The White House estimates the country will see 100 million COVID-19 infections by fall and winter.

The estimate is based on several models, a Biden administration official told CNN.

The estimate was first reported by the Washington Post.

Officials say the 100 million case estimate could be avoided if precautions are taken and if the government receives more funding for resources, including updated vaccines and more testing.

Pfizer and Moderna are working to update their vaccines by the fall. But the country may not have enough money to buy enough vaccines for everyone.

That’s why the administration is asking Congress for more than $22 billion in aid.

Officials warn that if they don’t receive enough emergency aid funding, certain supplies, including antiviral drug Paxlovid, could run out as early as October.

As of Monday, Johns Hopkins University data shows that more than 997,570 people have died from COVID-19 in the U.S.

Officials told CNN the White House will commemorate the moment the country reaches the grim milestone.

For a couple of years now, the Pentagon has raised a growing concern for the U.S. military: Recruitment levels are dropping pretty fast.

The Pentagon is particularly focused on recruitment levels for younger millennials and Gen Z.

A Department of Defense survey found that when young people were asked, "How likely is it that you will serve in the military?" only 11% responded "definitely" or "probably."

So, the military has been investing in some unexpected strategies, and a big one is video games. The Pentagon is hoping the world of esports, streaming, and gaming will turn things around for their generational recruitment crisis.

Technically, video games aren't totally new territory for U.S. military recruitment. In the early 2000s, the Pentagon released its own game called America’s Army, a multiplayer shooting game in the vein of Call of Duty or Counterstrike. After decades of pretty reasonable success, it eventually discontinued in early 2022.

The U.S. military has also collaborated with game makers behind franchises like Call of Duty or Doom, sometimes using modified versions of games to teach recruits, at other times consulting with game designers to plan "realistic" war scenarios or even recruiting game designers for Washington think tanks focused on military strategy.

So, this relationship is decades old. But, the dropping numbers of military applicants in recent years has ushered in a new era in the gaming-military complex, and this is where esports and streaming have really dominated.

There is now a pro-esports team for every branch of the military – even the space force. They compete with other pro teams, other military branches, and even other allied countries' military teams. The military also sponsors many esports tournaments, which helps enlarge their presence even more.

They've also steadily been streaming on the massively popular platform Twitch, the top gaming streaming site in the world, but this is where recruiters have most recently run into trouble.

Twitch's age limit is only 13 years old, and critics have objected to using such recruitment tactics on children. In some cases, the military allegedly had links with vague messages like "Sign up to win!" which, when clicked through, only led to recruitment forms.

In 2020, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez even proposed an amendment to a fiscal bill to stop the military from using video games for recruitment. Lawmakers voted against it, 292 votes to 126. Though it didn't pass, it renewed attention on the controversial practice and put a strain on the military's video game push.

Around the same time as the House vote, the Army found itself in hot water after banning viewers on Twitch who trolled and criticized the military, including writer and activist Jordan Uhl.

After being sued for violating free speech, the military temporarily left Twitch altogether.

Some critics have also pointed out the dangers of trivializing war and militarized violence for children, by equating it with a video game. Even today, the Air Force has a game directly on its website called Airman Challenge that lets you learn about drones and operate one to bomb "insurgents" in Middle Eastern countries like Afghanistan and Iraq.

It's unclear what exactly is next for the military's big recruitment push in video games. Although the recruitment practice has repeatedly found itself in controversy, it seems to be far from slowing down. Esports tournaments and sponsorships are only continuing, and the military has cautiously waded back into the world of streaming.

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WASHINGTON — Do you or a loved one get your health insurance through the Affordable Care Act?

The latest numbers show 31 million people are currently enrolled in either marketplace plans or through Medicaid expansion nationwide - that's a record.

However, there are looming questions about whether a major rate hike is on the horizon for many of those health insurance plans.

THE ISSUE

There is inflation and there is Ukraine. There is an ongoing abortion debate.

Let's face it — the country is facing a lot.

Well, you can add health insurance premium hikes to the ongoing list of issues facing the United States.

Remember the Affordable Care Act and how it created new health insurance options for those who don't have insurance?

When President Joe Biden signed the American Rescue Plan into law during the height of the pandemic, it created what's known as "advanced premium tax credits" that made health insurance plans obtained through the government marketplace cheaper.

The average family saved $200 in premiums, according to the latest data.

4 out of 5 consumers were eligible for plans that cost $10/month.

Enrollment has been up 21% this year — with lower prices playing a big role.

However, the funding that made plans so cheap will expire at the end of this year with families set to receive notice just a few weeks before Election Day.

Some plans may go up by hundreds of dollars each month.

More than a dozen Democratic governors wrote to Members of Congress last week asking them to take action to prevent what they call "dramatic premium increases" soon.

There are concerns in states like California, Colorado, Michigan and Nevada that this could lead to Americans declining health insurance.

So far, though, it's unclear whether Congress will address this.

Republicans have been reluctant to extend any type of pandemic assistance over concerns it will fuel inflation.

Democrats, meanwhile, are hopeful a solution could be included in a reconciliation package this summer.

That hypothetical legislation would pass with only Democratic votes in the Senate and likely address prescription drug reform and climate change as well.

However, that legislation hasn't been made public yet and would need the support of every Democrat in the Senate.

Recent history has shown us that it is a difficult task.

After all, Biden's signature "Build Back Better" legislation stalled over objections by Democrats — like Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia.

WASHINGTON —

Democrats pushed their election-year economic package to Senate passage Sunday, a hard-fought compromise less ambitious than President Joe Biden’s original domestic vision but one that still meets deep-rooted party goals of slowing global warming, moderating pharmaceutical costs and taxing immense corporations.

The estimated $740 billion package heads next to the House, where lawmakers are poised to deliver on Biden's priorities, a stunning turnaround of what had seemed a lost and doomed effort that suddenly roared back to political life. Democrats held united, 51-50, with Vice President Kamala Harris casting the tie-breaking vote.

“It's been a long, tough and winding road, but at last, at last we have arrived,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., ahead of final votes.

“The Senate is making history. I am confident the Inflation Reduction Act will endure as one of the defining legislative measures of the 21st century.”

Senators engaged in a round-the-clock marathon of voting that began Saturday and stretched late into Sunday afternoon. Democrats swatted down some three dozen Republican amendments designed to torpedo the legislation. Confronting unanimous GOP opposition, Democratic unity in the 50-50 chamber held, keeping the party on track for a morale-boosting victory three months from elections when congressional control is at stake.

“I think it’s gonna pass,” Biden told reporters as he left the White House early Sunday to go to Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, ending his COVID-19 isolation. The House seemed likely to provide final congressional approval when it returns briefly from summer recess on Friday.

The bill ran into trouble midday over objections to the new 15% corporate minimum tax that private equity firms and other industries disliked, forcing last-minute changes.

Despite the momentary setback, the “Inflation Reduction Act” gives Democrats a campaign-season showcase for action on coveted goals. It includes the largest-ever federal effort on climate change — close to $400 billion — caps out-of-pocket drug costs for seniors on Medicare to $2,000 a year and extends expiring subsidies that help 13 million people afford health insurance. By raising corporate taxes, the whole package is paid for, with some $300 billion extra revenue for deficit reduction.

Barely more than one-tenth the size of Biden’s initial 10-year, $3.5 trillion rainbow of progressive aspirations in his Build Back Better initiative, the new package abandons earlier proposals for universal preschool, paid family leave and expanded child care aid. That plan collapsed after conservative Sen. Joe. Manchin, D-W.Va., opposed it, saying it was too costly and would fuel inflation.

Nonpartisan analysts have said the “Inflation Reduction Act” would have a minor effect on surging consumer prices.

Republicans said the measure would undermine an economy that policymakers are struggling to keep from plummeting into recession. They said the bill's business taxes would hurt job creation and force prices skyward, making it harder for people to cope with the nation's worst inflation since the 1980s.

“Democrats have already robbed American families once through inflation, and now their solution is to rob American families a second time," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., argued. He said spending and tax increases in the legislation would eliminate jobs while having an insignificant impact on inflation and climate change.

In an ordeal imposed on all budget bills like this one, the Senate had to endure an overnight “vote-a-rama” of rapid-fire amendments. Each tested Democrats' ability to hold together a compromise negotiated by Schumer, progressives, Manchin and the inscrutable centrist Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz.

Progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., offered amendments to further expand the legislation's health benefits, and those efforts were defeated. Most votes were forced by Republicans and many were designed to make Democrats look soft on U.S.-Mexico border security and gasoline and energy costs, and like bullies for wanting to strengthen IRS tax law enforcement.

Before debate began Saturday, the bill's prescription drug price curbs were diluted by the Senate's nonpartisan parliamentarian. Elizabeth MacDonough, who referees questions about the chamber's procedures, said a provision should fall that would impose costly penalties on drug makers whose price increases for private insurers exceed inflation.

It was the bill's chief protection for the 180 million people with private health coverage they get through work or purchase themselves. Under special procedures that will let Democrats pass their bill by simple majority without the usual 60-vote margin, its provisions must be focused more on dollar-and-cents budget numbers than policy changes.

But the thrust of their pharmaceutical price language remained. That included letting Medicare negotiate what it pays for drugs for its 64 million elderly recipients, penalizing manufacturers for exceeding inflation for pharmaceuticals sold to Medicare and limiting beneficiaries' out-of-pocket drug costs to $2,000 annually.

The bill also caps Medicare patients' costs for insulin, the expensive diabetes medication, at $35 monthly. Democrats wanted to extend the $35 cap to private insurers but it ran afoul of Senate rules. Most Republicans voted to strip it from the package, though in a sign of the political potency of health costs seven GOP senators joined Democrats trying to preserve it.

The measure's final costs were being recalculated to reflect late changes, but overall it would raise more than $700 billion over a decade. The money would come from a 15% minimum tax on a handful of corporations with yearly profits above $1 billion, a 1% tax on companies that repurchase their own stock, bolstered IRS tax collections and government savings from lower drug costs.

Sinema forced Democrats to drop a plan to prevent wealthy hedge fund managers from paying less than individual income tax rates for their earnings. She also joined with other Western senators to win $4 billion to combat the region's drought.

Several Democratic senators joined the GOP-led effort to exclude some firms from the new corporate minimum tax.

