WASHINGTON —

The House moved toward swift passage Wednesday of legislation that would devote more federal resources to preventing domestic terrorism in response to the racist mass shooting in Buffalo, New York.

The legislative effort is not new, as the House passed a similar measure in 2020 only to have it languish in the Senate. But lacking support in the Senate to move ahead with the gun-control legislation that they say is necessary to stop mass shootings, Democrats are instead pushing for a broader federal focus on domestic terrorism.

"We in Congress can't stop the likes of (Fox News host) Tucker Carlson from spewing hateful, dangerous replacement theory ideology across the airwaves. Congress hasn't been able to ban the sale of assault weapons. The Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act is what Congress can do this week to try to prevent future Buffalo shootings," Rep. Brad Schneider, D-Ill., who first introduced the measure in 2017, said on the House floor Wednesday.

The measure seeks to prevent another attack like the one that took place in Buffalo on Saturday when police say an 18-year-old white man drove three hours to carry out a racist, livestreamed shooting rampage in a crowded supermarket. Ten people were killed.

The Democratic sponsors of the bill say it will fill the gaps in intelligence-sharing among the Justice Department, Department of Homeland Security and the FBI so that they can better track and respond to the growing threat of white extremist terrorism.

Under current law, the three federal agencies already work to investigate, prevent and prosecute acts of domestic terrorism. But the bill would require each agency to open offices specifically dedicated to those tasks and create an interagency task force to combat the infiltration of white supremacy in the military.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates the bill would cost about $105 million over five years, with most of the money going toward hiring staff.

"As we took 911 seriously, we need to take this seriously. This is a domestic form of the same terrorism that killed the innocent people of New York City and now this assault in Buffalo and many other places," Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin, who is sponsoring an identical bill in the Senate, said Wednesday. "The only thing missing between these organizations in the past are the white robes."

Senate Democrats are pledging to bring up the bill for a vote next week. But its prospects are uncertain, with Republicans opposed to bolstering the power of the Justice Department in domestic surveillance.

Republican lawmakers assert that the Justice Department abused its power to conduct more domestic surveillance when Attorney General Merrick Garland issued a memo in October aimed at combating threats against school officials nationwide. They labeled the memo as targeting concerned parents.

GOP lawmakers also say the bill doesn't place enough emphasis on combatting domestic terrorism committed by groups on the far left. Under the bill, agencies would be required to produce a joint report every six months that assesses and quantifies domestic terrorism threats nationally, including threats posed by white supremacists and neo-Nazi groups.

"This bill glaringly ignores the persistent domestic terrorism threat from the radical left in this country and instead makes the assumption that it is all on the white and the right," said Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif.

The divergence highlights the stubborn gap between Democrats and Republicans over domestic terrorism in the U.S. and how it should be defined and prosecuted.

For decades, terrorism has been consistently tied with attacks from foreign actors, but as homegrown terrorism, often perpetrated by white men, has flourished over the past two decades, Democratic lawmakers have sought to clarify it in federal statute.

"We've seen it before in American history. The only thing missing between these organizations and the past are the white robes," Durbin said. "But the message is still the same hateful, divisive message, that sets off people to do outrageously extreme things, and violent things, to innocent people across America. It's time for us to take a stand."

The House passed a bipartisan bill on Friday to address gun violence that amounts to the first major federal gun safety legislation in decades.

The final tally was 234 to 193 with 14 Republicans voting with Democrats to approve the measure.

Now that the House has approved the measure, it will go to President Joe Biden to be signed into law, marking a significant bipartisan breakthrough on one of the most contentious policy issues in Washington. The Senate passed the bill in a late-night vote Thursday.

The measure includes millions of dollars for mental health, school safety, crisis intervention programs and incentives for states to include juvenile records in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System.

It also makes significant changes to the process when someone ages 18 to 21 goes to buy a firearm and closes the so-called boyfriend loophole, a victory for Democrats, who have long fought for that.

The package represents the most significant new federal legislation to address gun violence since the expired 10-year assault weapons ban of 1994 -- though it fails to ban any weapons and falls far short of what Democrats and polls show most Americans want to see.

Securing a bipartisan agreement on major gun legislation has been notoriously difficult for lawmakers in recent years even in the face of countless mass shootings across the country.

Democrats in particular have been quick to celebrate the bipartisan gun deal since action to address gun violence is a major priority for the party.

But the bill's passage was overshadowed on Friday by the news that the Supreme Court had overturned Roe v. Wade, holding that there is no longer a federal constitutional right to an abortion.

The opinion is the most consequential Supreme Court decision in decades and will transform the landscape of women's reproductive health in America.

It came one day after the Supreme Court struck down a New York gun law enacted more than a century ago that places restrictions on carrying a concealed handgun outside the home.

The rulings once again highlight the limited power of the Democratic party, despite it controlling both branches of Congress and the White House.

House GOP leaders opposed bill

Despite broad bipartisan support for the bill in the Senate, top House Republican leaders came out in opposition to the bill and urged their members to vote "no."

Fourteen House Republicans voted for the bill, however. They included:

1. Liz Cheney of Wyoming
2. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois
3. Tom Rice of South Carolina
4. John Katko of New York
5. Maria Salazar of Florida
6. Chris Jacobs of New York
7. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania
8. Peter Meijer of Michigan
9. Fred Upton of Michigan
10. Tony Gonzales of Texas
11. Steve Chabot of Ohio
12. Mike Turner of Ohio
13. David Joyce of Ohio
14. Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio

The bill passed the Senate on Thursday with 15 Republicans joining Democrats in support. The final tally was 65-33.

The legislation came together in the aftermath of recent mass shootings at a Uvalde, Texas, elementary school and a Buffalo, New York, supermarket that was in a predominantly Black neighborhood.

A bipartisan group of negotiators set to work in the Senate and unveiled legislative text on Tuesday. The bill — titled the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act — was released by Republican Sens. John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Democratic Sens. Chris Murphy of Connecticut and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona.

Lawmakers then raced to pass the bill before they left Washington for the July Fourth recess.

As lawmakers searched for a compromise, there were points at which it was not clear whether the effort would succeed or fall apart. But while the bipartisan effort appeared to be on thin ice after several key sticking points emerged, ultimately negotiators were able to resolve issues that arose.

Key provisions in the bill

The bill includes $750 million to help states implement and run crisis intervention programs. The money can be used to implement and manage red flag programs — which through court orders can temporarily prevent individuals in crisis from accessing firearms — and for other crisis intervention programs like mental health courts, drug courts and veterans courts.

