Google has released its annual list of the top-trending searches of the year, and a whole lot of people were interested in songs by Olivia Rodrigo and Taylor Swift.
Olivia’s number-one hit, “drivers license,” topped the Songs category of Google’s Top Trending Searches, which measures searches that spiked for an extended period in 2021, as compared to 2020. Number two on that list is another song that people wanted to listen to closely, searching for clues about the love life of its creator: Taylor’s “All Too Well.”
The “All Too Well” ranking also explains why, in the category of “Celebrities Searched Together,” number five was “Taylor Swift and Jake Gyllenhaal” — because “All Too Well” reportedly documents their brief romance 10 years ago.
Two other songs by Olivia also made the top 10 of Top Trending Song Searches: “good 4 u” is number three, and “deja vu” is number 10. In between are hits such as Adele‘s “Easy on Me,” Walker Hayes‘ viral hit “Fancy Like,” Lil Nas X‘s chart-topping “Montero (Call Me By Your Name),” “WAP” by Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion, and “Wants and Needs,” by Drake.
As for Top Trending Artist Searches, Adele was number three, The Weeknd was number four, Olivia was number six and Lil Nas X was ten. But the top two were both artists who were embroiled in controversy in 2021: rapper Travis Scott and country star Morgan Wallen.
After 10 people died at Scott’s Astroworld festival, more than 200 lawsuits were filed against him. As for Wallen, he was caught on video earlier this year using the N-word, leading to his temporary cancellation: His songs were dropped from radio and streaming services, his record label suspended his contract, and he was banned from numerous award shows.
(WASHINGTON) — Republican-led efforts to repeal President Joe Biden’s vaccine mandate on private businesses will once again get a vote in the Senate Wednesday, and this time a repeal is expected to pass.
The Senate will likely vote Wednesday on Republican Sen. Mike Braun’s effort to repeal the mandate on private sector businesses with more than 100 employees. Every Republican signed onto the proposal.
Republicans are bringing up the repeal for a vote using a procedural tool called the Congressional Review Act, which allows Congress to overturn rules created by federal agencies and only requires 51 votes to pass the Senate.
The bill would still need to go over to the House, where it is unlikely to be brought up by Democratic leadership. Republicans could use a procedural tool to push a vote on the measure early next year, but it’s unclear if they’d have the votes to do it.
But during a press conference on Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said that if Congress were to send the repeal to Biden’s desk, he’d strike it down.
“We certainly hope the Senate, Congress will stand up to the anti-vaccine and testing crowd. We’re going to continue to work to implement these,” Psaki said. “If it comes to the president’s desk, he will veto it.”
Still, this won’t be a party-line vote in the Senate. As vaccine mandates lag in popularity nationwide, some moderate Democrats are expected to back the repeal effort during Wednesday’s vote, giving it the necessary votes to clear the Senate.
At least two Democrats are also expected to vote to end the mandate: Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va. and Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont.
“I will strongly support a bill to overturn the federal government vaccine mandate for private businesses. I have long said we should incentivize, not penalize, private employers whose responsibility it is to protect their employees from COVID-19,” Manchin said in a statement last week.
He’s been on the record repeatedly about his opposition to mandates on private businesses, though he supports the mandate for federal employees.
Braun, in an MSNBC interview, said he’s spoken to three or four other swing state Democrats who may also vote with Republicans.
“Anybody that is listening to their people back home, this doesn’t poll when it’s vaccine or job,” Braun said. “Even when you say vaccine or get tested or job, most of the people that are digging in regardless of their reasons aren’t viewing it as an option.”
Every Republican is expected to support the repeal, following last week’s party-line vote to zero out funds for the mandate during government funding negotiations last week.
Most Democrats will vote to keep the mandate in place. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, in a press conference Tuesday, said the vote is “anti science” and “anti common sense”
“It’s ridiculous, it makes no sense, and Democrats think it is the wrong way to go,” Schumer said.
(HARTFORD, Conn.) — Connecticut has seen an “extremely concerning” rise in COVID-19 hospitalizations in recent weeks, health officials said, as the number of cases also continues to trend up.
The state health department reported at least 500 hospitalizations on both Monday and Tuesday, marking a roughly 80% increase in the past two weeks — and the highest numbers since April.