The package keeps to Biden's pledge not to raise taxes on those earning less than $400,000 a year.

It was on the energy and environment side that compromise was most evident between progressives and Manchin, a champion of fossil fuels and his state's coal industry.

Clean energy would be fostered with tax credits for buying electric vehicles and manufacturing solar panels and wind turbines. There would be home energy rebates, funds for constructing factories building clean energy technology and money to promote climate-friendly farm practices and reduce pollution in minority communities.

Manchin won billions to help power plants lower carbon emissions plus language requiring more government auctions for oil drilling on federal land and waters. Party leaders also promised to push separate legislation this fall to accelerate permits for energy projects, which Manchin wants to include a nearly completed natural gas pipeline in his state.

Lori McClintock died in what the Sacramento County Corner determined was an accident. On the section of the form that asks the coroner to "describe how injury occurred" it lists "subject ingested white mulberry leaf." Death after consuming this leaf was "unusual," according to the experts.

The 61-year-old died in December. Her husband, U.S. Rep. Tom McClintock, a conservative Republican representing Northern California, found her unresponsive inside their locked home.

The paperwork from the coroners' office dated March 10 lists dehydration due to gastroenteritis and "adverse effects of white mulberry leaf ingestion" as her cause of death.

It's unclear why she ingested the leaf. It's also unclear how she consumed it. CNN's emailed request for comment to the congressman's office in Washington D.C. went unanswered. A family statement on the congressmen's Facebook page at the time did not mention anything about the cause of her death.

Some people drink white mulberry leaf tea, others take it in the form of a supplement that comes in both capsule and liquid form.

The plant is native to parts of India and China and has been used by natural medicine practitioners for several millennia. Some practitioners think it can help with weight loss by lowering a person's blood sugar. The theory has been tested by a small number of small studies that showed participants lost some weight. But more research is needed.

A few studies have also tested to see if it can help with diabetes by lowering insulin levels. Other studies have shown it lowered cholesterol in animal studies. But none of these studies are large enough to determine if white mulberry plants have these effects.

The day before McClintock died, the report says that she complained about an upset stomach.

Studies have shown that the consumption of white mulberry can cause gastrointestinal problems including nausea, cramping, bloating and gas.

Typically, most of the symptoms seem "pretty mild," according to Kaitlyn Brown, the clinical managing director of the American Association of Poison Control Centers.

"Generally white mulberry as a plant is pretty safe and have a lower order or risk of human toxicity," Brown said. A death would be unusual.

Brown said the Poison Control line has had some calls about the plant over the years.

Since 2018 until the end of December 2021 they had 100 single substance ingestions of white mulberry plant, meaning it wasn't mixed with anything else. Out of those 100 about 89% were accidental in nature in children under the age of 12.

"Most of these exposures were judged by our specialists who managed the cases to be non toxic, or only expected minimal symptoms, if anything, and only five patients in that 100 patients reported symptoms. And those are pretty mild," Brown said.

They had no reports of life threatening symptoms or reports of deaths.

Brown said there are limits to what science knows about overdoses. It's not a commonly used, regulated drug. There is a study where patients took it as a supplement that cited side effects like bloating, flatulence, and diarrhea, and some constipation, she said. But those symptoms resolved with time.

"No life threatening symptoms have really been described before from this," Brown said.

While it is unclear why this plant could be linked to McClintock's death, Dr. Josh Trebach, a medical toxicologist and emergency room physician said that there is a common phrase in his profession.

"The dose makes the poison," Trebach said. "This is true for things like water, or things like ketchup, anything in the right amounts can be toxic and if this were something like a supplement that are poorly regulated, anything could be in it."

There are limits to what people can know about what goes into a dietary supplement, if that's the form McClintock took it in. There are plenty of cases in which dietary supplements have been adulterated with something else.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration regulates supplements not as medicine, but as a "conventional" food so these products in whatever form they take, as a supplement or a tea, would not be as closely monitored as a medicine would.

The companies that make dietary supplements do not have to register their products with the FDA. Supplement companies don't have to provide any premarketing safety or efficacy data either. The FDA has cracked down on companies that have adulterated their supplements with actual drugs.

"So that's not out of the realm of possibilities with any sort of dietary supplements," Brown said.

The Natural Products Association that does advocacy work for the supplement industry did not return a request for comment.

Brown said that when cases like this arise its important for people to remember something described as "natural" isn't always safe.

"Even though they're considered natural products, they may still be dangerous if they're used in an inappropriate dose or in the wrong patient," said Brown. "We always recommend that if you are considering using an herbal or dietary supplement that you talk with your primary medical provider to weigh your personal risks and benefits."

She also said that if someone ingests a product and they are not feeling well, they can always call the experts on the Poison Help line (1-800-222-1222) to provide confidential help or they can also visit poisonhelp.org.

"I think of the patients I used to speak to, if they saw a news article about white mulberry leaf and they said, 'oh my goodness, I'm taking white mulberry leaves, am I going to have this happen to me' and they will call the poison center. You know, just to talk about anything that they're experiencing. We're very helpful resource and these type of situations."

WASHINGTON — The reality is political violence is a real threat facing our country.

The Department of Homeland Security has issued bulletins and so has the FBI. Examples have even emerged in recent weeks of the threats officials of both political parties are facing.

This summer, after the Supreme Court decision on abortion, a man was arrested with a gun and charged with attempting to kill Justice Brett Kavanaugh near the justice's home.

In July, Congressman Lee Zeldin (R-NY) was attacked by a man at a political rally.

This past week, Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal revealed to the Washington Post that an armed man yelled outside her home in Seattle for over an hour.

Also, there was the FBI raid at former President Donald Trump's residence at Mar-a-lago, and the FBI office in Cincinnati was attacked by a Navy veteran, who police say had extremist ties.

On Capitol Hill in 2017, there were around 3,900 threats against members of Congress, according to Capitol Police records.

Last year, there were over 9,600.

OPENING UP

One Member of Congress has been especially forthcoming about the threats he is facing. Congressman Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), one of only two Republicans on the January 6th committee, posted on Twitter audio of some of the threatening voicemails his office has received.

"I pray that it be God's will that you suffer," one caller said.

"We know where you live," another called threatened.

INCREASED SECURITY

Those threats, as well as others, have resulted in taxpayers footing the bill for more security for members of Congress. Typically, only those in senior leadership positions, like the Speaker of the House or the minority leader, are given protection.

In recent weeks, security officials at the capitol have approved $10,000 worth of security upgrades for the homes of members of Congress to pay for things like new alarms, doors or lighting.

ISSUE FOR VOTERS

Voters are beginning to take these threats seriously and some recent polls are showing the threat of political violence driving some voters this election.

In fact, a CBS/Yougov poll from late August shows that 64% of Americans believe political violence will increase from here.

In January of 2021, after the January 6th attack, only 51% of Americans thought that.

A recent NBC poll identified the threat of political violence as a driving force among voters this election.

For more updates on outstanding races across the country, click here.Control of the Senate hinged on a series of tight races Wednesday after a midterm election that defied expectations of sweeping conservative victories driven by frustration over inflation and President Joe Biden’s leadership.Either party could secure a Senate majority with wins in both Nevada and Arizona — where the races were too early to call. But there was a strong possibility that, for the second time in two years, the Senate majority could come down to a runoff in Georgia next month, with Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker failing to earn enough votes to win outright.In Pennsylvania, Democrats won the governorship and Senate in the key battleground state. Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, who suffered a stroke five months ago, flipped a Republican-controlled Senate seat, topping Trump-endorsed Republican Dr. Mehmet Oz. In the governor’s race Democratic Attorney General Josh Shapiro beat Republican Doug Mastriano, an election denier who some feared would not certify a Democratic presidential win in the state in 2024.Georgia, meanwhile, was set for yet another runoff on Dec. 6. In 2021, Warnock used a runoff to win his seat as did Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff — which gave Democrats control of the Senate. Both Warnock and Walker were already fundraising off the race stretching into a second round.Both Republicans and Democratic incumbents maintained key Senate seats. In Wisconsin, Republican Sen. Ron Johnson prevailed over Democratic Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, while in New Hampshire, Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassen beat Don Bolduc, a retired Army general who had initially promoted Trump’s lies about the 2020 election but tried to shift away those views closer to Election Day.

WASHINGTON —

Republicans inched closer to a narrow House majority Wednesday, while control of the Senate hinged on a few tight races in a midterm election that defied expectations of sweeping conservative victories driven by frustration over inflation and President Joe Biden’s leadership.

Here's the latest on key races as of 3 a.m. EST:

Either party could secure a Senate majority with wins in both Nevada and Arizona — where the races were too early to call. But there was a strong possibility that, for the second time in two years, the Senate majority could come down to a runoff in Georgia next month, with Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker failing to earn enough votes to win outright.

In the House, Republicans on Wednesday night were within a dozen seats of the 218 needed to take control, while Democrats kept seats in districts from Virginia to Pennsylvania to Kansas and many West Coast contests were still too early to call. In a particularly symbolic victory for the GOP, Sean Patrick Maloney of New York, the House Democratic campaign chief, lost his bid for a sixth term.

Control of Congress will decide how the next two years of Biden's term play out, and whether he is able to achieve more of his agenda or will see it blocked by a new GOP majority. Republicans are likely to launch a spate of investigations into Biden, his family and his administration if they take power, while a GOP takeover of the Senate would hobble the president’s ability to appoint judges.

Video above: Fetterman wins Pennsylvania U.S. Senate race against Mehmet Oz

“Regardless of what the final tally of these elections show, and there's still some counting going on, I'm prepared to work with my Republican colleagues," Biden said Wednesday in his first public remarks since the polls closed. “The American people have made clear, I think, that they expect Republicans to be prepared to work with me as well.”

Democrats did better than history suggested they would. The party in power almost always suffers losses in the president’s first midterm elections, though even if the GOP ultimately wins the House, it won't be by a margin as large as during other midterm cycles. Democrats gained a net of 41 House seats under then-President Donald Trump in 2018, President Barack Obama saw the GOP gain 63 in 2010 and Republicans gained 54 seats during President Bill Clinton's first midterm.

A small majority in the House would pose a great challenge for the GOP and especially California Rep. Kevin McCarthy, who is in line to be House speaker and would have little room for error in navigating a chamber of members eager to leverage their votes to advance their own agenda.

