Last week, Democrats pushed forward with using the budget reconciliation process to pass the massive relief package. This legislative maneuver will allow Democrats to pass the $1.9 trillion package through the Senate by a slim majority vote—instead of the 60-vote threshold typically required due to the filibuster rule. But Republicans have criticized this decision, saying it goes against Biden’s calls for unity and to govern in a bipartisan manner....

Visa and MasterCard on Saturday similarly announced that they would be suspending operations in Russia, citing the invasion. The decisions from the financial services companies came as Moscow becomes increasingly isolated due its internationally condemned assault on its Eastern European neighbor. “In light of Russia’s ongoing, unjustified attack on the people of Ukraine, American Express is suspending all operations in Russia. As a result, globally issued American Express cards will no longer work at merchants or ATMs in Russia....

House Democrats will begin holding online, unofficial committee proceedings this week. This includes a Judiciary Committee virtual roundtable on Wednesday with a subcommittee examining immigration officials’ coronavirus response and conditions in migrant detention facilities. This is much to Republicans’ chagrin. Aside from concerns about chamber rules and precedent, some Republicans fear their counterparts across the aisle could use the virtual process to unfairly wield their majority power and drown out GOP lawmakers....

Democratic Governor Laura Kelly is making strides to eliminate the state’s 6.5 percent sales tax on groceries. The proposal, which was announced shortly after Attorney General Derek Schmidt called for the elimination of the tax, is estimated to save consumers $450 million a year. She revealed the plan at a Dillons grocery store located in North Topeka. “We can deliver this for families without diverting resources from other state services or agencies,” she announced at the supermarket....

The cryptocurrency that can be traded peer-to-peer is often dubbed “digital gold” because there is no central bank authority controlling its supply. That physical gold has outperformed many other investments during the COVID-19 crisis is no surprise. For centuries, gold has rightly been regarded as a premier safe-haven asset. With its price soaring in the last few months to an all-time in late July, gold has only reinforced its reputation as a store of value, the investment to turn to when everything else is uncertain....

Exciting news? Yes — and no. “I was still asleep and I was like, ‘What? I’m moving tomorrow — I can’t fly out,’” Palmer-Brown told Goal. “He was like, ‘Well they called us, they need someone and you’re going in.’” MLS All-Star game a worthwhile quirk The next thing Palmer-Brown knew, he was on FaceTime with U.S. Under-20 teammates — and fellow Homegrown selections — Tyler Adams and Justen Glad to discuss the news....

Kaiser illustrated that example when Concord, New Hampshire Police Officer Brian Cregg was seeking a person on the run. He later found “Kerry,” who had earlier laid underneath a woman’s truck. According to Kerry, there was a contest and he told Cregg the prize was a new pickup truck if he could only find the truck with a key hidden underneath. Local police knew Kerry from similar events, but decided his disposition was better explained by psychological issues rather than narcotics....

In France, Paris St-Germain (PSG) women’s midfielder Aminata Diallo has been taken into police custody following an attack on one of her teammates last week. According to French outlet L’Equipe, Diallo’s fellow club player Kheira Hamraoui was assaulted by two masked men on November 4. The 31-year-old, who also plays in the midfield position on the team, was dragged out of her car and hit on her arms and legs with an iron bar....

Learn what sets AML apart from CML and help ensure that you get the proper care from a physician specializing in this area. Symptoms It’s not always easy to distinguish between acute and chronic myeloid leukemia based on symptoms alone. These can be remarkably similar in some cases. Some of the symptoms that both have in common include the following: TirednessWeaknessFever However, there can also be differences as well. With acute myeloid leukemia, patients may also experience signs such as:...

Hume told Fox News’ Special Report that the Democratic senators criticizing Coney Barrett as a threat to the ACA, which is also known as Obamacare, were wrong to assume how she would act. One of those senators was Democratic vice-presidential candidate Kamala Harris. The quote “You heard it expressed there by Kamala Harris among a number of others that Amy Coney [Barrett] is a sure vote to strike down the Affordable Care Act,” Hume said....

In her second day of confirmation hearings with the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican and the committee’s chairman, explicitly asked Barrett whether she could “set aside whatever Catholic beliefs you have regarding any issue before you.” “I can. I have done that in my time on the Seventh Circuit,” said Barrett, whom President Donald Trump successfully nominated in 2017 to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit....

Klobuchar, as well as Minnesota Democratic Senator Tina Smith and 26 other Democratic lawmakers, asked the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice to look into what the letter refers to as “racially discriminatory and violent policing” in the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD). “Those responsible must be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law in order to serve justice for George Floyd and his loved ones,” the letter said....

Hill’s scheduled execution on Sept. 3–the nation’s first involving the killer of an abortion doctor–has convulsed both sides of the abortion debate. Opponents of the practice worry that the political progress they’ve made could be set back by a reminder of the movement’s violent extremists. Abortion-rights proponents fear that fringe activists–several dozen of whom plan to descend on Florida this week–will hail Hill as a martyr and unleash a new wave of attacks against clinics and doctors....

Minority tourism, it’s called. The trend is lucrative and family oriented, but otherwise no day at Disney World. Consider some of the bloodstained sites found on what the brochures refer to as African-American Heritage Tours. The Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., where in 1965 police attacked a crowd of interracial marchers. The Lorraine Motel in Memphis, where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated 23 years ago. The Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Ala....

“Our economists are projecting a ‘V-shaped’ recovery and since it will start in the third quarter, or when the campaign is going to be heating up, that could end up working in Trump’s favor,” said Sam Stovall, the chief investment strategist at the Center for Financial Research and Analysis. Stovall said his firm, which is one of the world’s largest independent investment research companies, estimates GDP will rise 24 percent in the third quarter and the unemployment rate will shrink to 9 percent by the end of October....

““Hawaii,’’ Michener’s first blockbuster best seller, appeared in 1959. Marrying fact with fiction to recount the history of the islands from the first volcanic burp through the arrival of everyone from the Polynesians to the pineapple barons, it was snapped up by the Book of the Month Club, condensed by Reader’s Digest and sold to Hollywood for a then astronomical $1 million. The template from which most of his subsequent fiction was struck, ““Hawaii’’ was the best of Michener’s epics, and it made him a household name....

Howard’s statement broke a golden rule of diplomacy–never comment on an upcoming election in a friendly country–and earned him a sardonic rebuke from Obama, who pointed out that for all of Howard’s tough talk, Australia has sent a mere 1,400 troops to Iraq. This uncharacteristic misstep from such a grizzled political operator had a fairly simple explanation: Howard is expected to call an election of his own, probably later this year, and figured taking a swing at Obama would play well in his staunchly, even uniquely pro-American country....

At a conference earlier this month, Ken Fisher, founder of Fisher Investments, stunned some attendees with his comments, which included referring to genitalia and comparing the pursuit of new clients to “going up to a woman in a bar and saying, ‘Hey, I want to talk about what’s in your pants’.” CNBC obtained audio from the private event after a male attendee described and assailed the remarks on Twitter. One of the women attendees called the comments “outrageous....