“To go from 300 hospitalizations to 500 hospitalizations in such a short period of time is extremely concerning,” Dr. Manisha Juthani, commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Public Health, told ABC New Haven affiliate WTNH Tuesday.
Today’s COVID-19 update in Connecticut:
➡️23,047 tests were administered and 1,919 came back positive (8.33% rate)
➡️525 patients are currently hospitalized (increase of 25)
The state also reported an 8.3% COVID-19 test positivity rate Tuesday, up from 5.8% the day before, an increase that Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont called “distressing.” Though the governor said he is not so much concerned with the infection rate as he is hospitalizations.
“We have over 500 folks in the hospitals now, so that’s triple where we were a few weeks ago,” Lamont said on the Connecticut Public Radio show “Where We Live” Tuesday morning. “[It’s] one-quarter of where we were a year-and-a-half ago, but it still is reason to be cautious.”
The state’s COVID-19 test positivity rate, which is the highest it’s been in nearly a year, may be elevated due to the use of at-home tests, Juthani said. Negative tests may go unreported, leading to fewer tests overall being factored into the positivity rate. But there is still cause for concern, she said.
“What we can be explicitly clear about is that this is a concerning trajectory that we are headed on in terms of the number of cases we have in our state,” Juthani told WTNH.
The health commissioner attributed several reasons to the recent increase in transmission in Connecticut — and the region in general — including colder weather, waning immunity among vaccinated residents and indoor gatherings, including holiday celebrations.
“You put all of these factors together, and it is not surprising that we see a rise in cases,” she told WTNH. “This virus is equal opportunity, and this virus finds the unvaccinated, primarily, but we do know that breakthrough cases can happen also.”
Over 85% of the state’s population has gotten at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, according to federal data. The “overwhelming majority” of those who are getting infected are unvaccinated, Lamont said. More severe cases are also largely in those who are unvaccinated; of those currently hospitalized, over 76% are not fully vaccinated, according to state data.
“We need to focus on those that are not vaccinated,” Patrick Charmel, president and CEO of Griffin Hospital in New Haven County, told reporters Monday during a press event encouraging vaccination and boosters. “We need folks to go out and protect themselves, because they are protecting the community, but they’re also preserving our capacity to take care of sick people.”
Amid concerns about the new omicron variant, which has been detected in at least two Connecticut residents, Charmel said the predominant delta variant has been contributing to the current surge in hospitalizations in the state.
“What we are seeing right in, in the increase in hospitalizations over the last two weeks … that’s not because of omicron. That’s because of the delta variant that’s still with us,” he said.
Charmel said Monday that 91% of hospital beds in New Haven County were full, leaving 200 available. Influenza cases are also starting to add another “layer” of strain on hospitalizations in the region, and he urged people to get the flu vaccine as well.
“There isn’t the capacity to handle what could come if we don’t do the responsible thing,” Charmel said.
As cases have gone up in recent weeks, Lamont said he isn’t considering implementing any new COVID-19 health orders, such as a universal indoor mask mandate. Currently, only unvaccinated people in the state are required to wear masks while indoors in public spaces. The governor has urged people to avoid large crowds, be cautious and get vaccinated or boosted. He told reporters Tuesday that he is “hopeful” that residents will “continue to do the right thing.”
Juthani has also encouraged people to get their boosters to help reduce transmission. About a quarter of eligible residents have gotten their boosters so far, federal data shows.
“Do not let your guard down,” she said. “This virus is not done with us, even if we’re done with it.”
As the COVID-19 pandemic has swept the globe, more than 5.2 million people have died from the disease worldwide, including over 791,000 Americans, according to real-time data compiled by Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering.
Just 60.1% 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:
Dec 08, 8:50 am
New study suggests Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine may only partially protect against omicron variant
Results from an initial laboratory study show that the omicron variant can partially dodge protection from two doses of the COVID-19 vaccine developed by American pharmaceutical company Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech.
The companies announced the findings in a joint press release Wednesday. The study, which was not peer-reviewed, found that omicron likely reduces efficacy of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine but does not render it ineffective and that a third dose offers even greater protection against the new variant.