In the fight for Senate control, Pennsylvania was a bright spot for Democrats. Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, who suffered a stroke five months ago, flipped a Republican-controlled Senate seat, topping Trump-endorsed Republican Dr. Mehmet Oz.

Georgia, meanwhile, was set for yet another runoff on Dec. 6. In 2021, Warnock used a runoff to win his seat, as did Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff — which gave Democrats control of the Senate. Both Warnock and Walker were already fundraising off the race stretching into a second round.

Both Republican and Democratic incumbents maintained key Senate seats. In Wisconsin, Republican Sen. Ron Johnson prevailed over Democratic Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, while in New Hampshire, Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan beat Don Bolduc, a retired Army general who had initially promoted Trump’s lies about the 2020 election but tried to shift away those views closer to Election Day.

AP VoteCast, a broad survey of the national electorate, showed that high inflation and concerns about the fragility of democracy were heavily influencing voters. Half of voters said inflation factored significantly, with groceries, gasoline, housing and other costs that have shot up in the past year. Slightly fewer — 44% — said the future of democracy was their primary consideration.

Biden didn’t entirely shoulder the blame for inflation, with close to half of voters saying the higher-than-usual prices were more because of factors outside of his control. And despite the president bearing criticism from a pessimistic electorate, some of those voters backed Democratic candidates.

Democrats counted on a midterm boost from the Supreme Court’s decision to gut abortion rights, which they thought might energize their voters, and the bet paid off. In four states where the issue was on the ballot, voters backed abortion rights. VoteCast showed that 7 in 10 national voters said overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision was an important factor in their midterm decisions. It also showed the reversal was broadly unpopular. And roughly 6 in 10 said they favor a law guaranteeing access to legal abortion nationwide.

In the first national election since the Jan. 6 insurrection, some who participated in or were in the vicinity of the attack on the U.S. Capitol were poised to win elected office. One of those Republican candidates, Derrick Van Orden in Wisconsin — who was outside the Capitol during the deadly riot — won a House seat. Another, J.R. Majewski, lost to Ohio Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur.

Video above: Inflation, democracy top of mind as America votes

Republicans had sought to make inroads in liberal New England but were shut out of House contests, with one Maine race still set to be determined by ranked choice voting.

Governors' races took on outsized significance this year, particularly in battleground states that could help decide the results of the 2024 presidential election. Democrats held on to governors' mansions in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, defeating Republicans who promoted Trump's lies about a stolen 2020 election. Republicans held on to governors’ mansions in Florida, Texas and Georgia, another battleground state Biden narrowly won two years ago.

Trump found some success as well. He lifted Republican Senate candidates to victory in Ohio and North Carolina. JD Vance, the bestselling author of “Hillbilly Elegy,” defeated 10-term congressman Tim Ryan, while Rep. Ted Budd beat Cheri Beasley, the former chief justice of the state Supreme Court.

Video above: Healey declares victory, Diehl concedes in governor's race

Trump had endorsed more than 300 candidates across the country, hoping the night would end in a red wave he could ride to the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. After summoning reporters and his most loyal supporters to a watch party at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida on Tuesday, he ended the night without a triumphant speech.

Still, the former president insisted on social media that he’d had “A GREAT EVENING.” Hours later, Palm Beach County issued an evacuation order for an area that included Trump's club with Hurricane Nicole approaching.

___

Associated Press writer Hannah Fingerhut contributed.

WASHINGTON —

Republicans intensified their public criticism of former President Donald Trump on Thursday, saying it was time for the party to move on after an unexpectedly poor showing in the midterm elections, even as he plans to announce a third White House bid next week.

Virginia's Republican lieutenant governor, Winsome Earle-Sears, once a vocal Trump supporter, said voters had sent "a very clear message" Tuesday that "enough is enough."

"The voters have spoken and they have said that they want a different leader and a true leader understands when they have become a liability," she said in an appearance on Fox Business. "A true leader understands that it's time to step off the stage. It is time to move on."

Earle-Sears, who served as co-chair of a group called Black Americans to Re-elect President Trump in 2020, also said she "just couldn't" support another Trump campaign.

Some advisers had urged Trump to delay his planned announcement until after the Dec. 6 Senate runoff election in Georgia that could determine which party controls the Senate to avoid turning the race into a referendum on him and unintentionally helping Democrats. But Trump has rebuffed that advice and intends to move forward with an announcement on Nov. 15, according to a senior adviser who requested anonymity to discuss the plans.

That leaves him trying to launch a comeback bid at a time when he finds himself in a position of extraordinary vulnerability after dominating the party, largely unchallenged, since he won the nomination in 2016. At the same time, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who easily won reelection Tuesday, is gaining new attention as Republicans openly weigh moving on from Trump.

Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the Senate's No. 2 Republican, noted Trump's role in lifting some inexperienced and controversial candidates during primaries earlier this year who went on to lose in this week's elections.

In an interview, Thune said there's "no substitute for good quality candidates."

"We had some very contested, competitive primaries this year," said Thune, who easily won reelection. "And in some cases, you know, there were lots of forces at work, including outside folks making endorsements in some of those races."

Thune said he hoped the party would begin to see the emergence of younger leaders.

"You can't have a party that's built around one person's personality," he said.

Former House Speaker Paul Ryan, who clashed with Trump during his first two years in office, called Trump "a drag on our ticket."

"We want to win. We want to win the White House and we know with Trump we're so much more likely to lose," he said in an interview with WISN 12 News. "If have a nominee not named Trump, we're so much more likely to win the White House than if our nominee is Trump."

Retiring Republican Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey also blamed Trump's intervention for GOP losses in his state and noted Trump-endorsed candidates did notably worse than other Republicans on the ballot.

"I think my party needs to face the fact that if fealty to Donald Trump is the primary criteria for selecting candidates, we're probably not gonna do really well," he said on CNN. "All over the country there's a very high correlation between MAGA candidates and big losses or at least dramatically underperforming."

Trump has disputed that he had a bad night.

"For those many people that are being fed the fake narrative from the corrupt media that I am Angry about the Midterms, don't believe it," he said on his social media network. "I am not at all angry, did a great job (I wasn't the one running!), and am very busy looking into the future. Remember, I am a 'Stable Genius.'"

While the sweeping victory Republicans predicted did not come to fruition, the party still appears well positioned to flip the House, and could ultimately take the Senate, too. Many races remain too early to call.

"There's no such thing as ugly wins or pretty losses," said Jason Miller, a former Trump campaign staffer who was among those who had advised him to delay his planned announcement until after the Georgia runoff.

"Nancy Pelosi's political career is over," he predicted. "The Biden agenda's dead."

Other Trump allies provided statements to media outlets on the former president's behalf, endorsing him before his impending announcement.

"I am proud to endorse Donald J. Trump for President in 2024. I fully support him running again," House GOP Chairwoman Elise Stefanik said in a statement. "It is time for Republicans to unite around the most popular Republican in America, who has a proven track record of conservative governance."

"If he runs in 2024 not only will he have my support, but he'll have the support of millions of Americans across the country," said Rep. Jim Banks, a top congressional ally.

Ohio Senate candidate JD Vance, who proved Trump's most successful endorsement, said if the former president decides to run again, he's confident he will be the party's nominee.

"Every year, the media writes Donald Trump's political obituary. And every year, we're quickly reminded that Trump remains the most popular figure in the Republican party," Vance said in a statement provided after inquiries to Trump's spokesman.

Meanwhile, Trump escalated his public rebuke of DeSantis, whom he has long considered his most formidable potential challenger. In a lengthy and angry statement Thursday evening, Trump berated Fox News and other Rupert Murdoch-controlled media outlets for going "all in for Governor Ron DeSanctimonious DeSantis," whom he slammed as "an average REPUBLICAN Governor with great Public Relations," as he again took credit for DeSantis's 2018 win.

While Trump allies had previously insisted that reports of tensions between the men were overstated, Trump, who has privately slammed DeSantis for failing to rule out a run against him, did so publicly.

"Well, in terms of loyalty and class, that's really not the right answer," he wrote, comparing the race to his winning 2016 campaign. "We're in exactly the same position now. They will keep coming after us, MAGA, but ultimately, we will win. Put America First and, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!"

___

Associated Press writers Stephen Groves in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and Sarah Rankin in Richmond, Virginia, contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON —

Venturing back into the nation's culture wars, the Republican-controlled House is taking up legislation that GOP lawmakers say would protect gas stoves from overzealous government regulators.

A bill approved Tuesday would prohibit the use of federal funds to regulate gas stoves as a hazardous product, while a separate bill set for a vote Wednesday would block an Energy Department rule setting stricter energy efficiency standards for stovetops and ovens.

Both bills were set for approval last week, but the action was postponed after House conservatives staged a mini-revolt in retaliation for Speaker Kevin McCarthy's leadership on a measure to raise the debt ceiling. Led by outspoken members of the House Freedom Caucus, 11 Republicans broke with their party on an otherwise routine procedural vote that threw the House schedule into disarray for a full week.

McCarthy appeared to resolve the dispute late Monday after promising more meetings with GOP holdouts and seeking to reduce future federal spending.

With the impasse resolved, GOP lawmakers resumed their focus on gas stoves and bureaucratic rules that Republicans call classic government overreach.

“It’s not a petty concern to the hard-working Americans who will be impacted,″ said Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla. “The last thing they need is to have the Biden administration’s Green New Deal regulatory assault reach their kitchen appliances.”

The bill targeting regulation of gas stoves as hazardous was approved, 248-180.

Video below: Doctor answers questions about safety of gas stoves

The White House said President Joe Biden opposes both GOP bills as blocking “common-sense efforts to help Americans cut their energy bill.″ Neither bill is expected to advance in the Democratic-controlled Senate.

Dozens of Democratic-controlled cities, including San Francisco and Berkeley, California, have moved to ban new buildings from using gas stoves as a way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve indoor air quality. New York state approved a law last month banning natural gas stoves and furnaces in most new buildings.

Fears of a national ban grew after a member of the Consumer Product Safety Commission said in January that “any option is on the table” when it comes to regulating gas stoves, which have been linked to poor indoor air quality and health harms such as asthma. The remark prompted online images of the government dragging four-burner cooktops from homes, as social media users and GOP lawmakers vowed to defend the popular appliances.

