(NEW YORK) — Recent attacks on Jewish institutions — including the 10-hour-long hostage situation at a synagogue in Texas on Jan. 15 — have cast a dark shadow on the simple act of walking into a Jewish institution.
The faith-based attacks have forced community leaders to prioritize security and safety precautions to maintain their ability to pray, congregate and practice their faith, Eric Fingerhut, the president and CEO of the Jewish Federations of North America, told ABC News.
“This is not new,” Fingerhut said. “This has been a particularly violent period of attacks on Jewish institutions and on Jewish community.”
On Jan. 15, an armed suspect that claimed to have bombs took a rabbi and three others hostage at the Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas. Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker, who was held hostage, told reporters that his training with the Jewish-led security training organization Secure Community Network helped get his congregants out safely.
Since antisemitism is still present in the U.S., protecting one’s congregation is key, community leaders say. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) tracked 2,024 antisemitic incidents in 2020, the third-highest year on record since the organization began tracking these incidents in 1979.
Faith-based communities will “likely” continue to be the target of violence “by both domestic violent extremists and those inspired by foreign terrorists,” according to a note sent on Monday to law enforcement officials and houses of worship nationwide by the FBI and Department of Homeland Security.
“The fact that he’d been trained like so many members of the clergy and other communal leaders in active shooter drills, in hostage crises, and how to deal with terrorist scenarios unfolding in your synagogue … it’s actually not a surprise,” ADL’s CEO and National Director Jonathan Greenblatt told ABC News.
“We are in an environment where, whether you run a synagogue or a JCC [Jewish community center] or a day school or a summer camp, you need to take action and be vigilant because of the very real threat of violence,” Greenblatt said.
The Secure Community Network is a national security initiative composed of former high-level law enforcement officials that work across 146 federations and more than 300 individual groups. They train religious leaders in threat and vulnerability assessments, training and drill programs.
Brad Orsini, the organization’s senior national security advisor, said that in Texas, leaders were taught basic situational awareness: what to look for, what suspicious behavior may look like. They also engaged in active shooter training, countering an active threat training and life-saving training to stop bleeding.
“We really teach that community the necessary tools to stay alive for three to five minutes prior to law enforcement getting there,” Orsini told ABC News. “Law enforcement is not there when an incident happens so we need to know those initial steps to keep ourselves alive.”
The organization said it also provides a 24/7 analyst who is on alert for security threats from across the country.
Security and safety training are beginning to become a part of daily life as Jewish leaders, Fingerhut said. He said they’re doing what it takes to protect the community’s ability to practice their faith rightfully and freely.
“The basis of our religion is the community,” Fingerhut said. “If people are afraid to take their kids to a JCC or to summer camp or afraid to go to synagogue to pray with their community, that would be the ultimate tragedy.”
(CHICAGO) — It was reopening day at a greater Chicago mass vaccination site Tuesday, as local health officials bring previously closed locations back online to meet renewed demand during the omicron surge.
Cook County closed the last of its six suburban mass vaccination sites six months ago due to declining demand and as vaccine administrations shifted more to pharmacies and doctors’ offices. But with renewed interest in recent weeks, county officials have been encouraged to reopen several of the sites operated by Cook County Health.
“With the surge in omicron, we’ve actually seen an increase in interest in, particularly, boosters,” Dr. Gregory Huhn, Cook County Health’s vaccine coordinator and an infectious disease physician, told ABC News. “We believed that we would need this type of opportunity again to really meet that demand, as people recognize the importance of vaccination in combating against omicron.”
About 80% of Cook County residents have received at least one vaccine dose, while 40% of those eligible have gotten their booster, Huhn said.
A majority — around 75% — of Cook County Health’s patients hospitalized due to COVID-19 are unvaccinated, and that rate is higher for those in the intensive care unit and on ventilators, according to Huhn.
“We will have breakthrough infections, we know that,” Huhn said. “But with the booster, we’re able to generate enough antibodies to protect people against the progression of their infection and disease, to keep them out of the hospital and keep them from dying.”