“Although two doses of the vaccine may still offer protection against severe disease caused by the omicron strain, it’s clear from these preliminary data that protection is improved with a third dose of our vaccine,” Pfizer chairman and CEO Albert Bourla said in a statement Wednesday. “Ensuring as many people as possible are fully vaccinated with the first two dose series and a booster remains the best course of action to prevent the spread of COVID-19.”
The study was conducted in a laboratory by exposing a vaccinated individual’s blood to omicron to see whether the vaccine would neutralise the variant. Some of the participants included in the study had received two doses of the vaccine, while others had gotten a third booster dose.
For those with two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, researchers found there was a 25-fold less antibody neutralization ability of omicron compared to the original virus variant. But within a month after getting a booster shot, researchers found that antibodies were restored to a high level, even against omicron. Giving a third dose of the vaccine appeared to boost antibody levels 25-fold — roughly equivalent to a level seen after two doses against the original virus variant.
“Our preliminary, first dataset indicate that a third dose could still offer a sufficient level of protection from disease of any severity caused by the Omicron variant,” BioNTech co-founder and CEO Ugur Sahin said in a statement Wednesday. “Broad vaccination and booster campaigns around the world could help us to better protect people everywhere and to get through the winter season. We continue to work on an adapted vaccine which, we believe, will help to induce a high level of protection against Omicron-induced COVID-19 disease as well as a prolonged protection compared to the current vaccine.”
The study measured antibody levels, which are only one part of a person’s overall protection. The exact percentage of vaccine efficacy against the omicron variant remains unclear.
-Sony Salzman
Dec 07, 1:50 pm
Fauci: Omicron ‘almost certainly’ not more severe than delta
Dr. Anthony Fauci on Tuesday told news agency Agence France-Presse that the omicron variant is “almost certainly” not more severe than delta.
He stressed, however, that it is important to not overinterpret early data, as the patients being followed skew younger and are less likely to become hospitalized. Severe illness can take weeks to develop.
“There is some suggestion that it might even be less severe, because when you look at some of the cohorts that are being followed in South Africa, the ratio between the number of infections and the number of hospitalizations seems to be less than with delta,” Fauci said.
He also reiterated that it would take at least several more weeks to understand key questions surrounding omicron’s severity.
Results from labs testing current vaccines against omicron should come in the “next few days to a week,” Fauci said.
-ABC News’ Arielle Mitropoulos
Dec 07, 11:05 pm
US daily death average surges
The daily death average in the U.S. has increased to more than 1,150 — up by 57% in the last week, according to federal data.
The U.S. is about 10,000 deaths away from reaching yet another grim milestone of 800,000 Americans lost to COVID-19.
The U.S. is now averaging approximately 103,000 new cases per day, which is a 19% increase in the last week and a 62% jump since late-October, according to federal data.
Minnesota currently holds the country’s highest case rate followed by Vermont and Wisconsin. Puerto Rico, Hawaii and Louisiana have the nation’s lowest infection rate.
-ABC News’ Arielle Mitropoulos
Dec 07, 10:27 am
Near pre-pandemic travel volumes expected to continue through December holidays
The TSA screened nearly 21 million travelers during the 10-day Thanksgiving holiday period. Despite new concerns over omicron, the agency expects to see the near pre-pandemic travel volumes continue through the December holidays.
Peacock has dropped a trailer to its upcoming small-screen version of Will Forte‘s popular SNL sketch, MacGruber.
Forte’s MacGyver-spoofing character is seen getting released “after rotting for a decade in prison,” according to the streaming service, tapped by a high-ranking military official, played by Laurence Fishburne, as the country’s only hope against your standard world-threatening madman.
Billy Zane plays the scenery-chewing baddie, who apparently murdered MacGruber’s mom at a childhood birthday party.
“This one is personal,” MacGruber hisses.
So tasked, MacGruber takes his Mazda Miata out of mothballs and gets to work. “My country has invited me to die for it, and I RSVP’d ‘Yass Kween,'” Forte tells his girlfriend, Vic, played by his former SNL co-star Kristen Wiig.
Ryan Philippe also stars, as a buff hero who on the surface would be the actual person you’d want to try to save the world, rather than Forte’s feather-haired vest-wearing alternative.