Debate reignited after the Energy Department proposed a rule requiring both gas and electric stoves and cooktops to use more efficient designs and technologies.

The Energy Department rule, which has not yet been finalized, could ban about half of gas stove models currently sold in the United States as of 2027, according to an Energy Department analysis. The rule would apply only to the sale of new appliances and would not affect stoves already in homes or businesses.

House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Washington state, called the DOE plan “just the latest in a long line of power grabs by the radical left and Biden administration."

The rule is "not about public safety. It is about telling the American people the federal government knows best and will decide what kind of car they can drive, how they can heat their house and now how they’re allowed to cook food for their families," McMorris Rodgers said.

Forcing Americans to switch to more expensive alternatives to natural gas will increase costs while disproportionately harming poor and low-income families, she said.

Democrats called those concerns overheated.

“This is nothing more than a conspiracy theory cooked up to embroil Congress in culture wars that shed more heat than light on the issues facing our nation," said Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon, D-Pennsylvania.

“Contrary to the heated rhetoric from our colleagues across the aisle, the federal government has not proposed to remove appliances from Americans’ homes," Scanlon said. The proposed Energy Department rule would save consumers up to $1.7 billion and cut down on emissions that are dangerous to children’s health, she added.

The bill blocking regulation of unsafe gas stoves threatens the government's ability to identify and regulate appliances with design defects that could cause injury or death, Scanlon said, noting that the consumer safety panel recently recalled gas stove models that placed consumers at risk of carbon monoxide poisoning.

An Energy Department spokeswoman said the proposed rule is “intended for nothing more than increasing energy efficiency and promoting innovation, without sacrificing the reliability and performance that Americans have come to expect."

The White House said the administration “has been clear that it does not support any attempt to ban the use of gas stoves."

Eliminating the energy efficiency rule would “deny the American people the savings that come with having more efficient new appliances on the market when they choose to replace an existing appliance," the White House said in a statement, while approval of the other bill “would undermine science-based Consumer Product Safety Commission decision-making."

Congress passed a $858 billion defense policy bill this week called the National Defense Authorization Act.

Most of that money – $816.7 billion – will go toward Department of Defense programs, according to documents. About $30.3 billion will go toward national security programs, and $378 million is allocated for defense-related activities.

The NDAA will fund new military weapons purchases, increase pay for service members, and add more support for Ukraine and Taiwan.

The bill would also end the Pentagon’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate.

The bill increases America’s total national security budget by about 10& from the defense bill we saw last year.

To put our defense spending into context, a chart by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation shows the U.S. spends more on defense than the next 9 countries combined. It shows the U.S. spending $801 billion, while China, India, the United Kingdom, Russia, France, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Japan, and South Korea spend $777 billion combined.

China had the second highest military spending at $293 billion, according to 2021 stats from Statista.

The bill will now go to President Biden’s desk to be signed.

WASHINGTON —

Republican leader Kevin McCarthy appeared headed toward a historic defeat in first-round voting Tuesday to become House speaker, sending the new Congress into a tangle as conservative colleagues opposed his leadership.

McCarthy had pledged a “battle on the floor” for as long as it takes to overcome right-flank fellow Republicans who were refusing to give him their votes. But it was not at all clear how the embattled GOP leader grasping for political survival could avoid becoming the first House speaker nominee in 100 years to fail to win the gavel from his fellow party members on the initial vote.

With dozens of votes still to come, 19 fellow Republicans had abandoned McCarthy.

McCarthy strode into the chamber, posed for photos, and received a standing ovation from many on his side of the aisle after being nominated by the third-ranking Republican, Rep. Elise Stefanik, who said he "has what it takes" to lead House Republicans.

"No one has worked harder for this majority than Kevin McCarthy," said Stefanik, R-N.Y.

But a challenge was quickly raised by Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., a conservative former leader of the Freedom Caucus, who was nominated by a fellow conservative as speaker. More than a dozen Republicans peeled away, opposing McCarthy with votes for Biggs or others in protest.

The mood was tense, at least on the Republican side, as lawmakers rose from their seats, in a lengthy first round of in-person voting. Democrats were joyous as they cast their own historic votes for their leader, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the first Black person to lead a major American political party.

"We may have a battle on the floor, but the battle is for the conference and the country," McCarthy said earlier at the Capitol.

McCarthy emerged from a contentious closed-door meeting with fellow House Republicans unable to win over detractors and lacking the support needed to become speaker. He vowed to fight to the finish — even if it takes multiple tries in a public spectacle that would underscore divisions in his party and weaken its leadership in the first days of the new Congress.

A core group of conservatives led by the Freedom Caucus and aligned with Donald Trump's MAGA agenda was furious, calling the private meeting a "beat down" by McCarthy allies and remaining steadfast in their opposition to the GOP leader.

"There's one person who could have changed all this," said Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., the chairman of the Freedom Caucus and a leader of Trump's effort to challenge the 2020 presidential election.

The group said McCarthy refused the group's last-ditch offer for rules changes in a meeting late Monday at the Capitol.

"If you want to drain the swamp you can't put the biggest alligator in control of the exercise," said Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla.

"He eagerly dismissed us," said Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo.

Lawmakers convened in a new era of divided government as Democrats relinquish control of the House after midterm election losses. While the Senate remains in Democratic hands, barely, House Republicans are eager to confront President Joe Biden's agenda after two years of a Democratic Party control of both houses of Congress.

Outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had gaveled closed the last session moments earlier, moving aside for new Democratic leadership, to standing ovation from colleagues on her side of the aisle.

The chaplain opened with a prayer seeking to bring the 118th Congress to life.

But first, House Republicans had to elect a speaker, second in succession to the presidency.

"Let the show begin," quipped one lawmaker on the Democratic side of the aisle.

McCarthy was in line to replace Pelosi, but he headed into the vote with no guarantee of success. He faced entrenched detractors within his own ranks. Despite attempts to cajole, harangue and win them over — even with an endorsement from former President Trump — McCarthy has fallen short.

Democrats nominated Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-.N.Y., who is taking over as party leader, as their choice for speaker — a typically symbolic gesture in the minority but one that took on new importance as Republicans were in disarray.

"A Latino is nominating in this chamber a Black man for our leader for the first time in American history," said Rep. Pete Aguilar of California, the third-ranking Democrat, in nominating his colleague. Democrats leaped to applause.

The morning meeting of House Republicans turned raucous ahead what's traditionally a celebratory day as newly elected members arrive to be sworn into office. Families in tow, the members of the new Congress prepare to be sworn into the House and Senate for the start of the two-year legislative session.

A new generation of Trump-aligned Republicans led the opposition to McCarthy. They don't think McCarthy is conservative enough or tough enough to battle Democrats. It's reminiscent of the last time Republicans took back the House majority, after the 2010 midterms, when the tea-party class ushered in a new era of hardball politics, eventually sending Speaker John Boehner to an early retirement.

"Nothing's changed," said Rep. Bob Good, R-Va. "The problem is Kevin McCarthy."

Typically it takes a majority of the House's 435 members, 218 votes, to become the speaker. With just 222 GOP seats, McCarthy could afford to lose only a handful of their votes. A speaker can win with fewer than 218 votes, as Pelosi and Boehner did, if some lawmakers are absent or simply vote present.

But McCarthy has failed to win over a core — and potentially growing — group of right-flank Republicans led by the conservative Freedom Caucus, despite weeks of closed-door meetings and promised changes to the House rules. Nearly a dozen Republicans have publicly raised concerns about McCarthy.

Some of the staunch Republican conservatives challenged McCarthy in the private session. He pushed back, according to a Republican in the room and granted anonymity to discuss the closed-door session.

A sizable but less vocal group of McCarthy supporters started its own campaign, "Only Kevin," as a way to shut down the opposition and pledge their support only to him.

Rep. Dusty Johnson, R-S.D., a leader a more pragmatic conservative group, said "frustration was rising" with the minority faction.

"Kevin McCarthy is the right guy to lead this conference, the right guy to be speaker of the House," Johnson said.

A viable challenger to McCarthy had yet to emerge. Biggs, R-Ariz., was running as a conservative option, but was not expected to pull a majority. McCarthy defeated him in the November nominating contest, 188-31.

The second-ranking House Republican, Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, would be an obvious next choice, a conservative widely liked by his colleagues and seen by some as a hero after surviving a gunshot wound suffered during a congressional baseball game practice in 2017.

Once rivals, McCarthy and Scalise have become a team. Scalise's office rejected as "false" a suggestion Monday by another Republican that Scalise was making calls about the speaker's race.

A speaker's contest last went through multiple rounds in 1923.

"This is a lot more important than about one person," said Doug Heye, a former Republican leadership senior aide. "It's about whether Republicans will be able to govern."

Without a speaker, the House cannot fully form — naming its committee chairmen, engaging in floor proceedings and launching investigations of the Biden administration.

It was all in stark contrast to the other side of the Capitol, where Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell will officially become the chamber's longest-serving party leader in history.

Despite being in the minority in the Senate, where Democrats hold a slim 51-49 majority, McConnell could prove to be a viable partner as Biden seeks bipartisan victories in the new era of divided government. The two men were expected to appear together later in the week in the GOP leader's home state of Kentucky to celebrate federal infrastructure investment in a vital bridge that connects Kentucky and Ohio.

McCarthy's candidacy for speaker should have been an almost sure thing. He led his party into the majority, raising millions of campaign dollars and traveling the country to recruit many of the newer lawmakers to run for office.

Yet McCarthy has been here before, abruptly dropping out of the speaker's race in 2015 when it was clear he did not have support from conservatives to replace Boehner.

One core demand from the holdouts this time is that McCarthy reinstates a rule that allows any single lawmaker to make a "motion to vacate the chair" — in short, to call a vote to remove the speaker from office.

Pelosi eliminated the rule after conservatives used it to threaten Boehner's ouster, but McCarthy agreed to add it back in — but at a higher threshold, requiring at least five lawmakers to sign on to the motion. Conservatives said it was insufficient.

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Associated Press writers Farnoush Amiri and Kevin Freking contributed to this report.

Related video above: Hakeem Jeffries blasts GOP over House Speaker debacle

Electing the House speaker may have been the easy part. Now House Republicans will try to govern.