On Tuesday, the first of three mass vaccination sites reopening across the county started administering doses again. There were a couple hundred appointments scheduled, and more walk-ins.
Stephen Gallardo showed up to the Forest Park site after trying more than a week to get his booster elsewhere, he told Chicago ABC station WLS. “Most places are booked for a while,” he told the station.
The other two sites are scheduled to open Thursday and Saturday, with all three offering weekend hours.
Local leaders are hoping the weekends will draw out residents who have not yet gotten their first dose.
“We know that certain populations have not availed themselves of the vaccines, so what we hope to see is church congregations coming on Sundays to get vaccines here in Forest Park,” Forest Park Mayor Rory Hoskins told reporters Tuesday.
All three sites are in former big-box stores, which have provided a large amount of open space to easily maneuver patients from station to station, Huhn said.
“We find that this type of environment is really highly conducive to our vaccine operations and efficiency,” he said.
When the sites first opened nearly a year ago, they were partially staffed by members of the National Guard. Now, they’re relying on both Cook County Health administrators and support from nursing agencies.
The clinics will run as long as there is demand.
“We have adequate vaccine supply, we have the staff,” Huhn said. “We really want to make it easy and accessible for everybody to get the vaccine that they need.”
(NEW YORK) — A series of “missed opportunities” and an overreliance on false statements made by Robert Durst delayed his prosecution for the murder of his then-wife, Kathleen “Kathie” Durst, by almost 40 years, Westchester District Attorney Mimi Rocah said Wednesday.
Rocah’s office released a 13-page report that probed the entire scope of the investigation and found both police and prosecutors relied too much on Robert Durst’s alibis that his wife was last seen in Manhattan before she disappeared from their South Salem home on Jan. 31, 1982. Her body has never been discovered.
Even though Robert Durst’s claims were refuted by other evidence, investigators continued their search for Kathie Durst in New York City instead of Westchester, the report said.
“In short, it appears that the initial investigation suffered to some degree from ‘tunnel vision’ — having a theory of a case, which is maintained even when there are red flags that should cause those initial theories to be questioned,” the report said.
New York investigators uncovered evidence that showed Kathie Durst was the victim of domestic violence by Robert Durst before she was killed. Neighbors at the Dursts’ Manhattan residence told investigators at the time that Kathleen Durst had knocked on their window seeking protection from her husband, who allegedly beat her and threatened to shoot her.
Neighbors of his South Salem home refuted Robert Durst’s claims that he stopped by their house for drinks after he dropped off Kathie at a train station the night of her disappearance.
“And yet focus of the investigation remained guided by Durst’s version of events that he had driven her to the train to New York City on the night she disappeared,” Rocah said at a news conference Wednesday.
Susan Berman, Durst’s friend and unofficial spokeswoman, also gave questionable statements to the police suggesting Kathie had run off with another man, the report said.
Berman was murdered in 2000 before she was set to speak with police for a follow-up investigation into Kathie’s disappearance. Robert Durst was arrested in 2015 and charged in connection with Berman’s death, following the airing of the final episode of the HBO documentary “The Jinx,” where he was recorded on a hot mic allegedly incriminating himself.
Robert Durst was convicted in Berman’s death last year and was sentenced to life in prison in October. Shortly after the sentencing, Rocah’s office charged Durst with Kathie Durst’s murder.
Robert Durst died of natural causes earlier this month in custody.
Kathie Durst’s family wasn’t invited to Rocah’s press conference, according to family attorney Robert Abrams, who added that they’re calling for Rocah’s resignation. She was elected as DA in November 2020.
“There have been numerous individuals, including members of the Durst family, that have knowingly and intentionally participated in a criminal conspiracy to help Robert Durst avoid prosecution,” Abrams said in a statement. “Through her misrepresentations and omissions, DA Rocah must now be considered part of the cover-up.”
(WASHINGTON) — Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor did not ask her colleague and seatmate on the bench, Justice Neil Gorsuch, to wear a mask during the omicron surge, according to a rare joint statement issued Wednesday.