This bill closes a years-old loophole in domestic violence law -- the "boyfriend loophole" -- which barred individuals who have been convicted of domestic violence crimes against spouses, partners with whom they shared children or partners with whom they cohabitated from having guns. Old statutes didn't include intimate partners who may not live together, be married or share children. Now the law will bar from having a gun anyone who is convicted of a domestic violence crime against someone they have a "continuing serious relationship of a romantic or intimate nature."

The law isn't retroactive. It will, however, allow those convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence crimes to restore their gun rights after five years if they haven't committed other crimes.

The bill encourages states to include juvenile records in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System with grants as well as implements a new protocol for checking those records.

The bill goes after individuals who sell guns as primary sources of income but have previously evaded registering as federally licensed firearms dealers. It also increases funding for mental health programs and school security.

The House of Representatives approved a firearm and mental health bill hatched in the Senate intended to reduce the growing number of mass shootings in the country.

The bill passed the House with mainly Democratic support. The bill passed by a 234-193 margin with 14 Republicans joining all 220 Democrats in passage.

"While it isn't everything we would have liked to see in legislation, it takes us down the road, the path to more safety, saving lives. Let us not judge the legislation for what it does not do, but respect it for what it does," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said.

The Senate approved the bill late Thursday by a 65-34 margin. While the bill had the support of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and 14 other GOP members, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy encouraged House Republicans to vote against it.

The bill had opposition from the National Rifle Association.

The legislation will include the following:

• Funds for states to implement red flag laws
• Family mental health spending
• Getting rid of the so-called “boyfriend loophole” by including those convicted of domestic abuse in background checks
• Funding for school-based mental health programs
• Funding for school safety resources
• Clarifying the language of a federally licensed firearm dealer
• Investments in telehealth programs
• Implementing a waiting period on gun purchases for those under age 21
• Penalties for straw purchases of firearms

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, spent the last week finalizing details on the bill. One concern he noted was on the boyfriend loophole and clarifying the language on domestic relationships.

Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican, explained why he was among Senate Republicans to vote in favor of the bill.

"This legislation accomplishes these goals without infringing upon a law-abiding citizen's second amendment right," he said. "And let me repeat that because there's been confusion in speeches from this floor, there's been internet exploding, there's rumors, afloat that somehow this infringes upon the law abiding citizen's right to keep and bear arms. That is absolutely false. And if anyone says, so they are misleading, the American people."

The House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 riot on the U.S. Capitol has issued a subpoena to U.S. Secret Service Director James Murray related to reports of deleted texts on Secret Service phones from Jan. 5 and 6, 2021.

The House Select Committee said in the letter that while investigating the facts, they're looking for "all documents or materials that refer or relate to events" on Jan. 6, 2021

A letter given to the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol states that the U.S. Secret Service erased text messages from Jan. 5 and 6, 2021 after they had been requested by officials overseeing the investigation into Jan. 6, along with the agency's response to the U.S. Capitol attack.

A letter handed over to the House Select Committee investigating Jan. 6, and published by CNN, says that the messages on Jan. 5 and 6, 2021 were erased as part of a "device-replacement program."

The letter says, "The USSS erased those text messages after OIG requested records of electronic communications from the USSS, as part of" an evaluation of events "at the Capitol on January 6."

The Office of Inspector General said that there were weeks-long delays in obtaining records, and said that confusion was created over whether all of the records had been handed over.

The Secret Service said late Thursday that these messages were not deleted intentionally. The agency said the messages were lost in a pre-planned data migration project.

The Secret Service also denied allegations that it is not cooperating with the Inspector General.

The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol announced Tuesday that it had postponed a hearing scheduled for Wednesday as a hurricane hurtled toward the Florida coast.

Related video above: Footage of Trump recording an address to the nation a day after Capitol attack shown at last Jan. 6 committee hearing

The committee had planned to hold what was likely to be its final investigative hearing Wednesday afternoon, but members decided at the last minute to delay it as it became clear that Hurricane Ian was churning on a collision course toward Florida, where it was expected to strengthen into a catastrophic Category 4 storm.

“We’re praying for the safety of all those in the storm’s path," committee chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., and vice chair Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., said in a statement Tuesday afternoon. "The Select Committee’s investigation goes forward and we will soon announce a date for the postponed proceedings.”

The committee had not yet provided a specific agenda for the Wednesday hearing, but Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said over the weekend it would “tell the story about a key element of Donald Trump’s plot to overturn the election.”

This week's hearing was intended to close the series of public hearings the nine-member panel embarked on in early June. Throughout eight hearings, the committee — comprised of seven Democrats and two Republicans — sought to show the American public in great detail how former President Trump ignored many of his closest advisers and amplified his false claims of election fraud after he lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden.

Some of the more than 1,000 witnesses interviewed by the panel — a number of them Trump’s closest allies — recounted in videotaped testimony how the former president declined to act when hundreds of his supporters violently attacked the Capitol as Congress certified Biden’s victory on Jan. 6, 2021. But the committee has said its work isn't done.

During the August recess, congressional investigators continued to interview witnesses, including several of Trump's cabinet members, some of whom had discussed invoking the constitutional process in the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office after the insurrection.

Cheney had previously said the committee “has far more evidence to share with the American people and more to gather.”

There are also many questions surrounding the effort to overturn the election that remain unanswered as the committee goes into its final three months of work.

Panel members still want to get to the bottom of missing Secret Service texts from Jan. 5-6, 2021, which could shed further light on Trump’s actions during the insurrection, particularly after earlier testimony about his confrontation with security as he tried to join supporters at the Capitol. Thompson said earlier this month that the committee has recently obtained “thousands” of documents from the Secret Service.

Last week, the committee was able to secure an interview with conservative activist Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, who’s married to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Lawmakers want to know more about her role in trying to help Trump overturn the election. She contacted lawmakers in Arizona and Wisconsin as part of that effort.

And the last, but possibly most consequential decision left on the committee's plate is how aggressively to pursue testimony from Trump and former Vice President Mike Pence.

The panel will have to wrap up these loose ends by the end of the year, when the select committee status expires. If Republicans take the majority in November’s elections, as they are favored to do, they are expected to dissolve the committee in January. So the panel is planning to issue a final report by the end of December that will include legislative reforms to help prevent future attempts to subvert democracy.

