be funded with COVID-19 relief money as a counteroffer to the White House ahead of a Memorial Day deadline toward a bipartisan deal.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A majority of Americans across racial and ethnic groups believe discrimination has worsened in the last year against Asian Americans, who became the target of attacks after being unfairly blamed for the coronavirus pandemic.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Heading into the Memorial Day travel weekend, House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy and other members of his party are falsely blaming President Joe Biden for higher gasoline and lumber costs.
TUESDAY, MAY 25
PREDATORS
Four overtimes. A total of 191 minutes, 4 seconds of hockey. Two hundred and fourteen shots on goal.
SPORTS
HOOVER, Ala. (AP) — The Southeastern Conference is loaded at the top, with No. 1 Arkansas followed closely by teams like Vanderbilt, Tennessee and Mississippi State.
NASHVILLE AREA
NASHVILLE (AP) — Nashville's top prosecutor said Monday that he will not enforce a newly enacted law that requires businesses and government facilities open to the public to post a sign if they let transgender people use multiperson bathrooms and other facilities associated with their gender identity.
STATE GOVERNMENT
NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennessee is the latest state to ban teachers from teaching certain concepts of race and racism in public schools, where teachers risk losing valuable state funding if they violate the new measure.
STATEWIDE
NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennessee officials say almost all construction-related highway lane closures will be paused for Memorial Day weekend.
COURTS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration said Monday that it would appeal a judge's order directing it to release in its entirety a legal memo on whether President Donald Trump had obstructed justice during the Russia investigation. But it also agreed to make a brief portion of the document public.
SAN RAMON, Calif. (AP) — The judge who will decide a case challenging Apple's stranglehold on its iPhone app store indicated on Monday she would like to promote more competition but without dismantling a commission system that reaps billions of dollars for the technology powerhouse.
AUTO INDUSTRY
DETROIT (AP) — General Motors now says it will support efforts by the United Auto Workers union to organize employees at two U.S. electric vehicle battery factories that it's building in Ohio and Tennessee with a joint-venture partner.
REAL ESTATE
WASHINGTON (AP) — Sales of new homes fell a bigger-than-expected 5.9% in April, a drop that analysts blamed in part on rising home prices.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. housing market has gotten so out of whack, with demand far outpacing supply, that prices have risen to record levels and roughly half of all U.S. houses are selling for above their list price.
HEALTH CARE
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate on Tuesday confirmed President Joe Biden's pick to run U.S. health insurance programs, putting in place a key player who'll carry out his strategy for expanding affordable coverage and reining in prescription drug costs.
TECHNOLOGY
WASHINGTON (AP) — The federal government will issue cybersecurity regulations in the coming days for U.S. pipeline operators following a ransomware attack that led to fuel shortages across much of the Eastern Seaboard.
TRANSPORTATION
U.S. regulators have downgraded Mexico's aviation safety rating, a move that prevents Mexican airlines from expanding flights to the United States just as travel is recovering from the pandemic.
MEDIA
BERLIN (AP) — German regulators have launched an investigation into Google's position in the market, and how the search engine and advertising giant handles user data.
VIRUS OUTBREAK
TOKYO (AP) — The Japanese government Tuesday was quick to deny a U.S. warning for Americans to avoid traveling to Japan would have an impact on Olympians wanting to compete in the postponed Tokyo Games.
Moderna said Tuesday its COVID-19 vaccine strongly protects kids as young as 12, a step that could put the shot on track to become the second option for that age group in the U.S.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
Stocks closed lower on Wall Street, giving up an early gain and losing momentum after a solid start to the week.
NEW YORK (AP) — Some small businesses forced to turn to online lenders for pandemic relief are making those niche players a bigger part of their financial game plan, and are even considering dumping their traditional banks altogether.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The District of Columbia has sued Amazon, accusing the online retail giant of anticompetitive practices in its treatment of sellers on its platform. The practices have raised prices for consumers and stifled innovation and choice in the online retail market, the DC attorney general alleges in an antitrust suit.
BERLIN (AP) — Germany's economy contracted more than expected in the first quarter amid coronavirus lockdown measures, according to statistics released Tuesday, but a leading indicator showed that businesses' optimism is rising as the pace of vaccinations increases.