Speaker Kevin McCarthy passed his first tests late Monday as the Republicans approved their rules package for governing House operations, typically a routine step on Day One that stretched into the second week of the new majority. It was approved 220-213, a party-line vote with one Republican opposed.

Next, the House Republicans easily passed their first bill — legislation to cut funding that is supposed to bolster the Internal Revenue Service. The Republicans' IRS bill ran into a snag ahead of votes because the budget office announced that rather than save money, it would add $114 billion to the federal deficit. The measure flew through on another party-line vote, 218-210, though it has almost no chance of passage in the Democratic-controlled Senate.

It was an effective start to what could otherwise be a new era of potentially crisis governing. House Republicans are expected to be lurching from one standoff to the next after last week's raucous speaker's race that showcased the challenges ahead as McCarthy confronts a rebellious majority as well as the limits of President Joe Biden's remaining agenda on Capitol Hill.

With sky-high ambitions for a hard-right conservative agenda but only a narrow hold on the majority, which enables just a few holdouts to halt proceedings, the Republicans are rushing headlong into an uncertain, volatile start of the new session. They want to investigate Biden, slash federal spending and beef up competition with China.

But first McCarthy, backed by former President Donald Trump, needs to show the Republican majority can keep up with basics of governing.

“You know, it’s a little more difficult when you go into a majority and maybe the margins aren’t high,” McCarthy acknowledged after winning the speaker's vote. “Having the disruption now really built the trust with one another and learned how to work together.”

But McCarthy himself announced Monday evening's final vote tally on the IRS bill to applause from his side of the aisle. “Promises made. Promises kept,” he said in a statement.

As McCarthy gaveled open the House on Monday as the new speaker, the Republicans launched debate on the Rules package, a hard-fought 55-page document that McCarthy negotiated with conservative holdouts to win over their votes to make him House speaker.

Central to the package is the provision the conservative Freedom Caucus wanted that reinstates a longstanding rule that allows any one lawmaker make a motion to “vacate the chair” — a vote to oust the speaker. Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi had done away with the rule when Democrats took charge in 2019 because conservatives had held it over past Republican speakers as a threat.

Rep. Morgan Griffith, R-Va., said the rules are about “getting back to the basics.”

But that's not the only change. There are other provisions the conservatives extracted from McCarthy that weaken the power of the speaker's office and turn over more control of the legislative business to rank-and-file lawmakers, particularly those far-right lawmakers who won concessions.

The Republicans are allowing more Freedom Caucus lawmakers on the Rules committee that shapes legislative debates. Those members promise more open and free-flowing debates and are insisting on 72 hours to read legislation ahead of votes.

But it's an open question whether the changes being approved will make the House more transparent in its operations or grind it to a halt, as happened last week when McCarthy battled through four days and 14 failed ballots before finally winning the speaker's gavel.

Many Republicans defended the standoff over the speaker's gavel, which was finally resolved in the post-midnight hours of Saturday morning on the narrowest of votes — one of the longest speaker's race showdowns in U.S. history.

“A little temporary conflict is necessary in this town in order to stop this town from rolling over the American people,” Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, said over the weekend on CNN.

On Monday, Roy praised the new rules he helped craft, saying he could file a motion “right now” to demand a vote on the speaker — as it has been through much of House history.

But heading into Monday evening's voting on the rules package, at least two other Republicans raised objections about the backroom deals McCarthy had cut, leaving it unclear if there would be enough GOP support for passage. In the end, only Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales of Texas voted against.

Democrats decried the new rules as caving to the demands of the far-right aligned with Trump's Make American Great Again agenda.

“These rules are not a serious attempt at governing,” said Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, the top Democrat on the Rules Committee. Rather, he said, it's a “ransom note from far right.”

Rep. Ritchie Torres, D-N.Y., focused his criticism on the GOP's so-called Holman Rule, which would allow Congress to rescind the pay of individual federal employees: “This is no way to govern."

McCarthy commands a slim 222-seat Republican majority, which means on any given vote he can only lose four GOP detractors or the legislation will fail, if all Democrats are opposed.

The new rules are making McCarthy's job even tougher. For example, Republicans are doing away with the proxy voting that Democrats under former Speaker Nancy Pelosi put in place during the COVID-19 pandemic. That means McCarthy must demand greater attendance and participation on every vote with almost no absences allowed for family emergencies or other circumstances.

“Members of Congress have to show up and work again,” said Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La.

With the Senate still narrowly held by Democrats, the divided Congress could still be a time of bipartisan deal-making. Monday saw a group of Republican and Democratic senators head to the southern U.S. border with Mexico as they try to develop an immigration overhaul to curb the flow of migrants.

But more often a split Congress produces gridlock.

The Republicans have been here before, just over a decade ago, when the tea party class swept to the majority in 2011, booting Pelosi from the speaker's office and rushing into an era of hardball politics that shut down the government and threatened a federal debt default.

McCarthy was a key player in those battles, having recruited the tea party class when he was the House GOP's campaign chairman. He tried and failed to take over for Republican John Boehner in 2015 when the beleaguered House speaker abruptly retired rather than face a potential vote by conservatives on his ouster.

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Associated Press writers Kevin Freking and Hope Yen contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — A special counsel investigation looking into the current president. A special counsel investigation looking into a former president. Congressional inquires into Afghanistan and the southern border.

Less than three weeks into the new year, all these investigations are starting to stack up in Washington.

So which ones should you be paying attention to? And which investigations could have the support of both parties?

INVESTIGATIONS GALORE

It's becoming increasingly hard to keep track of all the investigations unfolding in Congress.

When Republicans took over the House, some inquiries, like the committee that looked into the January 6th attacks, went away. However, new committees, like the "Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government," have formed in their place.

Indeed, investigations are only just beginning in Washington.

The probes range from inquiries into President Joe Biden and his family's business dealings to Biden's use of classified documents in the years after he left the White House as vice president.

There are inquiries into the spike in migrants at the southern border, the withdrawal from Afghanistan and political bias at the Department of Justice.

Another folder on social media companies and their influence has been created too.

WHY THEY MATTER

These investigations will be some of the most newsworthy events that come out of Washington these next few years.

With Democrats controlling the Senate and Republicans over the House, issuing a subpoena and forming a select committee will be easier than passing major pieces of legislation.

So which ones should you pay attention to?

While it may be easy to dismiss many of the probes as too political, new information can emerge from them, since Congress has the power to subpoena, and lying can result in jail time. One investigation you may want to watch is the one into social media companies.

Democrats and Republicans have been trying to better understand, for years, what makes it onto someone's news feed.

Republicans have already written to former executives at Twitter looking into whether some stories involving Biden's son, Hunter, were censored. Democrats, meanwhile, are interested in why hate speech can so easily spread online.

One social media site in the U.S., TikTok, is facing even more scrutiny, with Democrats and Republicans worried it is too closely connected to the Chinese Communist Party.

Several states have already banned state employees from using TikTok on official devices and Congress is mulling over the idea of even more restrictions.

Of course, all these inquiries are merely investigations led by Congress.

The attorney general is leading other, less public, inquiries as well. Chief among them is the special counsel investigations into Biden, as well as former President Donald Trump.

Those cases could be concluded by the end of this year.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein announced Tuesday that she will not run for reelection in 2024, but will serve out the remainder of her term.

The Democrat said she will spend her remaining time in the Senate working on issues she campaigned on in 2018, including combating wildfires, responding to the homeless crisis, and ensuring all Americans have access to health care.

"Congress has enacted legislation on all of these topics over the past several years, but more needs to be done – and I will continue these efforts," Feinstein said in a statement.

Feinstein, 89, is a historic political figure. In 1992, she became the first woman from California to be elected to the Senate. She was also the first woman ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committe and the first woman chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Feinstein is a major supporter of gun control legislation, and she said she will continue "fight the epidemic of gun violence."

"That’s what I’ve done for the last 30 years, and that’s what I plan to do for the next two years," Feinstein said.

The senator's announcement was not unexpected. Two Democrats had already announced their intention to run for the seat.

Rep. Katie Porter promised to keep her campaign a "grassroots" effort and said she would refuse corporate PAC money, donations from federal lobbyists, and money from executives of oil and pharmaceutical companies.

Rep. Adam Schiff also announced last month that he would run for the Senate seat. Cornerstones of his campaign include "protecting democracy," combating climate change and taxing the rich.

Shirley Chisholm had a spirit unlike any other. She was a woman of many firsts: the first Black woman to be elected into Congress and the first Black woman to run for president.

Nicknamed “Fighting Shirley,” Chisholm kicked down barriers for women in politics and became a prime example of taking control of one’s destiny.

‘Spirit and Spunk’: Chisholm’s early years

Chisholm’s story begins in 1924 in Brooklyn, New York, where she was born the oldest of four daughters to Charles St. Hill, a factory laborer from Guyana, and Ruby Seale St. Hill, a seamstress from Barbados. She spent part of her childhood in Barbados on her grandmother's farm, where she received a British education.

Chisholm said in a previous interview Barbados was where she gained the ‘spirit and spunk’ to challenge the status quo – characteristics she would carry for the rest of her life.

After graduating from Brooklyn College cum laude in 1946, Chisholm began her career as a nursery school teacher and then as the director of two daycare centers. In 1949, Chisholm married Conrad Q. Chisholm, who was a private investigator.

In 1951, she earned a master’s degree from Columbia University in early childhood education. By 1960, she was a consultant for New York City’s Division of Daycare.

Chisholm had always been a fighter for social equality within her community – she joined the local Brooklyn chapters of the League of Women Voters, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Urban League and the Democratic Party Club.

‘Unbought and Unbossed’

Chisholm took her passion for helping others to a new level by entering into politics. In 1964, Chisholm became the second African American elected in the New York State Legislature.

When court-ordered redistricting created a new, heavily Democratic Congressional district in her neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, Chisholm seized the opportunity to run.

While campaigning, Chisholm would roam the new district in a sound truck announcing “Ladies and gentlemen, this is fighting Shirley Chisholm coming through.”

She won her seat and broke historic grounds by becoming the first Black woman elected to Congress.

Once in office, Chisholm wasted no time speaking out and fighting for issues that mattered to her. According to the New York Times, Chisholm said in her victory speech, “Just wait, there may be some fireworks.”