With the official start of summer approaching, plenty of people have their windows open to let in some fresh air.And when leaving the windows open, you might expect the occasional breeze, raindrop or insect to make its way into the house.A house in Colorado got an unexpected visitor when a bear recently saw an open window as an invitation to pay a visit.Heidi Hannah captured a video of the bear hanging by its claws from a second-floor window in Steamboat Springs, which is in Northern Colorado.Eventually, the bear made it inside the house and then made its way out of the home via another window on the ground floor.See the video of the bear climbing through the window in the video player above

WASHINGTON —

House Republicans passed a resolution that would repeal a Biden administration rule tightening federal regulations on stabilizing braces for firearms, an accessory that has been used in several mass shootings in the U.S. over the last decade.

The resolution passed 219-210 nearly on party lines and after a contentious floor debate where Republicans accused the administration of "executive overreach" and Democrats condemned a bill they said would "help kill people." Two Democrats voted in support and two Republicans voted against it.

Video above: Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra appears for a House hearing on Capitol Hill and called gun violence a health care crisis in the U.S.

The resolution, which was introduced by Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., will now go to the Senate, which could take up the measure as soon as this week. Should it pass, President Joe Biden has promised a veto. Overriding a presidential veto would require two-thirds majorities in the House and Senate.

The new rule issued by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in January treats guns with the accessories like short-barreled rifles, a weapon that is like a sawed-off shotgun and has been heavily regulated since the 1930s.

The regulation, which went into effect June 1, was one of several steps Biden announced in 2021 after a man using a stabilizing brace killed 10 people at a grocery store in Boulder, Colorado. A stabilizing brace was also used in a shooting in Dayton, Ohio, that left nine people dead in 2019 and most recently in a school shooting in Nashville, Tennessee.

Stabilizing braces transform a pistol into a weapon that's powerful and easy to conceal, Attorney General Merrick Garland said when he announced the rule. Originally developed for disabled veterans, gun-control groups have said the accessories have became a loophole exploited by gunmakers to make weapons more deadly.

Since taking effect earlier this month, the rule requires anyone who has a gun with an arm-stabilizing brace to register the weapon with the federal government and pay a fee, or remove the brace from their weapons.

Republicans employed the Congressional Review Act, which allows Congress to undo recently enacted executive branch regulations, to try and nullify the new rule that they claim has turned millions of gun owners into felons.

"This rule doesn't just infringe upon Americans' Second Amendment liberties. It represents a dangerous government overreach by the administration," Clyde said during debate Tuesday. "Congress maintains sole legislative authority, not government agencies, not the executive branch."

Several lawsuits have been filed against the regulations by gun owners and state attorneys general. They say it violates Second Amendment protections by requiring millions of people to alter or register their weapons. In some cases, judges have recently agreed to temporarily block enforcement of the rule for the plaintiffs in a setback for the Biden administration.

House Democrats defended the rule on Tuesday, saying it could save lives.

"How many more mass shootings need to happen, how many more kids need to die before my Republican colleagues pull their heads out of the sand and realize that the NRA money is not worth the damage that's been done to our country," said Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass.

The main sponsor for the measure, Clyde, is a member of the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus and the owner of a gun store in his district in Georgia. His proposal to overturn the ATF rule first came to the House Judiciary Committee in late March for markup. But House Republicans postponed debate of the measure after a gunman used a weapon with a stabilizing brace to fatally shoot three children and three adults at an elementary school in Nashville, Tennessee.

Last week, Clyde claimed GOP leadership had blocked his resolution from reaching the floor as retribution for his no vote on a bipartisan agreement to lift the debt ceiling, which leaders denied.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said he and Rep. Tom Emmer, the GOP's chief vote-counter, had been working intensely to ensure enough support to pass the legislation in the narrowly divided House.

"We've been moving people every week on this bill," Scalise said. "It has not been easy."

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.

AUSTIN, Texas —

Texas' GOP-led House of Representatives impeached state Attorney General Ken Paxton on Saturday on articles including bribery and abuse of public trust, a sudden, historic rebuke of a fellow Republican who rose to be a star of the conservative legal movement despite years of scandal and alleged crimes.

The vote triggers Paxton's immediate suspension from office pending the outcome of a trial in the state Senate and empowers Republican Gov. Greg Abbott to appoint someone else as Texas' top lawyer in the interim.

The vote constitutes an abrupt downfall for one of the GOP's most prominent legal combatants, who in 2020 asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn President Joe Biden's electoral defeat of Donald Trump. It makes Paxton only the third sitting official in Texas' nearly 200-year history to have been impeached.

Paxton, 60, has decried what he called "political theater" based on "hearsay and gossip, parroting long-disproven claims," and said it's an attempt to disenfranchise voters who reelected him in November. It's unclear where the attorney general was Saturday, but during the House proceeding, he was sharing statements from supporters on Twitter.

"No one person should be above the law, least not the top law enforcement officer of the state of Texas," Rep. David Spiller, a Republican member of the committee that investigated Paxton, said in opening statements. Rep. Ann Johnson, a Democratic member, told lawmakers that Texas' "top cop is on the take." Rep. Charlie Geren, a Republican committee member, said without elaborating that Paxton had called lawmakers and threatened them with political "consequences." As the articles of impeachment were laid out, some of the lawmakers shook their heads. They are expected to debate impeachment for four hours before voting.

Paxton has been under FBI investigation for years over accusations that he used his office to help a donor and was separately indicted on securities fraud charges in 2015, though he has yet to stand trial. Until this week, his fellow Republicans had taken a muted stance on the allegations.

Lawmakers allied with Paxton tried to discredit the investigation by noting that hired investigators, not panel members, interviewed witnesses. They also said several of the investigators had voted in Democratic primaries, tainting the impeachment, and that they had too little time to review evidence.

"I perceive it could be political weaponization," said Rep. Tony Tinderholt, one of the House's most conservative members. Republican Rep. John Smithee compared the proceeding to "a Saturday mob out for an afternoon lynching."

Impeachment requires just a simple majority in the House. That means only a small fraction of its 85 Republicans would need to join 64 Democrats in voting against him.

If impeached, Paxton would be suspended pending a Senate trial, and it would fall to Republican Gov. Greg Abbott to appoint an interim replacement. Final removal would require a two-thirds vote in the Senate, where Paxton's wife, Angela, is a member.

Texas' top elected Republicans had been notably quiet about Paxton this week. But on Saturday both Trump and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz came to his defense, with the senator calling the impeachment process "a travesty" and said the attorney general's legal troubles should be left to the courts.