Along with some unprintable, potty-mouthed dialog, the trailer teases some ridiculously over-the-top action, like MacGruber’s leaping through the air, guns blazing, deliberately targeting a bunch of bad guys’ nether regions.
MacGruber was also made into a film in 2010, also starring Forte and Wiig, but it was a flop, earning just $9.3 million worldwide — not even enough to cover what it cost to make and market it.
The MacGruber series hits the streaming service December 16.
(NEW YORK) — At least 12 major U.S. cities have broken annual homicide records in 2021 — and there’s still three weeks to go in the year.
Of the dozen cities that have already surpassed the grim milestones for killings, five topped records that were set or tied just last year.
“It’s terrible to every morning get up and have to go look at the numbers and then look at the news and see the stories. It’s just crazy. It’s just crazy and this needs to stop,” Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney said after his city surpassed its annual homicide record of 500, which stood since 1990.
Philadelphia, a city of roughly 1.5 million people, has had more homicides this year (521 as of Dec. 6) than the nation’s two largest cities, New York (443 as of Dec. 5) and Los Angeles (352 as of Nov. 27). That’s an increase of 13% from 2020, a year that nearly broke the 1990 record.
Chicago, the nation’s third-largest city, leads the nation with 739 homicides as of the end of November, up 3% from 2020, according to Chicago Police Department crime data. Chicago’s deadliest year remains 1970 when there were 974 homicides.
Philadelphia’s homicide record was broken in the same week that Columbus, Indianapolis and Louisville eclipsed records for slayings.
Experts say there are a number of reasons possibly connected to the jump in homicides, including strained law enforcement staffing, a pronounced decline in arrests and continuing hardships from the pandemic, but that there is no clear answer across the board.
Five cities surpass records set in 2020
Other major cities that have surpassed yearly homicide records are St. Paul, Minnesota; Portland, Oregon; Tucson, Arizona; Toledo, Ohio; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Austin, Texas; Rochester, New York; and Albuquerque, New Mexico, which broke its record back in August.
“The community has to get fed up,” Capt. Frank Umbrino, of the Rochester Police Department, said at a news conference after the city of just over 200,000 people broke its 30-year-old record on Nov. 11. “We’re extremely frustrated. It has to stop. I mean, it’s worse than a war zone around here lately.”
Indianapolis, Columbus, Louisville, Toledo and Baton Rouge broke records set in 2020, while St. Paul surpassed a record set in 1992.
Among the major cities on the brink of setting new homicide records are Milwaukee, which has 178 homicides, 12 short of a record set in 2020; and Minneapolis, which has 91 homicides, six shy of a record set in 1995.
According to the FBI’s annual Uniform Crime Report released in September, the nation saw a 30% increase in murder in 2020, the largest single-year jump since the bureau began recording crime statistics 60 years ago.
‘Nobody’s getting arrested’
Robert Boyce, retired chief of detectives for the New York Police Department and an ABC News contributor, said that while there is no single reason for the jump in slayings, one national crime statistic stands out to him.
“Nobody’s getting arrested anymore,” Boyce said. “People are getting picked up for gun possession and they’re just let out over and over again.”
The FBI crime data shows that the number of arrests nationwide plummeted 24% in 2020, from the more than 10 million arrests made in 2019. The number of 2020 arrests — 7.63 million — is the lowest 25 years, according to the data. FBI crime data is not yet available for 2021.
Christopher Herrmann, an assistant professor in the Department of Law & Police Science at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City, said the decrease in arrests could be attributed to the large number of police officers who retired or resigned in 2020 and 2021.
A workforce survey released in June by the Police Executive Research Forum found the retirement rate in police departments nationwide jumped 45% over 2020 and 2021. And another 18% of officers resigned, the survey found, a development with nationwide social justice protests and calls to defund law enforcement agencies following the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers.
On average, the survey found that law enforcement agencies are currently filling only 93% of the authorized number of positions available and Herrmann said many departments have been hampered in hiring because of an inability to get large classes into police academies due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I think, unfortunately, police departments are just losing a lot of their best and experienced officers and then because of the economic crisis, because of COVID, are having difficulties in hiring or just delays in hirings,” Herrmann said.