In her first floor speech, she spoke out against the Vietnam War. She also spoke out against being assigned to the Committee on Agriculture, stating it did not reflect her constituents who lived in an urban area. She was later reassigned to the Veterans Committee. She then served on the Committee on Education and Labor. She also served as secretary of the Democratic Caucus.

Chisholm introduced over 50 pieces of legislation, including playing a key role in the passage of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) that is still used to this day.

She was fluent in Spanish and stood up for the rights of immigrants, children, women and low-income families. Her iconic campaign motto, “Unbought and Unbossed,” helped her stand out as a fearless leader.

Running for president

In 1972, Chisholm announced she was running for president – becoming the first woman and African American to seek a major party’s nomination.

In a previous interview, one reporter questioned whether she believed America was ready for a president that was both Black and a woman.

“I think what is even more important than whether or not America is ready for me as a president is to begin to prepare America for the fact that it is time that other people in America besides white males run for the highest office of this flag," Chisholm said. "It’s a preparation for the atmosphere to bring about the realization that someday Blacks will lead this country…that someday women will lead this country. That’s what this is all about.”

Running as a Black woman wasn’t easy – she had to sue her way into televised debates which only allowed her to make one speech. She also survived three assassination attempts. Despite these obstacles, Chisholm did not let that deter her.

“I have always been a catalyst for change,” Chisholm said in a previous campaign speech. “You’re going to have the doomsday criers out here saying that, ‘the woman is crazy, she’s nuts,’ but they said I was crazy from 20 years ago when I first emerged on the political scene. So let them continue to think I’m crazy.”

In the end, Chisholm’s campaign was underfunded and she ended up losing her candidacy at the Democratic National Convention. Despite that, Chisholm came in fourth place, receiving 152 delegate votes.

Chisholm would keep her seat in Congress and stayed until 1982. She founded the Congressional Black Caucus in 1971 and the Congressional Women’s Caucus in 1977. Through her time she sponsored increases in federal funding to extend the hours of daycare facilities and a guaranteed annual income for families.

In a previous New York Times interview, Chisholm said she had been misunderstood during her career – mentioning how her supporters were shocked when she visited former Alabama governor George C. Wallace, a segregationist known for his racist remarks, who was injured after an assassination attempt in 1972. She said she never wanted what happened to him to happen to anyone else.

Chisholm said Wallace ultimately helped her pass a piece of legislation through the House of Representatives that extended federal minimum-wage provisions to domestic workers by convincing his fellow Southern congress members to vote in favor.

After leaving Congress, Chisholm co-founded the National Political Congress of Black Women. She taught at Mt. Holyoke College in 1983. She died in 2005 in Ormond Beach, Florida at age 80.

‘Bring your own folding chair’: Chisholm’s lasting legacy

Chisholm’s legacy continues to inspire a new class of leaders, including Kamala Harris, who became the first woman, first Black and South Asian to be vice president of the United States.

Chisholm’s outspokenness challenged voters to question the status quo, and reimagine what a successful politician could look like.

In 2015, Chisholm was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by former President Barack Obama.

Illinois Rep. Lauren Underwood, who became the first Black woman elected to the House of Democrats leadership team since Chisholm, paid homage to her in a tweet, stating, “Shirley Chisholm taught me that if people don’t invite you to the table, bring your own folding chair. Doing that to stand up for my community fuels me everyday.”

WASHINGTON —

With days to spare before a potential first-ever government default, President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy reached a final agreement Sunday on a deal to raise the nation's debt ceiling while trying to ensure enough Republican and Democratic votes to pass the measure in the coming week.

The Democratic president and Republican speaker spoke with each other Sunday evening as negotiators rushed to draft and post the 99-page bill text so lawmakers can review compromises that neither the hard-right or left flank is likely to support. Instead, the leaders are working to gather backing from the political middle as Congress hurries toward votes before a June 5 deadline to avert a damaging federal default.

“Good news,” Biden declared Sunday evening at the White House.

"The agreement prevents the worst possible crisis, a default, for the first time in our nation’s history,” he said. “Takes the threat of a catastrophic default off the table.”

The president urged both parties in Congress to come together for swift passage. "The speaker and I made clear from the start that the only way forward was a bipartisan agreement,” he said.

The compromise announced late Saturday includes spending cuts but risks angering some lawmakers as they take a closer look at the concessions. Biden told reporters at the White House upon his return from Delaware that he was confident the plan will make it to his desk. The bill was posted Sunday evening.

McCarthy, too, was confident in remarks at the Capitol: "At the end of the day, people can look together to be able to pass this."

The days ahead will determine whether Washington is again able to narrowly avoid a default on U.S. debt, as it has done many times before, or whether the global economy enters a potential crisis.

In the United States, a default could cause financial markets to freeze up and spark an international financial crisis. Analysts say millions of jobs would vanish, borrowing and unemployment rates would jump, and a stock-market plunge could erase trillions of dollars in household wealth. It would all but shatter the $24 trillion market for Treasury debt.

Anxious retirees and others were already making contingency plans for missed checks, with the next Social Security payments due soon as the world watches American leadership at stake.

McCarthy and his negotiators portrayed the deal as delivering for Republicans though it fell well short of the sweeping spending cuts they sought. Top White House officials were briefing Democratic lawmakers and phoning some directly to try to shore up support.

As Sunday dragged on, negotiators labored to write the bill text and lawmakers raised questions.

McCarthy told reporters at the Capitol on Sunday that the agreement "doesn't get everything everybody wanted," but that was to be expected in a divided government. Privately, he told lawmakers on a conference call that Democrats "got nothing" they wanted.

A White House statement from the president, issued after Biden and McCarthy spoke by phone Saturday evening and an agreement in principle followed, said the deal "prevents what could have been a catastrophic default."

Support from both parties will be needed to win congressional approval before a projected June 5 government default on U.S. debts. Lawmakers are not expected to return to work from the Memorial Day weekend before Tuesday, at the earliest, and McCarthy has promised lawmakers he will abide by the rule to post any bill for 72 hours before voting.

Negotiators agreed to some Republican demands for increased work requirements for recipients of food stamps that House Democrats had called a non-starter.

With the outlines of an agreement in place, the legislative package could be drafted and shared with lawmakers in time for House votes as soon as Wednesday, and later in the coming week in the Senate.

Central to the compromise is a two-year budget deal that would essentially hold spending flat for 2024, while boosting it for defense and veterans, and capping increases at 1% for 2025. That's alongside raising the debt limit for two years, pushing the volatile political issue past the next presidential election.

Driving hard to impose tougher work requirements on government aid recipients, Republicans achieved some of what they wanted. It ensures people ages 49 to 54 with food stamp aid would have to meet work requirements if they are able-bodied and without dependents. Biden was able to secure waivers for veterans and homeless people.

The deal puts in place changes in the landmark National Environmental Policy Act designating "a single lead agency" to develop environmental reviews, in hopes of streamlining the process.

It halts some funds to hire new Internal Revenue Service agents as Republicans demanded, and rescinds some $30 billion for coronavirus relief, keeping $5 billion for developing the next generation of COVID-19 vaccines.

The deal came together after Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told Congress that the United States could default on its debt obligations by June 5 — four days later than previously estimated — if lawmakers did not act in time. Lifting the nation's debt limit, now at $31 trillion, allows more borrowing to pay bills already insured.

McCarthy commands only a slim Republican majority in the House, where hard-right conservatives may resist any deal as insufficient as they try to slash spending. By compromising with Democrats, he risks losing support from his own members, setting up a career-challenging moment for the new speaker.

"I think you're going to get a majority of Republicans voting for this bill," McCarthy said on "Fox News Sunday," adding that because Biden backed it, "I think there's going to be a lot of Democrats that will vote for it, too."

House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York said on CBS' "Face the Nation" that he expected there will be Democratic support but he declined to provide a number. Asked whether he could guarantee there would not be a default, he said, "Yes."

A 100-strong group of moderates in the New Democratic Coalition gave a crucial nod of support on Sunday, saying in a statement it was confident that Biden and his team "delivered a viable, bipartisan solution to end this crisis" and were working to ensure the agreement would receive support from both parties.

The coalition could provide enough support for McCarthy to make up for members in the right flank of his party who have expressed opposition before the bill's wording was even released.

It also takes the pressure off Biden, facing criticism from progressives for giving into what they call hostage-taking by Republicans.

Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington state, who leads the Congressional Progressive Caucus, told CBS that the White House and Jeffries should worry about whether caucus members will support the agreement.

President Joe Biden said Sunday that Republicans in the U.S. House must move off their "extreme positions" on the now-stalled talks over raising America's debt limit and that there would be no agreement to avert a catastrophic default only on their terms.

In an effort to get negotiations back on track, Biden planned to call U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., from Air Force One on the way back to Washington after a Group of Seven summit in Japan. World leaders at the gathering expressed concern about the dire global ramifications if the United States were to be unable to meet its financial obligations.

“It’s time for Republicans to accept that there is no bipartisan deal to be made solely, solely, on their partisan terms," Biden said at a closing news conference before he departed. The president said he had done his part in attempting to raise the borrowing limit so the U.S. government can keep paying its bills, by agreeing to significant cuts in spending. “Now it’s time for the other side to move from their extreme position,” he said.

Biden had been scheduled to travel from Hiroshima to Papua New Guinea and Australia, but cut short his trip in light of the strained negotiations with Capitol Hill.

“My guess is he’s going to want to deal directly with me in making sure we’re all on the same page," Biden said about McCarthy before their expected conversation. A compromise remained within reach, the president said, despite their differences.

Video below: Biden delivers debt ceiling warning while sharply criticizing Republicans

“I’m hoping that Speaker McCarthy is just waiting to negotiate with me when I get home," he said. “I’m waiting to find out.”

GOP lawmakers are holding tight to demands for sharp spending cuts, rejecting the alternatives proposed by the White House for reducing deficits.

McCarthy tweeted on Saturday that it was the White House that was “moving backward in negotiations.” The speaker contended that Biden would “rather be the first president in history to default on the debt than to risk upsetting the radical socialists who are calling the shots for Democrats right now.”