AKSU, China (AP) — A backlash against reports of forced labor and other abuses of the largely Muslim Uyghur ethnic group in Xinjiang is taking a toll on China's cotton industry, but it's unclear if the pressure will compel the government or companies to change their ways.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Republicans are preparing a $1 trillion infrastructure counteroffer to present to the White House by Thursday, reviving negotiations over President Joe Biden's sweeping investment plan ahead of a Memorial Day deadline for progress toward a bipartisan deal.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican leaders forcefully condemned GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene on Tuesday, calling her comments comparing COVID-19 safety measures like mask-wearing to the treatment of Jews in Nazi Germany "appalling."
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden and Russia's Vladimir Putin agreed Tuesday to meet next month in Geneva, a face-to-face encounter the White House hopes will help bring some predictability to a fraught relationship that's only worsened in the first months of the Democratic administration.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden's infrastructure plan is hitting roadblocks. A policing overhaul after the killing of George Floyd is up in the air. Even a seemingly bipartisan effort to investigate the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol faces the blockade of Republican opposition in Congress.
MONDAY, MAY 24
PREDATORS
NASHVILLE (AP) — The Nashville Predators are finding that neither a broken stick nor back-to-back double overtime games can stop them.
NASHVILLE SC
NASHVILLE (AP) — Randall Leal scored in the 35th minute and Nashville beat expansion Austin FC 1-0 on Sunday night in the first meeting between the teams.
NASHVILLE AREA
NASHVILLE (AP) — A federal judge has ruled against a conservative legal group that sought an immediate halt to the priority status for restaurants and bars owned by women and certain minorities in President Joe Biden's COVID-19 relief package.
NASHVILLE (AP) — In downtown Nashville, honky-tonks rattle back to life, peddle taverns crowd the streets and bartenders can't pour fast enough.
MIDSTATE
FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. (AP) — The first woman to become command sergeant major of a U.S. Army division will step into that role this week in Kentucky.
STATE GOVERNMENT
NASHVILLE (AP) — Conservative lawmakers nationwide introduced a flurry of anti-LGBTQ bills this year, but no state's political leaders have gone further than Tennessee in enacting new laws targeting transgender people.
COURTS
RENO, Nev. (AP) — A Russian man was sentenced Monday to what amounted to time already served in U.S. government custody and will be deported after pleading guilty to trying to pay a Tesla employee $500,000 to install computer malware at the company's Nevada electric battery plant in a bid to steal company secrets for ransom.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear an appeal from a Missouri death row inmate who is seeking execution by firing squad.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Gordon Sondland, the Trump administration's ambassador to the European Union and a pivotal witness in 2019 impeachment proceedings, sued former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday in an effort to recoup $1.8 million he racked up in legal expenses.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court says the U.S. territory of Guam can pursue a $160 million lawsuit against the federal government over the cost of cleaning up a landfill on the island.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is leaving in place an appeals court decision that the family of a Black driver who was fatally shot by a white police officer in a suburban Ohio city can't sue the city or the officer.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal from a retired federal law enforcement officer who was put in a chokehold and wrestled to the ground at a VA hospital security checkpoint.
ENVIRONMENT
BEIJING (AP) — The Biden administration's solar power ambitions are colliding with complaints the global industry depends on Chinese raw materials that might be produced by forced labor.
VIRUS OUTBREAK
NEW DELHI (AP) — India crossed another grim milestone Monday with more than 300,000 people lost to the coronavirus, while a devastating surge of infections appeared to be easing in big cities but was swamping the poorer countryside.
TOKYO (AP) — Japan mobilized military doctors and nurses to give shots to elderly people in Tokyo and Osaka on Monday as the government desperately tries to accelerate its vaccination rollout and curb coronavirus infections just two months before hosting the Olympics.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
Stocks closed higher on Wall Street Monday, and the broad rally helped the S&P 500 claw back more than half of its losses over the past two weeks.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The nation's business economists have grown much more optimistic about the U.S. economy this year, with a majority predicting that increased vaccinations, stronger job gains and further government aid will accelerate growth to its fastest pace in nearly four decades.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill on Monday that seeks to punish social media platforms that remove "conservative ideas" from their sites, though it is not clear if it would pass constitutional muster because it might violate the First Amendment.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A government watchdog says the Trump administration, under its practice of separating families at the border, forced migrant parents to leave the U.S. without their children, contradicting claims by officials that parents were willingly leaving them behind.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden announced Monday that he's doubling U.S. emergency spending to help communities prepare for hurricanes and other extreme weather events, while launching a new effort at NASA to better understand and track the impact of climate change.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House and the Kremlin are working to arrange a summit next month between President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Switzerland, according to officials.