The justices, addressing swirling media reports of discord, insist they remain “warm colleagues and friends” despite recent headlines suggesting Gorsuch had defied a request to mask up, forcing Sotomayor, who, because of her diabetes and her age — 67 — is at heightened risk of COVID, to retreat to her chambers.
“Reporting that Justice Sotomayor asked Justice Gorsuch to wear a mask surprised us. It is false. While we may sometimes disagree about the law, we are warm colleagues and friends,” they said in a rare joint statement.
Since early January, Sotomayor has not joined her colleagues for any in person proceedings or private meetings due to health concerns. At the same time, her peers began wearing masks while together — with one notable exception: Gorsuch.
NPR’s Nina Totenberg reported Tuesday, citing an unnamed source, that Chief Justice John Roberts had encouraged his colleagues “in some form” to mask up during omicron. She indicated that Gorsuch defied that request.
Fox News’ Shannon Bream reports, citing a separate unnamed source, that’s not true and that no request went out from Roberts and that Sotomayor never asked Gorsuch herself.
Roberts later out his own statement, saying, “I did not request Justice Gorsuch or any other Justice to wear a mask on the bench.”
He indicated he will have no further comment.
All the justices are boosted and tested daily before meeting together, per the court.
From October through December, all nine justices convened on the bench together — and only Sotomayor wore a mask at that time. She sat next to a maskless Gorsuch and Justice Stephen Breyer, among others.
In January, when they reconvened, most justices started wearing masks — with sole exception being Gorsuch. Sotomayor started dialing in from chambers.
The implication has been the appearance that Sotomayor is not comfortable sitting next to unmasked Gorsuch — with whom she’s been friendly and appeared with jointly in virtual events.
Her chambers has not specified the reason for her remote participation.
Everyone else in the courtroom who’s not a justice must be masked and must be tested, per court rules.
(LOS ANGELES) — Los Angeles police on Wednesday arrested the man they say killed a 24-year-old woman while she worked alone in a furniture store.
The suspect, believed to be homeless, attacked Brianna Kupfer with a knife just before 2 p.m. Thursday, the Los Angeles Police Department said.
He fled through the store’s back door and Kupfer’s body was soon found on the floor by a customer, police said.
Police on Tuesday identified the suspect as 31-year-old Shawn Laval Smith and asked for the public’s help in finding him.
There is no known motive, police said, adding that the suspect had randomly walked into the store.
Kupfer texted a friend that afternoon saying someone in the store was giving her a “bad vibe,” LAPD Lt. John Radke said at a Tuesday news conference.
The slaying has “shaken and shocked our community to its core,” Los Angeles City Councilmember Paul Koretz said at the news conference.
While not working at the furniture store, Kupfer was taking courses in design through UCLA Extension, a continuing education program.
“Brianna, who was born, educated and was building her career here in Los Angeles, was a rising star in this community,” Kupfer’s family said in a statement read on their behalf at the news conference. “Brianna was a smart, funny, driven and kind soul who only wanted to better herself and her community on a daily basis.”
(JACKSONVILLE, N.C.) — There have been “multiple casualties” in a rollover accident involving Marines stationed at Camp LeJeune in Jacksonville, North Carolina, according to the 2nd Marines Logistics Group.
No further details have been provided.
The group had previously posted on Twitter, “We are aware of a vehicle rollover in Jacksonville, North Carolina, involving service members with 2nd MLG. We are working closely with @camp_lejeune and Onslow County officials to gather details regarding this incident.”
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
(WASHINGTON) — On the eve of the one-year anniversary of his inauguration, President Joe Biden held a formal news conference at the White House Wednesday, answering reporter questions on his handling of the pandemic, the economy and legislative agenda.
“It’s been a year of challenges, but it’s also many years of enormous progress,” Biden said to begin, ticking through his administration’s successes before fielding questions from reporters.
With Biden facing the limits of what he can accomplish with an evenly-divided Senate, unable to get either his signature social spending package or major voting rights reform through Congress in recent weeks, and with the pandemic still raging well into its second, his approval rating in polls has hit an all-time low. A Jan. 12 Quinnipiac poll found his approval rating to be 33%, a 3-point drop from November.