Republicans want work requirements on the Medicaid health care program, though the Biden administration has countered that millions of people could lose coverage. The GOP also introduced new cuts to food aid by restricting states’ ability to waive work requirements in places with high joblessness. That idea, when floated under President Donald Trump, was estimated to cause 700,000 people to lose their food benefits.

GOP lawmakers are also seeking cuts in IRS money and asking the White House to accept parts of their proposed immigration overhaul.

The White House has countered by keeping defense and nondefense spending flat next year, which would save $90 billion in the 2024 budget year and $1 trillion over 10 years.

“I think that we can reach an agreement,” Biden said, though he added this about Republicans: "I can’t guarantee that they wouldn’t force a default by doing something outrageous.”

Video below: President Biden says he is willing to cut spending in deal to raise the debt ceiling

Republicans had also rejected White House proposals to raise revenues in order to further lower deficits. Among the proposals the GOP objects to are policies that would enable Medicare to pay less for prescription drugs and the closing of a dozen tax loopholes. Republicans have refused to roll back the Trump-era tax breaks on corporations and wealthy households as Biden’s own budget has proposed.

Biden, nonetheless, insisted that “revenue is not off the table.”

For months, Biden had refused to engage in talks over the debt limit, contending that Republicans in Congress were trying to use the borrowing limit vote as leverage to extract administration concessions on other policy priorities.

But with the U.S. Treasury Department saying that it could run out of cash as soon as June 1 and Republicans putting their own legislation on the table, the White House launched talks on a budget deal that could accompany an increase in the debt limit.

The decision to set up a call with McCarthy came after another start-stop day with no outward signs of progress. Food was brought to the negotiating room at the Capitol on Saturday morning, only to be carted away hours later. Talks, though, could resume later Sunday after the Biden-McCarthy conversation.

Biden tried to assure leaders attending the meeting of the world’s most powerful democracies that the United States would not default. U.S. officials said leaders were concerned, but largely confident that Biden and American lawmakers would resolve the crisis.

The president, though, said he was ruling out the possibility of taking action on his own to avoid a default. Any such steps, including suggestions to invoke the 14th Amendment as a solution, would become tied up in the courts.

“That’s a question that I think is unresolved," Biden said, adding he hopes to try to get the judiciary to weigh in on the notion for the future.

___

Associated Press writer Colleen Long in Washington contributed to this report.

RALEIGH, North Carolina — Once every ten years, the map of America turns into a board game.

"The party that has the most seats has the power of the pen. They get to draw the maps," said Bill Phillips, the executive director of Common Cause North Carolina.

What he's talking about is redistricting – when state congressional districts are redrawn to reflect the population gain or decline. Some states lose seats, others gain seats, all based on the census count.

In some states, a nonpartisan panel draws the districts, but in 39 states, the lawmakers choose their own district borders.

"I think most people are stunned to learn that. And I hate to use the word. Our elections are rigged. We live in a democracy, but because of the way the districts are drawn, we know who is going to win by and large," he said.

Common Cause is a non-partisan group whose mission is to protect fair elections. Something Phillips doesn’t believe can happen with how the system is set up.

"Out of the 435 congressional contests that will be up in November. Maybe 40 of them at most are actually competitive. That's just not healthy," he said.

You can see what he’s talking about by looking at the shapes in some of these districts. Take Illinois’ newly drawn 17^thdistrict. We all can agree that this… as far as shapes go… is an odd one. People like Phillips say it looks this way because of the party in power.

In this case, democrats want to include as many democratic voters as possible.

In Lousiana, Baton Rouge and New Orleans, despite being more than an hour away are in one blue district together in a sea of red. This pattern repeats across the country in states where lawmakers map the maps.

"Voting and redistricting is a part of the game of chess. So what is happening is that you have a group a party that looks to a stack the chips, or it looks to dilute the vote of others and it looks to draw lies in their favor," said Eric Claville, a political and legal analyst.

The practice of drawing lines in favor of political parties is called gerrymandering. Both Claville and Philips say gerrymandering has been one of the many ways politicians have tried to silence the voice of disenfranchised groups, like African Americans.

"We still see redistricting done that will often be discriminatory to Black voters, and by that, I mean districts are drawn that might pack Black voters or crack, and that is diluting, the actual vote of an African American voter," said Phillips.

Ohio, New York, Mississippi, Texas and North Carolina are some of the states with ongoing contentious maps battles. Political parties are suing over maps drawn by opposing parties.

"To protect the rights of all, to be able to vote and not just be able to vote, but also to vote in districts that are fair, that are equitable and that are challenging and not those districts that are going to disenfranchise the power of the voter," said Claville.

Learning about this issue can make voters feel powerless. Advocates say that is not the case. If these practices concern you, you still have a voice and you can use it to rallying change for non-partisan redistricting practices.

"No matter how much money is spent, no matter what happens in the media, it boils down to this one point: one person, one vote. So if you could engage, if you could bring together a mass of votes, then you have the power in order to dictate the conversation and ultimately the outcome," said Claville.

President Joe Biden delivered his first formal State of the Union speech on Tuesday night. He tried to convince Americans that a recovering pandemic-era economy is due to his work in the White House so far, as the country struggles amid rising inflation. The conflict in Ukraine also took up a significant spot in the address, as Biden works to convince Americans that the Russian invasion can be controlled with sanctions and diplomacy.

The State of the Union speech

With a plethora of issues facing the nation, it could be a hard sell for Biden to reassure Americans that there will be great improvements to come in the months and years ahead. With an approval rating hovering around 40%, which has been going down since the withdrawal from Afghanistan, a number of major issues will have to be tackled as the president makes his case.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine

Ukrainian ambassador to the U.S. Oksana Markarova was invited to be a guest of first lady Jill Biden, joining her for the Tuesday evening speech. She received a standing ovation as she was introduced. The invitation was a show of solidarity between the White House and Ukraine as fears mount that Putin could increase his attacks on Russia's neighbor.

Members of Congress wore blue and yellow ribbons during the address in a show of solidarity and support for the people of Ukraine and its government. Some wore blue and yellow suits, while others wore the ribbons, pinned to their lapels.

Biden said during Tuesday's speech, addressing the invasion of Ukraine, "Throughout our history, we’ve learned this lesson: When dictators do not pay a price for their aggression, they cause more chaos. They keep moving. And, the costs and threats to America and the world keep rising."

He said, "That’s why the NATO Alliance was created to secure peace and stability in Europe after World War II. The United States is a member along with 29 other nations."

"We shared with the world in advance what we knew Putin was planning and precisely how we would try to falsify and justify — how he would try to falsify and justify his aggression," Biden said.

Biden gave one strong assurance to Ukraine and NATO allies saying during the speech, "As I have made crystal clear: The United States and our Allies will defend every inch of territory of NATO countries with the full force of our collective power. Every single inch."

COVID-19

The president acknowledged that Americans are "tired, frustrated, and exhausted" after having dealt with more than two years of life during a pandemic. But urged voters to trust that the country is moving forward and progressing.

Biden said, "We’ve reached a new moment in the fight against COVID-19, with severe cases down to a level not seen since last July. Just a few days ago, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the CDC, issued new mask guidelines."

"Under these new guidelines, most Americans in most of the country can now be mask free. And based on the projections, more of the country will reach that point across the next couple of weeks," the president said.

He urged Americans to get vaccinated and said that the U.S. has ordered more Pfizer anti-viral treatment pills than any other country, promoting the "Test to Treat" initiative which aims to provide more testing at pharmacies and provide antiviral treatment pills, at no cost, for those who test positive.

Biden's top domestic agenda priorities

The president also implored Congress to act and pass legislation that will address high priorities for the administration like dealing with rising costs for families, the country's deficit, lowering energy costs, and improving family and medical leave for working Americans.

The president touted his American Rescue Plan saying, "Few pieces of legislation have done more in a critical moment in our history to lift us out of crisis."

Economy

Biden was expected to promote his work as the U.S. economy worked to recover, and he did. The president said, "Our economy grew at a rate of 5.7% last year, the strongest growth in nearly 40 years, the first step in bringing fundamental change to an economy that hasn’t worked for the working people of this nation for too long."

And China came up as Biden said, "As I’ve told Xi Jinping, it is never a good bet to bet against the American people. We’ll create good jobs for millions of Americans, modernizing roads, airports, ports, and waterways all across America."

U.S. Infrastructure

Speaking on improving U.S. roads and other crucial elements of the country's infrastructure the president said, "I'm announcing that this year we will begin fixing over 65,000 miles of highway."

The president said, "When we use taxpayers' dollars to rebuild America, we're going to do it by buying American, buying American products," as he signaled possible further efforts to heavily boost manufacturing in the U.S.

Rising costs for families, inflation, gas prices

The president also addressed income inequality, taxing the wealthy, and various price hikes for goods during the pandemic. Biden said that the U.S. Department of Justice will announce a chief prosecutor for pandemic fraud to uncover crimes during the pandemic.

Biden urged lawmakers to raise the minimum wage to at least $15 and increase the Child Tax Credit, building off previous pleas to lawmakers during his speech to work to make childcare more affordable for American families.

The president said, "I can announce that the United States has worked with 30 other countries to release 60 million barrels of oil from reserves around the world. America will lead that effort, releasing 30 million barrels from our own Strategic Petroleum Reserve. And we stand ready to do more if necessary, unified with our allies."

He said, "These steps will help blunt gas prices here at home. And I know the news about what’s happening can seem alarming. But I want you to know that we are going to be OK."

The opioid epidemic, drug addiction and mental health

Biden said that beating the opioid epidemic is a top priority for his administration urging law enforcement and state and local government to work together to also go after drug traffickers. He urged lawmakers to also focus more on mental health resources in their communities.

"We'll meet the test, protect freedom and liberty expand fairness and opportunity and we will save democracy," Biden said, wrapping up his address with a final plea of hope and optimism for the American people.

RELATED: White House releases excerpts of President Biden's State of the Union speech
RELATED: Biden announces ban of Russia from US airspace during State of the Union address

How to watch

The speech began live on Tuesday at 9 p.m. ET, streamed here and on Facebook.

First formal State of the Union

In 2021, President Biden delivered his first joint address to Congress, which was similar to a State of the Union address. Attendance at that speech was limited because of the pandemic, but for this year's State of the Union the entire congressional body was invited, with just their guests being limited for safety.