WASHINGTON (AP) — With a showdown vote looming, Senate Republicans are misrepresenting the timeline of a proposed independent commission to investigate the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol insurrection.
FRIDAY, MAY 21
SPORTS
NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennessee State is conducting a study to test the feasibility of becoming the first historically black university to field varsity men's and women's ice hockey teams.
NASHVILLE AREA
NASHVILLE (AP) — The Tennessee State Library and Archives is holding a one-day public display of the state's three original constitutions to celebrate 225 years of statehood.
MIDSTATE
CLARKSVILLE (AP) — A former nurse at a Tennessee high school who had more than 700 illicit images of juvenile girls has been charged in federal court with attempted production of child pornography, authorities said.
COURTS
WASHINGTON (AP) — As communities nationwide are re-examining law enforcement practices, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor says Americans should think critically about how they want police to interact with citizens.
SAN RAMON, Calif. (AP) — Apple CEO Tim Cook described the company's ironclad control over its mobile app store as a way to keep things simple for customers while protecting them against security threats and privacy intrusions during Friday testimony denying allegations he has been running an illegal monopoly.
REAL ESTATE
Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes fell for the third straight month in April as the number of properties for sale hit a record low, driving prices to new highs.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Mortgage rates rose this week, pushing the benchmark 30-year home loan to the 3% mark for the first time since mid-April. Signs continued of the economy's recovery from the pandemic recession and a burst of inflation rattled stock markets.
AUTO INDUSTRY
DETROIT (AP) — The CEO of America's second-largest auto company is calling for the federal government to set standards for fully or partially automated vehicles to tighten the safety of electronic driving systems.
MEDIA
Shareholders of Tribune Publishing, one of the country's largest newspaper chains, on Friday approved a takeover by hedge fund Alden Global Capital.
TECHNOLOGY
HONG KONG (AP) — China's internet watchdog said Friday it had found Bytedance's Douyin, Microsoft Bing, LinkedIn and 102 other apps were engaged in improper collection and use of data and ordered them to fix the problem.
VIRUS OUTBREAK
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California no longer will require social distancing and will allow full capacity for businesses when the state reopens on June 15, the state's top health official said Friday.
TOKYO (AP) — The IOC vice president in charge of the postponed Tokyo Olympics said Friday the games would open in just over two months even if the city and other parts of Japan were under a state of emergency because of rising COVID-19 cases.
BANGKOK (AP) — Thailand has started deploying a canine virus-detecting squad in hopes of quickly identifying people with COVID-19 as the country faces a surge in cases, with clusters at construction sites, crowded slum communities and large markets.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House is pushing a new reason to swipe right: vaccination badges and "super swipes" for people who've gotten their coronavirus shots.
WASHINGTON — Dr. Anthony Fauci says vaccinated Americans would "not necessarily" need to get booster shots this fall for further protection from COVID-19.
Congress has voted to let large cruise ships sail directly from Washington state to Alaska without stopping in Canada, a step that could clear the way for cruises later this year.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
Stocks ended a wobbly day with mixed results on Wall Street.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is directing federal agencies to develop a comprehensive strategy to identify and manage financial risks to government and the private sector posed by climate change.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Treasury Department supports a global minimum corporate tax rate of at least 15% — below the 21% minimum it has been seeking to impose on the foreign profits of U.S.-based companies.
The Biden administration is taking steps to ensure Americans who pay for goods or services with cryptocurrencies don't sidestep the tax man.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — In the early days of the pandemic, New Jersey Rep. Tom Malinowski scolded those looking to capitalize on the once-in-a-century health crisis.
WASHINGTON (AP) — An independent commission to study the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection would be modeled after a similar panel that studied the 9/11 terrorist attacks and has long been hailed as a bipartisan success.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House put forward a $1.7 trillion infrastructure counteroffer Friday to Senate Republicans, dropping from President Joe Biden's sweeping $2.3 trillion proposal "in the spirit of finding common ground."
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration Justice Department secretly obtained the 2017 phone records of a CNN correspondent, the network said Thursday in revealing the existence of another apparent leak investigation aimed at identifying a journalist's sources.
THURSDAY, MAY 20
PREDATORS
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Alex Nedeljkovic stayed composed and steady all night in net. It's a good thing the Carolina Hurricanes' penalty kill did, too.