Still, Biden touted wins over the year to kick off the news conference, including administering more than 200 million COVID-19 vaccine doses and hitting record-low unemployment rates in many states.
“Should we have done more testing earlier? Yes,” Biden said in his opening remarks. “But we’re doing more now. We’ve gone from zero at-home tests a year ago to 375 million tests on the market just this month.”
He said the bottom line on COVID-19 is the country is “in a better place than we’ve been and have been thus far” and reiterated his position not to go back to lockdowns and school closures.
“Some people may call what’s happening now a new normal. I call it a job not yet finished,” Biden said with confidence. “We’re moving toward a time that COVID-19 won’t disrupt our daily lives or COVID-19 won’t be a crisis, but something to protect against and a threat. Look, we’re not there yet. We will get there.”
The first question to Biden was on whether he believes he overpromised to the American public what his administration could achieve in office one year in.
“Look, I didn’t overpromise,” a defensive Biden replied. “I have probably outperformed what anybody thought would happen. The fact of the matter is that we’re in a situation where we have made enormous progress.”
Then, he acknowledged a weakness.
“One thing I haven’t been able to do so far, is get my Republican friends to get in the game of making things better in this country,” Biden said. “I did not anticipate that there’d be such a stalwart effort to make sure that the most important thing was that President Biden didn’t get anything done.”
In an answer to ABC News Senior White House Correspondent Mary Bruce, Biden said there’s no need to scale back his agenda despite the appearance that Democrats aren’t getting their priorities through.
“I’m not trying to — I’m not asking for castles in the sky,” Biden replied. “I’m asking for practical things the American people have been asking for for a long time, a long time. And I think we can get it done.”
White House press secretary Jen Psaki, one day earlier, set up a preemptive defense for the president, telling reporters, “You don’t get everything done in the first year.”
“But what we feel good about … is that coming into an incredibly difficult circumstance, fighting a pandemic, an economic a massive economic downturn, as a result, an administration that was prior to us that did not effectively deal with a lot of these crises, that there’s been a lot of progress made,” she added.
“We need to build on that. The work is not done, the job is not done, and we are certainly not conveying it is, so our objective and I think what you’ll hear the president talk about tomorrow is how to build on the foundation we laid in the first year, Psaki said.
White House Communications Director Kate Bedingfield cited the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief law, the American Rescue Plan, and a major, bipartisan infrastructure package as two achievements Biden will highlight in an appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Wednesday. But she also acknowledged the president can do more on other issues.
“He has been laser-focused on taming COVID and growing the economy. He would be the first to say we’re not where we need to be on those,” Bedingfield said.
Wednesday’s session marks just the second time Biden has held a solo formal press conference at the White House. The first such news conference was held March 25, 2021.
Since then, he held five news conferences on foreign trips, and three in partnership with other foreign leaders at the White House, for a total of nine news conferences. While Biden often answers questions shouted by the press at other events, his tally of formal news conferences is the lowest for any president since Ronald Reagan, according to data from University of California Santa Barbara’s American Presidency Project.
(NEW YORK) — As the COVID-19 pandemic has swept the globe, more than 5.5 million people have died from the disease worldwide, including over 853,000 Americans, according to real-time data compiled by Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering.
About 63% of the population in the United States is fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Jan 19, 4:10 pm
Fauci predicts most states will be past omicron peak by mid-February
Dr. Anthony Fauci predicts that most states will be past the omicron peak by mid-February.
“I would imagine as we get into February, into the middle of February, first few weeks of February, it is very likely that most of the states in the country will have turned around with their peak and are starting to come down with regard to cases, and then obviously hospitalizations,” Fauci said at a Blue Star Families event.
“Right now, there’s no doubt that in New York City and other parts of New York state and in New Jersey, it has already peaked and is rather dramatically on its way down,” Fauci said. “We’re seeing that also in bigger cities such as Chicago, where as in cities in the South, it has not yet peaked and likely will have more of a slower incline and a slower decline, such as in places like New Orleans and in other cities in Louisiana.”