All attendees had to submit a negative PCR test a day before the speech and masks were optional, NPR reported.

On Tuesday it was a much different atmosphere than last year as a noticeably smaller group of those in attendance were seen wearing masks. And the image of lawmakers and others without masks echoed portions of Biden's speech trying to reassure the country that a recovery from the pandemic is happening and that Americans would soon get back to more normalcy.

The Republican response

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds would deliver the Republican response after President Biden's speech. Gov. Reynolds will deliver the speech from Des Moines, Iowa.

Security is high

In a move that has now become a normal sight around the Capitol Complex since the Jan. 6 siege, a large fence will remain up. The fence has disrupted daily life for those who live in the neighborhood around the U.S. Capitol.

Metropolitan Police Department Chief Robert Contee said on Monday, as the AP reported, “We regularly handle peaceful demonstrations and welcome all to the nation’s capital to exercise their First Amendment rights,” he said.

Contee went on to say that officers are “prepared to take swift law-enforcement actions for violations of our local and federal laws, if necessary.”

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Across the country, mask mandates are going away. Every state, except Hawaii, has either dropped its mandate or announced plans to do so in the future.

On Jan. 20, the U.S. was averaging 735,652 new COVID-19 cases a day.

On Feb. 20, the country was down to 102,385 daily cases..

While those numbers have gone down, another number has gone up.

In January, more Americans called in sick than usual. In fact, the latest numbers from the Department of Labor show the statistics to be around twice as much as they did throughout last year.

The statistics are a reminder that the pandemic is not over.

PUSH BY LAWMAKERS

Some in Congress fear that as the pandemic continues, more people will go to work even if they test positive, especially if they don't have sick leave.

Ahead of President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address on Tuesday, a group of Democrats is pushing a policy proposal to mandate sick leave to be included in the speech and voted on sometime this year.

Earlier in the pandemic, Congress enacted paid sick leave for those who contracted the virus but that program has expired.

One proposal would give every American worker at least two weeks of sick leave if they catch COVID-19.

Around 33.6 million American workers do not have paid sick leave, according to the latest figures from the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The U.S. is one of only 11 countries in the world without mandatory leave for health problems.

A LOOK AT HISTORY

"The 1918 pandemic came in waves just like ours does," John M. Barry is a distinguished scholar at Tulane University.

He isn’t an expert on paid time off but he is an expert on how pandemics end.

He wrote "The Great Influenza" about the pandemic of 1918.

A hundred years ago, he says, even after all the public health restrictions were lifted, people still got sick and couldn’t go to work.

In fact, cities like Detroit, Kansas City and Milwaukee saw some of their worst outbreaks after people stopped wearing masks.

As a result, the government, as well as employers, should still be prepared for employees to call in sick.

“There will be another variant," Barry cautioned.

Whether paid sick leave can pass Congress is still very much unclear.

Democrats in Congress have struggled in recent months to pass similar initiatives.

The Instagram account Dear White Staffers is a popular meme page geared toward people of color working on Capitol Hill and in government agencies.

In recent weeks, however, it's become a forum for staffers to anonymously share stories about issues they have faced working for specific members of Congress. And it could have a real impact on both the conditions congressional staff deal with and changing who gets to work in Congress.

Earlier this month, a group of congressional staffers announced an unprecedented effort to unionize. This is the byproduct of years of work done by people who haven't been well paid in an environment that still isn't especially diverse.

To clear up some misconceptions here, these are white-collar jobs that require dressing up, but working in the halls of Congress doesn't exactly mean you're making bank. 

Staffers, especially at the entry-level, can have full-time jobs working in Congress and have to rely on government benefits like food stamps or work a second job just to afford to get by. 

Take Don Bell, for example. He now works in career development at the University of Connecticut School of Law, but he worked more than three years on Capitol Hill as a Senate staffer in the office of Senator Richard Blumenthal and served as president of the Senate Black Legislative Staff Caucus.

He loved his time on the Hill and credits the office for getting him a stipend even before he was brought on full-time and for promoting him and supporting his development. But early on, he started out unpaid and had a second job you wouldn't expect a congressional staffer to need.

"I was a lawyer by day working on policy and a cashier at Wal-Mart at night," Bell said. "And as you can imagine, those were very long days, going from one job to the other, just trying to make it financially. I came to D.C. with nothing coming from a family that didn't have any means."

And that required some major sacrifices. 

"By the time I started full-time in Senator Blumenthal's office as the judiciary legislative correspondent, I was two weeks away from defaulting on my student loans," Bell said. "So I put all of my chips in the middle of the table to have the opportunity to work on Capitol Hill."

It might come as a surprise, but these staffers are often the ones actually writing the laws. Members of Congress are public faces, and they have a wide range of work, including committee meetings. But when it comes to how the sausage is actually made, markup meetings — where the bulk of any given bill gets written — are usually attended by staffers, sometimes even low-level ones.

All those cost issues don't even account for internships, which were unpaid for a long time on Capitol Hill. When you factor in the cost of living, transportation and other essentials, interning could cost thousands of dollars. If you're stretching out every dollar, even some small things can be a challenge. 

Carlos Mark Vera was an intern on Capitol Hill and at the White House.

"It's little things that you normally think about," Vera said. "You have to wear professional clothing every day. I only owned one suit, so my family had to kind of pitch in to buy me another one. So it definitely was a struggle."

His experience struggling to afford an unpaid internship led him to found Pay Our Interns — a group that's pressuring offices on Capitol Hill and other government agencies to, essentially, pay their interns. He argues that not paying interns really limits the pool of who can do it.

"You need housing, so that's rent, any professional clothing, transportation, and we know that on average, an unpaid internship can cost $6000 for three months. So unless you have that money just lying around, it really puts a lot of folks that are working-class middle class at a disadvantage."

There's been some positive change on this front. Every congressional office now has money set aside  — each House office has $25,000 set aside specifically to pay interns.

But those funds haven't necessarily led to congressional offices hiring a representative set of interns.

A report last year by Pay Our Interns found that 76% of paid congressional interns were white, even though white students make up just 52% of the national undergraduate student population. 

And that gap, which is reflected in full-time and senior staff too, has consequences for who gets to shape policy. Ruby Robles, a current Capitol Hill staffer and a spokesperson for the Congressional Hispanic Staffers Association or CHSA, says it affects a lot of members of the group.

"A lot of us [are] Latinos, but some of us, we migrated to this country," Robles said. "We are first-generation college students, and then we made our way all the way to Washington, D.C. A lot of us are working on Capitol Hill because we are we want to work in public service. It's the American dream, but the higher pay issues, sometimes they become a barrier for many people."

A survey by Issue One, a nonpartisan group looking to reduce the influence of money in politics, found that 13% of all Capitol Hill staff — over 1,200 people — made less than the salary MIT estimates would constitute a living wage of $42,610 in Washington, D.C. But if you look at staff assistants, the most common entry-level full-time job on Capitol Hill, that rate jumps to 70% making less than the estimated living wage in D.C.

The low pay means, sometimes, the only people who can take these staff jobs are people supported financially by their parents. That leads to the population of staffers skewing whiter and wealthier. And as a lot of current and former staffers are pointing out, it shuts out many people of color and people who don't come from privileged backgrounds.

The result is a less diverse workforce. The nonpartisan Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies estimated in a 2020 report that people of color made up just 13.7% of all top-level House staff, and just 11% of all top-level Senate staff.

And that can make a real difference when crafting policies.

"Congressional staffers are essential in ensuring that the policy being made has been effectively vetted and is reflective of the hopes and aspirations of constituents across the country, and so if we don't have a diverse set of people, skills experiences in those decision-making rooms is much more likely that we aren't going to get the best policy for people at the ground level back home," Bell said.

And while staffers of color are at the forefront of this recent push, and many of those are Democrats, the issues we’re seeing here affect staffers of both parties from all backgrounds.

Audrey Henson is a former congressional staffer from a low-income background and a current Republican congressional candidate in Florida. She was the founder of College to Congress, a group that provides financial support to congressional interns and staff. She's no longer with the group, but the shock she felt when she found she'd be paid $25,000 a year for her full-time job still sticks with her. 

"I'll never forget when I filed my tax returns in 2013 as a Capitol Hill staffer, and after I submitted them, the first page that came up was It looks like you qualify for Medicaid and food subsidy benefits," Henson said. "That, to me, almost felt like a dagger in my heart because I was working for a boss that was anti-subsidy and that really showed me, wow, the way that our Congress works, the way that they treat their staff, this is absolutely backwards."

The circumstances may have been tough for a lot of current and former staffers on Capitol Hill, but folks on the Hill see the emergence of the recent unionization effort and more public criticism of working conditions as an opportunity for things to change.

"I think that there's some room for change here, and also there's really going to be a really big push," Henson said. "So I am hopeful that hopefully, the national attention that this has gathered will lead to change."

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Rep. Kathleen Rice of New York announced she will not run for reelection in this year's midterms.

Rice said she will remain focused on "protecting democracy" and serving her constituents for the remainder of her term.

"As I turn to the next chapter of my own personal and professional story, I do so with profound thanks to the community leaders, colleagues and staff who have lived our shared commitment to service with courage and humility," Rice said in a statement Tuesday.

Rice was first elected to Congress in 2014.

She is now the 30th Democrat who has announced plans to leave the House.

As President Biden faces declining poll numbers, the Democrats are expected to face an uphill battle in their attempt to keep control of the House.

Currently, Democrats control the House, the Senate and the presidency.

U.S. Sen. Ben Ray Lujan of New Mexico says his health is improving after suffering a stroke.

Lujan, a Democrat, posted a video on social media with two of the doctors who have been treating him.

"I'm doing well. I'm strong. I'm on the road to recovery and I'm going to make a full recovery. I'm going to walk out of here. I'm going to beat this," Lujan said.

Lujan suffered a stroke in the cerebellum and underwent surgery to ease swelling.

Once the senator leaves UNM Hospital in Albuquerque, he said he will go to a rehabilitation center to continue the recovery process.

With the Senate split 50-50, there was some concern about whether Lujan would be able to vote for Biden's eventual Supreme Court nominee. Lujan said he expects to be back in Washington in time to consider the nominee.

The 49-year-old is a first-term senator. He was elected in 2020 after serving in the U.S. House of Representatives.