SPORTS
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — The Southeastern Conference has given its 14 member schools $23 million each to help offset the financial impact of COVID-19 on their athletic programs.
STATE GOVERNMENT
NASHVILLE (AP) — The Tennessee Department of Correction has announced that it will soon implement pay raises for probation and parole officers after the salary increases were delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennessee officials are opening three recovery centers to help people find assistance after flooding in March.
STATEWIDE
MEMPHIS (AP) — Photos taken by a Mississippi River kayaker about five years before a crack was found in the Interstate 40 bridge linking Tennessee and Arkansas appear to show the fracture that led transportation officials to close the span indefinitely last week.
AUTO INDUSTRY
CHANDLER, Ariz. (AP) — The annoyed shopper paced around and knocked on the windows of a minivan blocking him from leaving his Costco parking spot. He didn't seem to notice, or care, that there was no one inside.
DETROIT (AP) — Ford is forming a joint venture with one of its battery suppliers that will build two North American factories to make batteries for roughly 600,000 electric vehicles per year by the middle of this decade.
AMSTERDAM (AP) — A Dutch court on Thursday rejected fugitive auto executive Carlos Ghosn's wrongful dismissal claim against an Amsterdam-based alliance between Nissan and Mitsubishi and ordered him to repay nearly 5 million euros ($6 million) salary he received in 2018.
FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — The world's largest truck and bus maker is charting an ambitious zero-emission future and says it's not that far off - despite higher costs and the current lack of support infrastructure.
VIRUS OUTBREAK
NEW YORK (AP) — An abrupt relaxation of mask policies has left workers at some retail and grocery stores reeling as they try to sort out what the new environment means for their own safety and relationship with customers.
BEIJING (AP) — China said Thursday it is providing COVID-19 vaccines to nearly 40 African countries, describing its actions as purely altruistic in an apparent intensification of what has been described as "vaccine diplomacy."
NEW YORK (AP) — When do I still need to wear a mask? It depends, mostly on whether or not you're vaccinated.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
Stock closed higher on Wall Street Thursday, ending a three-day losing streak. Technology and communications companies led the way higher.
NEW YORK (AP) — The central question gripping Wall Street is whether the burst of inflation hitting the economy as it recovers from the pandemic is just temporary or the start of a real problem. The answer threatens to crack the stock market's incredible, record-setting run that began in March 2020.
BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Parliament warned China on Thursday it won't ratify a long-awaited business investment deal as long as sanctions against European Union legislators remain in place.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of Americans seeking unemployment aid fell last week to 444,000, a new pandemic low and a sign that the job market keeps strengthening as consumers spend freely again, viral infections drop and business restrictions ease.
BRUSSELS (AP) — European Union and U.S. top trade officials on Thursday will seek to further cement recent advances in settling some key differences that have soured trans-Atlantic relations over the past few years.
Oatly, the world's largest oat milk company, will raise $1.4 billion in an initial public offering Thursday on the Nasdaq stock exchange, capitalizing on a global surge in demand for its products.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Republicans have not substantially budged off their initial $568 billion infrastructure proposal despite overtures from the White House to work toward a compromise as President Joe Biden tries to strike a bipartisan agreement on his sweeping $2.3 trillion infrastructure plan.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House on Thursday narrowly approved $1.9 billion to fortify the Capitol after the Jan. 6 insurrection, as Democrats pushed past Republican opposition to try to harden the complex with retractable fencing and a quick-response force following the most violent domestic attack on Congress in history.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate Commerce Committee on Thursday approved President Joe Biden's nomination of Eric Lander to be chief science adviser, one of the last unfilled Cabinet posts in the Biden administration.
BERLIN (AP) — Chancellor Angela Merkel said Thursday that Germany will discuss "necessary common ground" with the U.S. on relations with Russia after President Joe Biden opted not to punish the company overseeing a Russia-Germany pipeline project that Washington opposes.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Thirty-five House Republicans joined Democrats in voting to create a bipartisan commission to investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, risking the wrath of former President Donald Trump and flouting GOP leaders who condemned the proposal as unfairly partisan and unneeded.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House voted to create an independent commission on the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, sending the legislation to an uncertain future in the Senate as Republican leaders work to stop a bipartisan investigation that is opposed by former President Donald Trump.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Two leading congressional Democrats issued a call Wednesday for ideas on a "public option" health insurance plan, a campaign promise of President Joe Biden's that faces long odds politically.