As the Senate broke for the holidays, due back Jan. 8, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell in a rare joint statement indicated negotiations are progressing.
Senate
“In cities like Chicago dealing with the constant drumbeat of gun violence, it has turned these public health officials into battlefield experts,” U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin said. “They’ve seen the aftermath of bullets tearing through bone like it’s tissue paper.”
The new charge comes just weeks after Menendez and his wife were accused of accepting bribes of cash, gold bars and a luxury car from three New Jersey businessmen who wanted the senator’s help and influence over foreign affairs.
A search of the couple’s home turned up $100,000 in gold bars and $480,000 in hidden cash, said prosecutors, who announced the charges against the 69-year-old Democrat nearly six years after an earlier criminal case against him ended with a deadlocked jury.
Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias was in Washington, D.C., this week to testify before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee regarding a new state law aimed at deterring book bans.
A short-term funding measure to keep government offices fully functioning will dominate the September agenda, along with emergency funding for Ukraine, federal disaster funds and the Republican-driven probe into Hunter Biden’s overseas business dealings.
The promotions of more than 300 military officers are being stalled by Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville in protest of Pentagon reproductive health policies.
The Supreme Court would have to abide by stronger ethics standards under legislation approved on Thursday by the Senate Judiciary Committee. The legislation has little chance to make it through the full Senate.
FBI and Homeland Security Ignored ‘Massive Amount’ of Intelligence Before Jan. 6, Senate Report Says
The report details how the agencies failed to recognize and warn of the potential for violence as some of then-President Donald Trump’s supporters openly planned the siege in messages and forums online.
The Treasury Department had warned that the country would start running short of cash on Monday, which would have sent shockwaves through the U.S. and global economies.
The compromise package leaves neither Republicans nor Democrats fully pleased with the outcome. But the result, after weeks of hard-fought budget negotiations, shelves the volatile debt ceiling issue that risked upending the U.S. and global economy until 2025 after the next presidential election.
The Senate’s only Black Republican, Scott kicked off the campaign in his hometown of North Charleston, on the campus of Charleston Southern University, his alma mater and a private school affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention.
The call comes after Senate Democrats have raised questions about whether the ethical standards of the high court need to be reviewed or change in the wake of a ProPublica report that found Justice Clarence Thomas has gone on several luxury trips involving travel subsidized by GOP megadonor Harlan Crow.
Top lawmakers, including Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, had for months been asking the Justice Department to provide access to the documents — or at least an assessment of what was in them — so that Congress could gauge the potential national security harm.
The deficit reduction goal is significantly higher than the $2 trillion that Biden had promised in his State of the Union address last month. It also is a sharp contrast with House Republicans, who have called for a path to a balanced budget but have yet to offer a blueprint.
On Thursday, the office of Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman, a Democrat who was elected to the Senate after a bruising campaign during which he suffered a stroke, announced he had checked himself into the hospital for clinical depression.