"Free Ken Paxton," Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social, warning that if House Republicans proceeded with the process, "I will fight you."

Abbott, who lauded Paxton while swearing him in for a third term in January, has remained silent. The governor spoke at a Memorial Day service in the House chamber about three hours before the impeachment proceedings began. Republican House Speaker Dade Phelan also attended but the two appeared to exchange few words, and Abbott left without commenting to reporters.

In one sense, Paxton's political peril arrived with dizzying speed: The House committee's investigation came to light Tuesday, and by Thursday lawmakers issued 20 articles of impeachment.

But to Paxton's detractors, the rebuke was years overdue.

In 2014, he admitted to violating Texas securities law, and a year later he was indicted on securities fraud charges in his hometown near Dallas, accused of defrauding investors in a tech startup. He pleaded not guilty to two felony counts carrying a potential sentence of five to 99 years.

He opened a legal defense fund and accepted $100,000 from an executive whose company was under investigation by Paxton's office for Medicaid fraud. An additional $50,000 was donated by an Arizona retiree whose son Paxton later hired to a high-ranking job but was soon fired after displaying child pornography in a meeting. In 2020, Paxton intervened in a Colorado mountain community where a Texas donor and college classmate faced removal from his lakeside home under coronavirus orders.

But what ultimately unleashed the impeachment push was Paxton's relationship with Austin real estate developer Nate Paul.

In 2020, eight top aides told the FBI they were concerned Paxton was misusing his office to help Paul over the developer's unproven claims that an elaborate conspiracy to steal $200 million of his properties was afoot. The FBI searched Paul's home in 2019, but he has not been charged and denies wrongdoing. Paxton also told staff members he had an affair with a woman who, it later emerged, worked for Paul.

The impeachment accuses Paxton of attempting to interfere in foreclosure lawsuits and issuing legal opinions to benefit Paul. Its bribery charges allege that Paul employed the woman with whom Paxton had an affair in exchange for legal help and that he paid for expensive renovations to the attorney general's home.

A senior lawyer for Paxton's office, Chris Hilton, said Friday that the attorney general paid for all repairs and renovations.

Other charges, including lying to investigators, date back to Paxton's still-pending securities fraud indictment.

Four of the aides who reported Paxton to the FBI later sued under Texas' whistleblower law, and in February he agreed to settle the case for $3.3 million. The House committee said it was Paxton seeking legislative approval for the payout that sparked their probe.

"But for Paxton's own request for a taxpayer-funded settlement over his wrongful conduct, Paxton would not be facing impeachment," the panel said.

___

Bleiberg reported from Dallas.

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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Democrats have quickly pushed legislation through the House that they say positions the U.S. to better compete with China economically by strengthening the domestic semiconductor industry and shoring up strained supply chains.

The bill passed by a vote of 222-210. Criticizing China has become a bipartisan playbook in Washington. But, in this case, Republicans panned the measure as "toothless" and short of what is needed to hold China accountable for a range of actions.

The nearly 3,000-page bill includes massive investments designed to boost semiconductor manufacturing in the U.S., but Democrats have also tucked in other priorities that have raised GOP concerns.

As Reuters pointed out, a vote on the bill happened just hours after the Beijing Olympics' opening ceremony. Congress has been critical of the International Olympic Committee for awarding China the opportunity to host the Games.

The need to increase manufacturing for chips is high.

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo told a group of reporters, "Every day we delay we fall farther behind and that increases our domestic national security risk."

The House has now taken the next step in authorizing nearly $300 billion for research and development, which would include $52 billion in semiconductor subsidies which are key to making automobiles and computers.

STANTON, Iowa — Small towns are often known for their charm and community spirit.

Jenna Ramsey is the community development director of Stanton. It's a small town located in southwest Iowa.

“Stanton is a small but mighty community with Swedish heritage," Ramsey said. "Our population is 689. Wherever you go, you know people. There’s no stoplights. You can run in and get a cup of coffee.”

While she says Stanton is a very affordable place to live compared to a larger city, it still lacks affordable housing for young families.

“We just know that all the costs of everything seem to be going up right now, so that is what makes the affordable housing challenging,” Ramsey said.

Small towns all over rural Iowa are facing the same issue. To keep the communities growing and thriving, they’re turning to innovative solutions like 3D-printed homes.

“We are building the first prototype 3D-printed home here in Hamburg, Iowa,” said Tamara Brunow, founder and president of Brunow Contracting.

Brunow is a key partner in the 3D Affordable Housing Project.

“I'm very passionate about affordable housing because I needed affordable housing at one point in my life," Brunow said. "I was a single mom for 13 years and I had the luxury of having a house that was fairly affordable to me. What we're seeing right now in the housing industry, the starting point, the entry point is so cost-prohibitive to young families and a lot of areas, they're just not going there.”

On an empty patch of land in Hamburg, the hope is to build 25 to 35 residential units that will be for sale to future homeowners. The 3D Affordable Housing Project is a collaboration between Brunow Contracting, Iowa Economic Development Authority, and Iowa State University.

Julie Robison works in the college of design at Iowa State University. She says it will be a learning process to find out whether 3D-printed homes will actually save money.

“Part of our work is going to be to actually answer that question, what are the benefits of 3D printing?" Robison said. "We think that you can reduce the amount of time that it takes to actually construct homes, that you can seriously reduce the amount of time and labor hours to put up walls.”

Brunow says they will be testing materials, design, and energy efficiency to confirm if using 3D-printing technology will be a sustainable solution for affordable housing in rural Iowa.

“The places 3D-printed homes have been implemented right now, are in the South," Brunow said. "They don't have the swing and temperature difference that we do up here in the Midwest. So we deal with a lot of freeze-thaw. We have wind loads, snow loads. So all of that engineering has to kind of go back to the basics.”

If it does work out, they hope to expand into other small towns around Iowa, potentially serving as a national model for the entire Midwest. Robison says the project will also allow the university to develop a curriculum for workforce training to help educate the next generation.

“Our mission is transformation and research and technology-driven outcomes that can then change the economy and change lives,” Robison said.

Even though technology will be what draws people to the small towns, it’s the human connection that will keep them there.

“Especially since the pandemic, people want that sense of community, they want to know who their neighbors are," Brunow said. "They want to be a part of something.”

 

We're entering year three of a scorching hot housing market, but even if the economy recovers as expected, that won't immediately solve the housing supply shortage across the U.S. The shortage existed before 2020, but the pandemic made things even worse.

