Top Democrats are preparing to make the case to impose new limits on the filibuster, in a move that could bring to a head six months of smoldering tensions over an expected Republican blockade of President Joe Biden’s legislative agenda. The Senate had its first filibuster of this Congress last week, when Republicans used the tactical rule to block a bipartisan House-passed measure to create a 9/11-style commission to investigate the Capitol attack perpetrated a pro-Trump mob.
Details claiming to reveal how little income tax US billionaires pay have been leaked to an news website. ProPublica says it has seen the tax returns of some of the world's richest people, including Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Warren Buffett. The website alleges Amazon's Mr Bezos paid no tax in 2007 and 2011, while Tesla's Mr Musk paid nothing in 2018. A White House spokeswoman called the leak "illegal", and the FBI and tax authorities are investigating. ProPublica said it was analysing what it called a "vast trove of Internal Revenue Service data" on the taxes of the billionaires, and would release further details over coming weeks.
Joe Biden’s plans to overhaul the international tax system face mounting opposition from his Republican opposition who have called the proposals “crazy” and are threatening to block the historic deal’s passage in the US. Treasury secretary Janet Yellen has led the Biden administration’s attempts to broker a global agreement on how companies are taxed, which comes amid a wider push to reshape corporate taxation in the US. Those efforts were rewarded over the weekend when the G7 group of wealthy nations backed a global minimum rate of at least 15% and agreed that countries should be able to tax some of the profits made by big companies based on the revenue they generate in that country, rather than where they are based for tax purposes.
Police in Hong Kong have arrested a 65-year-old democracy activist as she staged a lone demonstration over China’s deadly Tiananmen crackdown, in a vivid illustration of the zero tolerance wielded by authorities towards protest in the financial hub. Alexandra Wong was detained on Sunday on suspicion of taking part in an unlawful assembly as she walked towards Beijing’s liaison office in Hong Kong. Wong – known locally as “Grandma Wong” – was a regular fixture of the huge democracy protests that swept Hong Kong in 2019.
The 10 Republican House representatives who voted to impeach Donald Trump are all being targeted by a well-funded new political group largely funded by supporters of the former president. America Strong Pac has launched a website which features all 10 of the Republican rebels, whose vote angered Trump and his legion of loyal followers who still hold immense power in the party despite his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden.
Four additional members of the Oath Keepers, a far-right militia group that took part in the storming of the US Capitol on 6 January, have been indicted for participating in the event. The four new defendants are charged with conspiring to obstruct Congress’s confirmation of the 2020 presidential election results in a joint session of Congress that was interrupted by the attack on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob. Five deaths were ultimately linked to the attack. The four Oath Keepers are each accused of forcing entry through the Capitol’s East Rotunda doors after marching up the steps wearing combat uniforms, tactical vests, helmets and Oath Keepers insignia.
The US has a vast system of detention sites scattered across the country, holding more than 20,000 migrant children. In a special investigation, the BBC has uncovered allegations of cold temperatures, sickness, neglect, lice and filth, through a series of interviews with children and staff.
EU leaders triggered new economic sanctions against Belarus and punitive measures against its national airline as a dissident taken from a “hijacked” Ryanair flight was paraded on the country’s television news apparently confessing to crimes against the state. In a summit communique swiftly agreed in Brussels on Monday night, the EU’s 27 heads of state and government condemned the forced landing of flight FR4978 in Minsk and called for the immediate release of opposition blogger Roman Protasevich and his Russian girlfriend, Sofia Sapega.
The UK’s half-century legacy as a leading offshore oil and gas hub will be eclipsed by the North Sea’s fast-growing green energy industry within the next decade, according to new research. An academic study by the Robert Gordon University, based in the oil industry capital of Aberdeen in Scotland, has found that by 2030 most of the UK’s offshore energy jobs will be in the low carbon energy industry. The research found that the number of green jobs off the UK’s coastlines is likely to climb from 20% of the country’s offshore energy sector to 65% by the end of the decade in a “significant change for the offshore energy industry”.
The Supreme Court’s Monday decision to reconsider the right to an abortion drags President Joe Biden into an incendiary political fight that will loom large heading into the mid-term election. As a presidential candidate, Biden largely stayed quiet on the issue while Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris and other Democratic contenders took the lead in putting forward sweeping abortion rights policy platforms. He conceded when pressed, however, that the landmark Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide should be written into federal law and the longtime ban on federal funding for abortion should be abolished.