Fauci said he expects data on vaccines for kids under 5 will be delivered to the FDA in the next month.
“They’re determining now that for children within that age group, it is likely that it will be a three-dose vaccine. And that being the case, it’s going to take a little longer to get those data to the FDA and approved,” he explained. “My hope is that it’s going to be within the next month or so and not much later than that. But I can’t guarantee that because I can’t out guess the FDA, I’m gonna have to leave that to them.”
-ABC News’ Cheyenne Haslett
Jan 19, 3:33 pm
Pennsylvania nurse opens up about ‘overflowing’ hospital
On average, about 21,000 virus-positive Americans are being admitted to hospitals each day — a figure that has more than doubled over the last month.
WellSpan Chambersburg Hospital in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, has more patients now than any point in the pandemic, according to nurse Erin Hammond.
“Our emergency rooms are full to overflowing. Our critical care unit has now doubled up rooms. We’re taking more patients — sicker patients — than we ever have before,” Hammond told ABC News.
She noted that she’s seen people in their 20s, 30s and 40s “ending up very sick and dying.”
“It’s incredibly difficult seeing patients die day after day after day,” she said. And after a patient dies, the hospital must “refill their beds as quickly as they emptied.”
-ABC News’ Arielle Mitropoulos
Jan 19, 2:50 pm
New Mexico asks state workers, National Guard to be substitute teachers
New Mexico leaders are asking state employees and National Guard members to volunteer as substitute teachers and child care workers due to “extreme staffing shortages” amid the COVID-19 case surge.
“Many schools are being forced to shift to online learning and child care facilities are being forced to temporarily close when staff members test positive,” state officials said in a statement Wednesday.
Since the holidays, about 60 school districts and charter schools switched to remote learning and 75 child care centers partially or completely closed due to staffing shortages, according to the state.
“The additional staffing will allow schools to avoid the disruptive process of switching between remote and in-person learning and prevent child care programs from having to shut down,” state officials said.
The volunteers would have to complete the requirements necessary to be licensed as a substitute, including a background check and an online workshop.
Jan 19, 11:45 am
27 million visits so far to USPS order form from COVIDTests.gov
While it’s not clear how many people have placed an order for free COVID-19 tests since the White House’s site launched Tuesday, the order form on the U.S. Postal Service website — special.usps.com/testkits — has been visited over 27 million times so far.
This initiative from the Biden administration’ allows Americans to order up to four free at-home rapid tests per household.
-ABC News’ Cheyenne Haslett
Jan 19, 10:37 am
US deaths expected to increase after weeks of surging cases
Following weeks of increasing cases, forecast models used by the CDC suggest that U.S. death totals will likely continue to increase over the next four weeks.
The models predict about 32,000 more Americans could die from COVID-19 over just the next two weeks.
By Feb. 12, about 931,000 total lives could be lost in the U.S. to the virus.
The CDC obtains the forecasts from the COVID-19 Forecast Hub at UMass Amherst, where a team monitors and combines forecasting models from the nation’s top researchers. The team then creates an ensemble — displayed like a hurricane forecast spaghetti plot — usually with a wide cone of uncertainty.
-ABC News’ Arielle Mitropoulos
Jan 19, 9:28 am
England to end many COVID-19 restrictions, including mask wearing
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced Wednesday the end of all COVID-19 measures in England that were imposed to combat the highly contagious omicron variant.
Effective immediately, secondary school students will no longer be required to wear face masks in classrooms. Starting next week, masks will not be compulsory anywhere, including on public transport and in shops. However, Johnson said his government will continue to advise people to wear masks in indoor or crowded settings.
The work-from-home guidance will also be lifted next week, along with mandatory COVID-19 passes at large venues, though business are allowed to use them if they wish.
People will still be required to self-isolate after testing positive for COVID-19, but the prime minister said there will “soon be a time” when that won’t be mandated. The measure is due to expire in March, but Johnson said that date could be brought forward.