Herrmann said he suspects that a confluence of other factors has also contributed to the spike in lethal violence over the last two years. He said the COVID-19 pandemic not only prompted a shutdown of courts and reduction in jail population to slow the spread of the virus but also derailed after-school programs and violence disruption programs.
Confluence of factors
“I wish there was one good solid reason that I could give you for the increases, but the reality is there is none,” Herrmann, a former crime analyst supervisor for the New York City Police Department, told ABC News.
Herrmann said he was surprised to see the number of homicides going up in major cities across the United States after an overall 30% jump last year. He said the COVID-19 pandemic not only prompted a shutdown of courts and reduction in jail population to slow the spread of the virus, but it also derailed after-school programs and violence disruption indirectly led to the homicide spike in 2020.
“I knew 2020 was going to be a bad year because of the (COVID-19) pandemic but I really thought that a lot of these numbers would come down in 2021 just because a lot of society reopened and reopened pretty quickly,” Herrmann said. “We don’t have the unemployment problem, we don’t have a lot of the economic stresses, housing and food insecurities aren’t as much of an issue. A lot of those things were leading to the mental health stressors that were plaguing the country.”
As part of a recent ABC News series “Rethinking Gun Violence,” Dr. Daniel Webster, the director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research, said 2020 was the “perfect storm” of conditions where “everything bad happened at the same time — you had the COVID outbreak, huge economic disruption, people were scared.”
Webster added, “It’s particularly challenging to know with certainty which of these things independently is associated with the increased violence. Rather it was the ‘cascade’ of events all unfolding in a similar time frame.”
Chief LeRonne Armstrong of the Oakland, California, Police Department told ABC News recently that the lack of resources to fight crime is one of the reasons he suspects is why his city is seeing the highest number of homicides in decades. Oakland police have investigated at least 127 homicides in 2021, up from 102 in all of 2020. The Bay Area city’s all-time high for homicides is 175 set in 1992.
Armstrong said his department’s 676 officers is the smallest staff his agency has had in years, nearly 70 fewer officers than in 2020.
“To have 70, nearly 70 less officers a year later,” Armstrong said, “is definitely going to have an impact on our ability to address public safety.”
The new Disney+ series Welcome to Earth, out Wednesday, follows actor Will Smith on a once-in-a-lifetime adventure around the globe. Dwayne Fields, a polar explorer, is one of the experts who joins the actor, and he’s sharing all the details about their journey — like where they went, for starters.
“So I got to take Will to Iceland, which is one of the most stunning places you can imagine,” Fields tells ABC Audio. “It’s this dynamic environment that’s constantly changing, so much so that one of the places that we went to nobody knew existed 10 years ago. That’s how much this place is changing.”
Although stunning, exploring some of the world’s greatest wonders can be pretty dangerous at times. So was Fields ever worried about killing the Oscar-nominated actor? He says he knew they’d be just fine, thanks to having “the best safety teams in the world around us.”
The explorer adds, “Equally, we were two capable adults who wanted to experience our own anxieties, especially Will, he wanted to push himself. And I think that’s what this series was very much about.”
Likewise, Erik Weihenmayer, a mountaineer who is blind and accompanied Smith inside of an erupting volcano, echoed that having “a very strong team around you, it’s one of the greatest ways of minimizing risk.”
Being safe didn’t stop the fun though. Weihenmayer says it was “really cool” watching Smith have this experience for the first time.
“He was like a kid, you know, he was he was smiling and elated and terrified,” Weihenmayer shares. “And you know, and just like experiencing like this stuff like a child for the first time and it was really cool, you know, to be a part of that kind of enthusiasm.”
(LOS ANGELES) — A shooting outside a Los Angeles elementary school left a 13-year-old boy dead and two people critically wounded, including a 9-year-old girl who was hit by a stray bullet while on a playground, authorities said.
The violent episode marked the latest in an escalating number of shootings in Los Angeles, which has seen a 12% increase in homicides and a nearly 14% jump in shooting incidents this year as compared to 2020, according to Los Angeles Police Department crime statistics.
Gunfire erupted shortly before 5 p.m. on Monday outside the Wilmington Park Elementary School when at least two gunmen walked up to an occupied vehicle stopped near the school and opened fire, according to police.