There's a lack of materials due to supply chain bottlenecks, and building companies have struggled to fill jobs amid the great resignation. Low supply matched with high demand has sent prices soaring.

"Homes that were $380,000 are now $520,000," developer Ed Pavicic said.

The average household income in United States is just over $67,000, and if you follow the advice of conventional financial planners, you shouldn't buy a home worth more than three times your salary.

That means the average household should shoot for a home around $200,000. However, that's half of what they're going for these days, on average.

The good news is some experts say a turnaround is coming as the U.S. Federal Reserve prepares to raise interest rates.

Chairman Jerome Powell said earlier this month that interest rates could rise at least three times or more this year if inflation doesn't fall. But it's still unclear how quickly that will happen, or just how much it might bring prices down.

This story was originally reported by Bianca Facchinei on Newsy.com

It seems impossible — especially with today's housing market! — but one woman literally traded a single bobby pin for a house.Back in May 2020, Demi Skipper started the Trade Me Project on TikTok, in which she documented a series of trades until she ended up with a house. She finally completed her mission after a year and a half, scoring a home at the end of November.In her 28th and final exchange, Skipper traded a trailer worth $40,000 for a house in Clarksville, Tennessee. Along the way, she traded items including a vacuum, diamond necklace, Peloton, and even a Mustang."For a lot of people, homeownership feels far out of reach, so the entire journey was just about proving it was possible to trade a single bobby pin for a house," Skipper said.When she set out on this adventure, she didn't have a specific location for the home in mind.Wherever it was, though, she planned on living in it. But now, she's made a more generous decision: "After meeting so many amazing people along this journey, I've made the decision to trade the house to someone who really needs it — for a bobby pin," Skipper explains. "Meaning that person will get the new home, and I will get a bobby pin to start the journey all over again."The challenge was inspired by Kyle MacDonald, who completed a similar quest starting with a red paperclip in 2006."I'd love to be the first person who is crazy enough to do it twice," she says.We can't wait to see how she'll do it next time. Now, all we need to satisfy our curious souls is a tour of the inside of the Tennessee house!

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Democrats are pushing Congress’ biggest coronavirus relief bill yet toward expected House passage Friday.

The measure is a $3 trillion behemoth that liberal lawmakers say a beleaguered country badly needs. Most Republicans oppose it say it's simply a bloated election-year Democratic wish list.

The bill, called “The HEROES Act,” would pump almost $1 trillion to states and local governments, renew $1,200 cash payments for individuals, and extend a $600 weekly supplemental federal unemployment benefit.

The package also includes another round of stimulus payments, offering $1,200 in direct cash aid to individuals and up to $6,000 per household.

The bill would also provide about $75 billion more in funding for virus testing, contact tracing and treatment.

Another $200 billion would be set aside for a "Heroes Fund" which would provide hazard pay for essential workers, such as front-line health care employees.

The package also includes a $25 billion bailout for the U.S. Postal Service.

Additionally, a provision in the bill would provide up to $10,000 in student loan forgiveness for federal and private student loan borrowers.

Democratic leaders were pressing ahead Friday despite grumbling from moderates about the measure’s massive price tag and progressives who wanted bolder steps, like money to cover workers’ salaries.

As is, the bill will never pass the GOP-run Senate or get President Donald Trump's signature.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has already said the 1,815 measure is Democrats' opening offer in what is expected to lead to bipartisan negotiations.

EDGEWOOD, Md. —

The scene investigators called a "violent gas explosion" in Edgewood, Maryland, came into focus Monday morning as cleanup efforts and the investigation began.

One person was hospitalized after a gas explosion destroyed a house Sunday night at the intersection in Edgewood, fire officials told sister station WBAL.

Investigators from the Maryland State Fire Marshal's Office wrapped up their investigation at the scene shortly after noon Monday. Investigators told WBAL this was a gas explosion and Baltimore Gas and Electric is not at fault. The area of origin was within the kitchen, where investigators are focusing on the stove.

"I saw the flames shooting over the top of the house on the corner, and the more I walked up, I realized what had happened," said Donna Dulski, a neighbor. "(It's) quite upsetting, and I would have bet my next paycheck that nobody would have made it out of that house alive."

"I was about ready to fall asleep and suddenly I heard this noise I have never heard before. I mean, it was thunderous," said Rick Dulski, a neighbor.

"It was big. It was deep. It was very scary. The lights went off immediately," said Alicia Larkins, a neighbor.

Henry Schwartzman also felt the blast. He lives next door to the home that exploded.

"It knocked me off the sofa and things started to fall down. It got black all of a sudden after the hit," he said. "I came to the door and I (saw) flames and smoke."

As he got the process started to get the damage to his home repaired, Schwartzman was thinking about his next-door neighbor who survived the blast.

"He worked for the Postal Service. He was going to retire in two months," Schwartzman said.

"We're just praying right now that he recovers from his injuries," Donna Dulski said.

"Thank God he was alive," Larkins said.

Investigators said the homeowner was pulled from the rubble in the back of the house by a good Samaritan, who also pulled a dog from the rubble. Investigators want to speak with the good Samaritan to get more details. The dog is being treated by an emergency vet and a second dog is being treated by animal control.

"It's a miracle that he survived such a violent explosion," Deputy State Fire Marshal Oliver Alkire said.

Investigators said the homeowner is in critical but stable condition at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center for treatment of upwards of third-degree burns mostly to his upper body.

WASHINGTON — Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi announced on Twitter Thursday the House and Senate have sent the bipartisan COVID relief bill to President Donald Trump to sign. The announcement comes after efforts to quickly increase direct payments from $600 to $2,000 in the stimulus bill initially seemed to have failed to move forward Thursday.

In a tweet, Pelosi stated, "The bipartisan COVID relief & omnibus bill has been enrolled. The House & Senate are now sending this important legislation #ForThePeople to the White House for the President’s signature. We urge him to sign this bill into law to give immediate relief to hard-working families!"

Earlier Thursday, Pelosi issued a statement that the House will be back in session on Monday, "where we will hold a recorded vote on our stand-alone bill to increase economic impact payments to $2,000."

After months of negotiations, Congress agreed on and passed nearly a trillion dollars in relief aid Monday. The package includes up to $600 payments to individuals, in addition to supplemental jobless benefits, help for small businesses and a moratorium on evictions.

The relief package was also attached to the overall $1.4 trillion government funding bill, which included federal spending and priorities for the next fiscal year across all departments and agencies.