So-called Plan B restrictions were introduced in England last December amid a surge of COVID-19 cases as omicron quickly spread across the United Kingdom. The country’s daily number of new cases remains high but appears to be dropping over the past week along with hospital admissions, while deaths are increasing.
Jan 19, 2:22 am
Global new cases increased 20% last week, WHO says
Newly reported COVID-19 cases increased 20% last week, the World Health Organization said on Tuesday.
More than 18 million new cases were reported in the week ending Jan. 16, up from about 15 million in the previous week, according to the United Nation’s health agency’s weekly epidemiological update.
Last week’s increase marked a decline from the 55% increase reported the previous week, the agency said.
“Nonetheless, a combination of the increased and rapid spread of the Omicron variant, increased population movements and social mixing during and after the end of year holiday period and challenges with ongoing adherence to public health and social measures (PHSM) are expected to lead to increased number of cases, hospitalizations and deaths in the coming weeks,” Tuesday’s report said.
About 45,000 new deaths were reported worldwide last week, up from about 43,000 the previous week, the agency said.
Jan 18, 7:11 pm
White House to make 400 million N95 masks available for free
The Biden administration will make 400 million non-surgical N95 masks available for free at tens of thousands of pharmacies and community health centers, a White House official said Tuesday.
The administration will start shipping out the masks, which are coming from the Strategic National Stockpile, at the end of this week. Masks will start to be available at pharmacies and community health centers by late next week, with the program “fully up and running” by early February, the official said.
President Joe Biden had announced last week that the administration would be launching a program to provide high-quality masks to Americans for free, but did not provide details.
The announcement comes on the heels of updated guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that stated that loosely woven cloth masks provide the least amount of protection against COVID-19, and that Americans in some cases might want to opt for higher quality masks like KN95 and N95 respirators.
-ABC News’ Molly Nagle
Jan 18, 5:47 pm
75% of Americans have received at least 1 vaccine dose: CDC
Three-quarters of all Americans — nearly 250 million people — have now received at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose, according to updated data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
On average, around 296,000 Americans daily are receiving their first shot, down by about 35% since mid-December, federal data shows.
Some 62.7 million eligible Americans — those ages 5 and up — are unvaccinated.
-ABC News’ Arielle Mitropoulos
Jan 18, 5:35 pm
Nearly 1 million US children tested positive for COVID-19 last week
Around 981,000 children in the United States tested positive for COVID-19 last week, according to a new report from the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Association.
This “dramatic” uptick is a nearly 70% increase over the 580,000 added cases reported the week ending Jan. 6, and a tripling of case counts from the two weeks prior, the organizations said.
With nearly 9.5 million children having tested positive for the virus since the onset of the pandemic, that means 10% of those cases were in the past week alone.
In recent weeks, there has been a significant increase in demand for coronavirus tests as more Americans are exposed to the virus. Many students have also been tested as they return to school, which can lead to an increase in these numbers.
The organizations said there is an “urgent” need to collect more age-specific data to assess the severity of illness related to new variants as well as potential longer-term effects, and noted in their report that a small proportion of cases have resulted in hospitalization and death.
The rising number of pediatric cases has renewed the push for vaccination. Nearly 19% of children ages 5 to 11 and about 55% of those ages 12 to 17 are fully vaccinated, according to federal data.
(WASHINGTON) — On the eve of the one-year anniversary of his inauguration, President Joe Biden is set to hold a formal news conference at the White House Wednesday at 4 p.m. ET, and is bound to face questions on waning public support for his handling of the pandemic, the economy and legislative agenda.
With Biden facing the limits of what he can accomplish with an evenly-divided Senate, unable to get either his signature social spending package or major voting rights reform through Congress in recent weeks, and with the pandemic still raging well into its second, President Biden’s approval rating in polls has hit an all-time low. A Jan. 12 Quinnipiac poll found his approval rating to be 33%, a 3-point drop from November.
Still, Biden is expected at the news conference to tout his successes over the year, including administering more than 200 million COVID-19 vaccine doses, and hitting record-low unemployment rates in many states.