The boy who was killed and a 20-year-old woman were inside the apparently targeted Dodge Durango, police said. The wounded woman drove several blocks from the shooting scene and called 911, police said.
The gravely wounded child was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead, Los Angeles Fire Department officials told ABC station KABC in Los Angeles. The female driver was in critical condition at a hospital Monday night, officials said.
The 9-year-old girl, a fourth grader, was on the playground at Wilmington Park Elementary School as part of an after-school program when she was struck by a stray bullet and critically injured, school officials said.
“She was in the schoolyard just playing, just doing what a 9-year-old is supposed to do,” LAPD Capt. Adrian Gonzalez told reporters at the scene.
Police officials said officers initially suspected two separate shootings occurred but after speaking to witnesses determined the shootings were connected.
No arrests have been made and a motive was under investigation, police said.
The shooting left parents of students at the school shocked and frightened for their own children.
“It’s sad and scary,” Maria Garcia, whose daughter attends the school, told KABC. “I’m always paranoid. I’m always scared. I’m always checking on her, always calling her, always making sure she’s OK and safe.”
Los Angeles has had at least 352 homicides through the end of November, up from 314 at this time last year, according to police department crime statistics. The city has also recorded 1,328 shooting victims, up from 1,168 at this time last year, the statistics show.
“This is such a tragedy. Gun violence has destroyed too many lives in this country and tonight it has terrorized another community,” Los Angeles County Supervisor Janice Hahn, who represents the Wilmington area, wrote on Twitter Monday night. “I am praying for the family of this little boy and for the recovery of the little girl and young woman.”
Adele‘s 30 is doing big numbers! Her latest effort is the first album released in over a year to sell one million copies in the U.S.
Adele’s fourth studio album, which was released on November 19, has actually surpassed the one million mark in sales across all formats, including CD’s, vinyl LP, cassette and digital downloads, according to MRC Data, Billboard reports.
Prior to 30, Taylor Swift‘s Folklore was the last album to exceed that threshold when it dropped July, 24, 2020. In 2019, Billie Eilish’s When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?, Swift’s Lover, and Harry Styles’ Fine Line achieved the feat as well.
(WASHINGTON) — Congressional leaders on Tuesday announced a deal that would avert a default of the nation’s credit by allowing Democrats to raise the debt ceiling in the Senate without any Republican support.
The U.S. is just days away from economic disaster, with the Treasury estimating the government will run out of money on Dec. 15, leaving the country unable to pay its bills.
Real-world consequences of the U.S. defaulting could include delays to Social Security payments and checks to service members, a suspension of veterans’ benefits and rising interest rates on credit cards, car loans and mortgages.
The House approved the measure along party lines in a late-night 222-212 vote on Tuesday.
The legislation sets up a procedure that would allow the Senate to pass the final bill to raise the debt limit with a simple majority by suspending filibuster rules for a debt ceiling increase by a month.
Under this process, 10 Republican senators will still need to support the legislation setting up the agreement.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell seemed confident Tuesday that he had the votes locked in.
“I think this is in the best interest of the country to avoid default,” McConnell told reporters Tuesday during a news conference.
“The red line is intact. The red line is that you have simple majority party line vote on the debt ceiling. That’s exactly where we’ll end up,” he said.
McConnell and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer spent weeks huddling behind closed doors to strike an agreement. The deal comes months after bitter partisan bickering over the matter, after Republicans insisted on Democrats raising the debt limit without any GOP support.
“We Democrats were always willing to carry the burden. That’s what’s going to happen,” Schumer said Tuesday.
“Our number one goal to get this done — get it done with just Democratic votes, without a convoluted, risky process — is what we’re on the verge of achieving,” Schumer said.
The language regarding the debt ceiling process is attached to a separate provision that will avert impending Medicare cuts, which are set to take effect early next year.
“Once the Senate has passed the legislation lifting the debt limit, the House will take up that bill and send it to the President,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced in a letter addressed to colleagues Tuesday.
“Let us remember that addressing the debt limit is not about future spending. This is about meeting obligations that the government has already incurred, largely during the Trump Administration. Only three percent of the current debt has been accrued under President Biden,” she said in the letter.