President Donald Trump, who had not personally been involved in the negotiations but rather had surrogates from the administration participate, tweeted a video Tuesday in which he indicated he may not sign the bill and called for larger checks to Americans, around $2,000. The bill has not been signed yet.

Democrats supported the president’s call, and moved quickly to increase the direct payments to $2,000 in order to secure the president’s signature and pass the relief package into law.

The House tried to pass the larger payments addendum during a pro forma session, which is a brief meeting of the chamber where typically only a few members attend. Democrats had hoped to approve the measure by unanimous consent. That did not happen, according to The Hill and CNBC.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer sought to pass the measure, while Representative Rob Wittman wanted to bring up a competing measure, according to The Hill. The representative presiding over the session Thursday morning shot down both requests, saying that according to guidelines, legislation cannot be considered by unanimous consent unless there is the approval of bipartisan leadership.

The Republican House leader Kevin McCarthy said the effort was to "re-examine how we spend taxpayer dollars on foreign aid - as President @realDonaldTrump called for." He then thanked Rep. Wittman for "representing Republicans" in the "fight for the American people."

Pelosi tweeted that since efforts Thursday failed, the House will hold a vote on a stand alone bill on Monday. Her statement also called on the president to help pass the increase he is seeking.

"If the President is serious about the $2,000 direct payments, he must call on House Republicans to end their obstruction," her statement reads.

Thanks to extensions, the federal government is funded through Sunday night. However, if the funding bill with the COVID relief package included is not signed by the president before Sunday night, it could mean a government shutdown on Monday.

President and First Lady Trump are currently at their Mar-a-Lago resort for Christmas.

Congress is ending a chaotic session, a two-year political firestorm that started with the longest federal government shutdown in U.S. history, was riven by impeachment and a pandemic, and now closes with a rare rebuff by Republicans of President Donald Trump.

In the few days remaining, GOP senators are ignoring Trump's demand to increase COVID-19 aid checks to $2,000 and are poised to override his veto of a major defense bill, asserting traditional Republican spending and security priorities in defiance of a president who has marched the party in a different direction.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a top Trump ally, tried to bridge the divide Thursday, saying Congress could try again to approve Trump's push for bigger COVID aid checks in the new session, which opens Sunday.

“I am with President Trump on this," Graham said on Fox News.

“Our economy is really hurting here,” he said. "There’s no way to get a vote by Jan. 3. The new Congress begins noon Jan. 3. So the new Congress, you could get a vote.’’

As the Senate grinds through the New Year's holiday, the one-two rebuke of Trump's demands punctuates the president’s final days and deepens the divide between the Republican Party's new wing of Trump-styled populists and what had been mainstay conservative views.

The stalemate is expected to drag into the weekend.

An exasperated Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said this week, “After all the insanity that Senate Republicans have tolerated from President Trump — his attacks on the rule of law, an independent judiciary, the conduct that led to his impeachment — is this where Senate Republicans are going to draw the line — $2,000 checks to the American people?”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has shown little interest in Trump's push to bolster the $600 relief checks just approved in a sweeping year-end package, declaring Congress has provided enough pandemic aid, for now, as he blocked repeated Democratic attempts to force a vote.

Opening the Senate on Thursday, McConnell called the House-passed bill matching Trump's $2,000 request “socialism for rich people” who don't need the federal help. He prefers a more targeted approach.

The refusal to act on the checks, along with the veto Friday or Saturday of the defense bill, could very well be among McConnell's final acts as majority leader as two GOP senators in Georgia are in the fights of their political lives in runoff elections next week that will determine which party controls the Senate.

Trump made an early return Thursday to the White House from his private club in Florida.

Trump and President-elect Joe Biden are separately poised to campaign in Georgia ahead of Tuesday's election as GOP Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler face Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock.

It's a dizzying end to a session of Congress that resembles few others for the sheer number of crises and political standoffs as Trump's presidency defined and changed the legislative branch.

Congress opened in 2019 with the federal government shutdown over Trump's demands for money to build the border wall with Mexico. Nancy Pelosi regained the speaker's gavel after Democrats swept to the House majority in the midterm election.

Related video: Pelosi slams McConnell for halting stimulus checks

The Democratic-led House went on to impeach the president over his request to the Ukrainian president to “do us a favor” against Biden ahead of the presidential election. The Republican-led Senate acquitted the president in 2020 of the charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

When the pandemic struck, Congress rallied with unusual speed and agreement to pass a $2 trillion relief package, the largest federal intervention of its kind in U.S. history.

The COVID-19 crisis also shuttered the Capitol and altered the workings of Congress. The House changed its rules to allow proxy voting, a first, so lawmakers could avoid the health risks of travel to Washington. The Senate ultimately halted its traditional daily lunches.

The usually bustling halls of Congress became eerily silent most days. Many members tested positive for the virus.

The Congress had few other notable legislative accomplishes, and could not agree on how to respond to the racial injustice reckoning that erupted after the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and other Black Americans at the hands of law enforcement.

Instead, the Senate was primarily focused on filling the courts with Trump's conservative judicial nominees, including confirming his third Supreme Court justice, Amy Coney Barrett.

As the session appeared to be winding down, Trump stunned Washington days before Christmas by delaying his signature on the latest $2 trillion-plus COVID relief and year-end funding package over his fresh demands for additional aid.

Trump’s push for $2,000 checks gained sudden momentum when dozens of House Republicans joined Democrats in approving the measure Monday. But the effort fizzled in the GOP-led Senate.

Democrats embraced Trump's demand, a rare alliance with the Republican president, but his own party split between those few joining his push for more aid and others objecting to more spending they said was not targeted to those who need it most.

Liberal senators, led by Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who support the relief boost are blocking action on the defense bill until a vote is taken on Trump’s demand.

McConnell offered an alternative aid bill, linking the $2,000 checks with Trump's other priorities, including a complicated repeal of protections for tech companies like Facebook or Twitter and the establishment of a bipartisan commission to review the 2020 presidential election.

But the GOP leader has scheduled no votes on his measure and it would be unlikely to have enough support in Congress to pass.

For now, the smaller $600 checks are being sent to households. Americans earning up to $75,000 qualify for the payments, which are phased out at higher income levels, and there’s an additional $600 payment per dependent child.

The outgoing president has been berating Republican leaders for the standoff, but he appears more focused on gathering GOP support for his extraordinary Electoral College challenge of Biden's victory when the vote is tallied in a joint session of Congress on Jan. 6.

Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri is among those leading Trump’s challenge to the Electoral College result, but he was rebuked Thursday by GOP Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska, who warned colleagues off what he called a “dangerous ploy” that could damage trust in elections.

The challenge is not expected to change the election outcome, with Biden set to be inaugurated Jan. 20. But it will be among the first votes tallied in the new Congress.

WASHINGTON —

Nancy Pelosi was narrowly reelected Sunday as speaker, giving her the reins of Democrats' slender House majority as President-elect Joe Biden sets a challenging course of producing legislation to tackle the pandemic, revive the economy and address other party priorities.

The California Democrat, who has led her party in the House since 2003 and is the only woman to be speaker, had been widely expected to retain her post. Pelosi received 216 votes to 209 for Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., who again will be the chamber's minority leader.

To gain her victory, Pelosi had to overcome some Democratic grumbling about her longevity, a slim 222-211 edge over Republicans after November's elections, and a handful of absences because of the coronavirus. There were two vacancies in the 435-member House, and whatever happens Democrats will have the smallest House majority in two decades.

The new Congress convened Sunday, just two days after lawmakers ended their contentious previous session and with COVID-19 guidelines requiring testing and face coverings for House members. There was widespread mask-wearing and far fewer lawmakers and guests in the chamber than usual, an unimaginable tableau when the last Congress commenced two years ago, before the pandemic struck.

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., formally nominated Pelosi for the job, calling her "a notorious negotiator and a legendary legislator for such a time as this."

Jeffries, a member of House leadership who's expected to contend for the speakership whenever Pelosi steps aside, said that as Pelosi prepares to work with Democratic President-elect Joe Biden, "Brighter days are ahead in the United States of America. This is the day of great renewal in the House of Representatives."

To be reelected, Pelosi needed a majority of votes cast for specific candidates and could afford to lose only a handful of Democratic votes. House rules give her a bit of wiggle room because lawmakers who are absent or who vote "present" are not counted in the total number of those voting.

Sunday's vote was expected to last perhaps three hours as lawmakers voted in groups of around 72 each to minimize exposure to the virus.

With every vote at a premium, workers had constructed an enclosure in a balcony overlooking the House chamber so lawmakers exposed to or testing positive for the coronavirus could more safely vote. Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio, voted from there.

Two Democrats who tested positive for the virus last month and say they have recovered voted for Pelosi from the House floor: Wisconsin Rep. Gwen Moore and Washington state Rep. Rick Larsen.

In a positive sign for Pelosi, newly elected progressive Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., voted for her. "Our country needs stability right now, and it's really important for the Democratic Party to come together," Bowman told a reporter.

Pelosi won plaudits from many Democrats for two years of leading their opposition to President Donald Trump, largely keeping her party's moderates and progressives united on their joint goal of defeating him and raising mountains of campaign funds. No Democrat has stepped forward to challenge her, underscoring the perception that she would be all but impossible to topple.

But Pelosi is 80 years old, and ambitious younger members continue chafing at the longtime hold she and other older top leaders have had on their jobs. Democrats were also angry and divided after an Election Day that many expected would to mean added House seats for the party but instead saw a dozen incumbents lose, without defeating a single GOP representative.

Pelosi recently suggested anew that these would be her final two years as speaker, referencing a statement she made two years ago in which she said she would step aside after this period.

The speaker's election was coming 17 days before Biden is inaugurated. Yet rather than a fresh start for him and Pelosi, there were issues and undercurrents that will be carrying over from Trump's tempestuous administration.

Though Congress enacted — and Trump finally signed — a $900 billion COVID-19 relief package late last month, Biden and many Democrats say they consider that measure a down payment. They say more aid is needed to bolster efforts to vaccinate the public, curb the virus and restore jobs and businesses lost to the pandemic.

Many Democrats, with the unlikely support of Trump, wanted to boost that bill's $600 per person direct payments to $2,000 but were blocked by Republicans. Democrats want additional money to help state and local governments struggling to maintain services and avoid layoffs.

Biden's priorities also include efforts on health care and the environment.

Guiding such legislation through the House will be a challenge for Pelosi because her party's narrow majority means just a handful of defectors could be fatal.

In addition, cooperation with Republicans could be made more difficult as many in the GOP are continuing to demonstrate fealty to the divisive Trump, backing his unfounded claims that his reelection loss was tainted by fraud. Congress will meet Wednesday to officially affirm Biden's clear Electoral College victory over Trump. Many House and Senate Republicans say they will contest the validity of some of those votes, but their efforts that are certain to fail.

There was no widespread fraud in the election, which a range of election officials across the country, as well as Trump's former attorney general, William Barr, have confirmed. Republican governors in Arizona and Georgia, key battleground states crucial to Biden's victory, have also vouched for the integrity of the elections in their states. Nearly all the legal challenges from Trump and his allies have been dismissed by judges, including two tossed by the Supreme Court, which includes three Trump-nominated justices.

Meanwhile, it's not clear which party will control the Senate, which Republicans will hold unless Democrats win both Senate runoff elections in Georgia on Tuesday.

In the House, one race in New York is still being decided and there is a vacancy in Louisiana after GOP Rep.-elect Luke Letlow, 41, died after contracting COVID-19.

On Wednesday, the latest extraordinary development in an extraordinary election will unfold.

In a joint session of Congress designed as a ceremonial affirmation to President-elect Joe Biden's victory, some Republicans — but hardly all of them — are vowing to object to voting results in one or more states. Despite no evidence, they accuse the elections of being fraudulent.

Though their actions — at least outwardly — are designed to aid President Donald Trump's efforts to stay in office, the efforts face near-certain failure even as they carve an even deeper divide in the American public sphere.

Lisa Mascaro, congressional correspondent for The Associated Press, has been covering Congress since 2010 and is waist-deep in the current, extraordinary saga. Here, she breaks down exactly what's going to happen Wednesday — and why it is highly unlikely to change anything related to Biden's impending inauguration.

___

WHY WON'T IT WORK?

This effort is all but certain to fail. The main reason is that there's a robust bipartisan majority in both the House and the Senate to accept the results of the election as they've been certified by the states.

So the challenge that's being mounted comes from about a dozen Republican senators — I think we're up to 13 now — and as many as 100 House Republicans. But there are a total of 535 members of Congress (minus a few vacancies). Those are the numbers.

Democrats have the majority in the house. They will almost certainly agree with the results from the states that Biden won the election. Republicans are very split over this effort. Trump's efforts to challenge the results has splintered the party in ways we have not seen. The votes Wednesday will show that. This really is a time unlike any other in the Capitol.