“You don’t get everything done in the first year. But what we feel good about … is that coming in to an incredibly difficult circumstance, fighting a pandemic, an economic a massive economic downturn, as a result, an administration that was prior to us that did not effectively deal with a lot of these crises, that there’s been a lot of progress made,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Tuesday.
“We need to build on that. The work is not done, the job is not done, and we are certainly not conveying it is, so our objective and I think what you’ll hear the president talk about tomorrow is how to build on the foundation we laid in the first year,” she added.
White House Communications Director Kate Bedingfield cited the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief law, the American Rescue Plan, and a major, bipartisan infrastructure package as two achievements Biden will highlight in an appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Wednesday. But she also acknowledged the president can do more on other issues.
“He has been laser-focused on taming COVID and growing the economy. He would be the first to say we’re not where we need to be on those,” Bedingfield said.
Wednesday’s session marks just the second time Biden has held a solo formal press conference at the White House. The first such news conference was held March 25, 2021.
Since then, he held five news conferences on foreign trips, and three in partnership with other foreign leaders at the White House, for a total of nine news conferences. While Biden often answers questions shouted by the press at other events, his tally of formal news conferences is the lowest for any president since Ronald Reagan, according to data from University of California Santa Barbara’s American Presidency Project.
(WASHINGTON) — In a rare event, the Senate will convene on Wednesday morning with all Democrats instructed to be in their seats inside the chamber when the business begins as they try to move forward on voting rights legislation and a challenge a long-standing Senate rule, efforts poised to fail without the support of a single Republican and likely even some Democrats.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Tuesday that Democrats will seek a carveout to the filibuster rule to pass voting rights legislation by replacing the current 60-vote threshold needed to break a filibuster with an old-fashioned “talking filibuster.”
“We feel very simply: on something as important as voting rights, if Senate Republicans are going to oppose it, they should not be allowed to sit in their office,” Schumer said Tuesday following an evening caucus meeting. “They’ve got to come down on the floor and defend their opposition to voting rights, the wellspring of our democracy. There’s broad, strong feeling in our caucus about that.”
“To anyone who says, ‘Oh, well you may not win.’ Don’t do it. Look at history,” Schumer added, preemptively defending the effort as a moral win, if not a legislative one.
Under a talking filibuster, senators are required to “hold the floor” during debate, testing their stamina as they must stand and speak to block bills. Once a party runs out of steam and gives in, the chamber would then pass the bill that was filibustered by a simple majority. So, in theory, Vice President Kamala Harris, as president of the Senate, would serve as a tie-breaking vote for Democrats to pass the once-filibustered bill.
But both Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema have repeatedly made clear their opposition to changing the filibuster rule to pass voting rights, although they say they support the underlying legislation.
“I don’t know how you break a rule to make a rule,” Manchin told reporters Tuesday, shooting down the proposed talking filibuster.
And without the support of every single Democrat, it’ll be a non-starter in the chamber.
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell gave a highly critical speech on the floor Tuesday of the effort after weeks of warning of “scorched earth” if Democrats made a filibuster carveout.
“Does the Senate exist to help narrow majorities double down on divisions or to force broad coalitions to build bridges?” McConnell said. “This fake hysteria does not prove the senate is obsolete it proves the Senate is as necessary as ever.”
Both parties have supported filibuster carveouts in the past decade for judicial nominees – first under then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who lowered the threshold for judicial nominees to 51 votes to make way for then-President Barack Obama’s nominees in 2013. McConnell, as Senate majority leader in 2017, also used the so-called “nuclear option” to confirm then-President Donald Trump’s first Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch.
The Senate rules change vote is expected in the early evening.
Across Pennsylvania Avenue, President Joe Biden – one day shy of one year in office – will hold a press conference from the White House around the same time, where he’ll likely take questions on his stalled legislative agenda.
The election reform bill at hand in the Senate would make Election Day a federal holiday, expand early voting and mail-in-voting, and give the federal government greater oversight over state elections. And would come at a time when nearly 20 states have restricted access to voting fueled by false claims in the wake of the 2020 election, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.