HOW DID WE GET HERE?

Under the Constitution, the Electoral College is the way the votes are counted. Laws have been enacted to govern this process — and a joint session of Congress is sort of the final confirmation.

We don't have a national election. The states confirm the results and the states determine the electors and then send that tally up to Washington.

So the House and Senate will convene for this session at 1 p.m. — all the lawmakers gathered in the House chamber to confirm the election results. And that's that Joe Biden won. Even William Barr, Trump's attorney general until last month, has said he found no evidence of fraud on a wide scale that could change the outcome. The outcomes have been repeatedly certified by state officials.

That said, a number of Republicans are taking the president's challenge and splitting the party on this issue.

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE JOINT SESSION OF CONGRESS CONVENES?

There are about six states that the Republicans concerned about the elections want to challenge.

What's going to happen is that results from the states will be brought in in envelopes, and Vice President Mike Pence will open them and read the tallies. As he does, any member can object. And some will. But for any challenge to have currency, it has to have a member of the House and a member of the Senate join in writing.

Right now, we have only a few senators saying they will join any of this in writing.

One of the first states to be challenged is expected to be Arizona. A number of House Republicans will challenge that. And Ted Cruz, a senator on the Republican side, has said he will challenge it. If there's a challenge, the proceedings come to a halt.

The senators will go back to the Senate and deliberate, and the House members will stay in the house and deliberate. Each will have two hours of deliberation. And then they'll vote and they'll come back together and explain their vote. So this is expected to be a very long day.

WHY SO LONG?

In the Senate, the Republicans are split. So even though they have a majority, they're not all part of this group of a dozen or so who are willing to challenge the election.

When the lawmakers come back in the joint session, we'll see that the challenge for Arizona is likely to fail. And we'll see this over and over through the day — Arizona, Pennsylvania, possibly Georgia, Nevada, Michigan and Wisconsin.

The only other state we know for sure there'll be a challenge in is Pennsylvania. Sen. Josh Hawley has said he'll challenge it. But the Republican senator from Pennsylvania, Pat Toomey, has said he will not challenge it.

If all these states are challenged, that's many hours of debate. The leadership is expected to try to make certain there's an outcome — that they stay until the process is finished, even if that means working through the night and coming back the next day. The leadership is set to make sure this gets finished.

WHAT'S THE PRECEDENT FOR THIS?

Other vice presidents have also had to preside over their own defeats.

Vice President Al Gore was presiding over the chamber in 2001 over the disputed 2000 election. He, too, had to sign off on the tally that essentially prevented him from becoming president. Lawmakers have made challenges before, but nothing on the scope we expect to see this time. So we're in extraordinary, unprecedented times here.

WASHINGTON —

Congress is resuming its joint session after a dramatic and unprecedented day saw a mob of violent protesters storm the U.S. Capitol building.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is set to open the proceeding in the Senate at 8 p.m. The Senate originally suspended its deliberations after chanting protesters gained entry to the Capitol, prompting police to lock down the building. Some lawmakers tweeted that they were sheltering in place. Thousands of pro-Trump protesters rallied in the nation's capital, answering appeals by Trump himself, who addressed supporters gathered outside the White House.

Earlier in the day, McConnell urged fellow Republicans to abandon their effort to overrule President-elect Joe Biden's election triumph, directly rebuking defeated President Donald Trump and asserting that the GOP drive threatened the country's democratic foundations.

“The voters, the courts and the states have all spoken,” said McConnell, R-Ky., as the Senate debated a challenge by a handful of GOP lawmakers to the 11 electoral votes that Arizona cast for Biden. “They've all spoken. If we overrule them, it would damage our republic forever.”

Arizona's were the first of several states’ electoral votes that some Republicans are challenging, encouraged by Trump’s groundless charges that the election was riddled with fraud. Congress seemed certain to reject all those challenges and formally affirm Biden’s victory. All 50 states have certified the electoral votes.

The showdown came on one of the most convulsive days in the country's recent political history.

Follow along below for updates:

8:25 p.m.

U.S. Sen. James Lankford, R-Oklahoma, says the Senate will set a peaceful example and move toward the certification of the election result, showing Joe Biden will become the next president. Lankford was among the group of senators who vowed to reject the Electoral College tallies unless Congress launched a commission to audit the election results.

8 p.m.

The Senate has resumed debating the Republican challenge against Democrat Joe Biden’s presidential election victory, more than six hours after pro-Trump mobs attacked the Capitol and forced lawmakers to flee.

Scores of Republican representatives and 13 GOP senators had planned to object Wednesday to the electoral votes of perhaps six states that backed Biden. It was unclear whether those objections would continue in light of the day’s violent events.

President Donald Trump has falsely insisted that the election was marred by fraud and that he actually won. He reiterated those claims in remarks to thousands of protesters outside the White House early Wednesday and goaded them to march to the Capitol, which many of them did.

The mayhem had forced the House and Senate to abruptly end the day’s debates and flee to safety under the protection of police. And it prompted bipartisan outrage as many lawmakers blamed Trump for fostering the violence.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a letter Sunday that the House is taking actions early this week that seek to remove President Donald Trump from office.

Monday morning, Pelosi says Majority Leader Hoyer will request unanimous consent to bring up the Raskin resolution, which calls on Vice President Mike Pence to convene and mobilize the Cabinet to activate the 25th Amendment to declare Trump incapable of executing the duties of his office. Afterwards, Pelosi says Pence would immediately exercise powers as acting president.

If they don’t get unanimous consent, the House leadership plans to bring the legislation to the floor on Tuesday for a vote.

Pelosi added that the House is calling on Pence to respond within 24 hours.

Next, Pelosi says the House will “proceed” with bringing impeachment legislation to the flood.

Trump has less than two weeks left in office before President-elect Joe Biden is sworn in to take his place, but many Democrats and a growing number of Republicans say they want him out before then. Those lawmakers believe Trump played a large role in the assault on the U.S. Captiol on Wednesday, when Congress gathered for a joint session to confirm Biden's Electoral College victory.

At least five people died after the riots at the Capitol, including a police officer who suffered injuries from the pro-Trump protesters.

“In protecting our Constitution and our Democracy, we will act with urgency, because this President represents an imminent threat to both,” wrote Pelosi to her colleagues. “As the days go by, the horror of the ongoing assault on our democracy perpetrated by this President is intensified and so is the immediate need for action.”