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Capital Journal |
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Biden Administration: President Biden will meet with U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Later, Mr. Biden plans to speak about the vaccinatons against Covid-19 and the global effort to defeat the virus. Inflation: U.S. consumer prices continued to climb strongly in May, surging 5% from a year ago to reach the highest annual inflation rate in nearly 13 years. Jobless Claims: Unemployment claims fell to 376,000 last week from 385,000 a week earlier, bringing claims to the lowest level since the pandemic hit last spring. |
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| ▶️Video: President Biden has pushed to expand the U.S.’s global influence in everything from climate change to defense. WSJ looks at how he could leverage ties with world leaders to help his foreign policy agenda during his first trip overseas. Photo: Phil Noble/Associated Press |
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President Biden and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will meet in person for the first time today, in a test of U.S.-U.K. relations amid the coronavirus pandemic and Brexit. Northern Ireland is likely to be at the top of this week’s agenda, amid a dispute between the U.K. and the European Union over a complex arrangement to manage trade and preserve peace there after Brexit, report Andrew Restuccia and Max Colchester. |
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PHOTO: ALEX BRANDON/ ASSOCIATED PRESS |
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Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin issued a directive to speed up China deterrence work including developing the military force to deter Chinaand addressing Pentagon difficulties in carrying out a years-old strategy that called Beijing a principal threat, reports Michael R. Gordon. |
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174,468,792 cases world-wide and 3,759,188 deaths. 33,414,769 cases in the U.S. and 598,766 deaths. Source: Johns Hopkins University, as of 8 a.m. ET. |
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The Biden administration plans to donate 500 million coronavirus vaccine doses produced by Pfizer to the world, reports Sabrina Siddiqui. Some 200 million doses will be delivered this year and 300 million will be delivered across the first half of next year. |
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Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious-disease expert, said he never played down the possibility that the SARS-CoV-2 virus could have been leaked from a lab in Wuhan, China, and called accusations that he did so for political reasons “preposterous,” Julie Wernau reports. |
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The Covid-19 Delta variant is rapidly spreading around the world, intensifying the race to increase global vaccinations. |
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| Attorney General Merrick Garland said an independent Justice Department doesn’t “back any administration previous or present. Our job is to represent the American people” at a Senate hearing Wednesday in Washington. PHOTO: SUSAN WALSH/PRESS POOL |
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Attorney General Merrick Garland on Wednesday defended the Justice Department after its continued support of some Trump administration legal positions drew criticism from fellow Democrats and the White House, reports Sadie Gurman. Mr. Garland’s vows to remain independent from political influence drew praise from Democrats when Mr. Biden nominated him to lead the Justice Department. |
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New talks on infrastructure are facing an old problem: how to pay for it, Kristina Peterson and Andrew Duehren report. Discussions intensified Wedneday among a group of centrist-leaning Senate Republicans and Democrats trying to strike a deal that could spend up to $900 billion over five years, according to people familiar with the talks. |
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Senators said they are struggling to find a bipartisan agreement on expanding background checks for gun sales, with many Republicans wary of backing new efforts to regulate firearms, reports Kristina Peterson. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) has made clear that he views Democrats’ efforts as an encroachment on the rights of gun owners. |
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PHOTO: DREW ANGERER/GETTY IMAGES |
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Former White House counsel Don McGahn said he declined to relay Mr. Trump’s demand to remove the Russia probe special counsel because he worried it would set off a series of events that would damage the presidency, according to a transcript of his recent testimony, Byron Tau reports. |
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SEC Chairman Gary Gensler said the regulator is considering changing rules that govern how U.S. stocks are traded, including pricing incentives that exchanges and brokers use to attract orders, reports Dave Michaels. “The question is whether our equity markets are as efficient as they could be," he said at an industry conference. |
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The Keystone XL oil pipeline project is being scuttled, bringing to an end a yearslong controversy over an effort to pipe more Canadian crude to the U.S., report Timothy Puko and Vipal Monga. The decision had been expected after Mr. Biden revoked a key permit for the pipeline. |
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First Solar Inc., the biggest American-owned solar-panel maker, announced plans Wednesday to invest $680 million in a new Ohio factory, in one of the largest bets on domestic solar manufacturing since China began dominating the industry a decade ago, reports Bob Davis. |
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JBS paid an $11 million ransom to cybercriminals who last week temporarily knocked out plants. |
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U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai plans to speak with her Taiwanese counterpart as early as today as the two governments move to restart trade and investment talks. |
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Democratic lawmakers are splitting apart over whether it makes sense to continue negotiating with Republicans on a scaled-down infrastructure package. (The Hill) Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D., Ariz.) has spent years building GOP ties. Now those ties will take center stage in Washington’s infrastructure talks. (Politico) Covid-19 case counts are plummeting and vaccinations are rising, but Canada has kept its border closed to all but essential travel. (The Atlantic) |
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This newsletter is a production of the WSJ Washington bureau. Our newsletter editors are Kate Milani, Troy McCullough, James Graff, and Toula Vlahou. Send feedback to capitaljournal@wsj.com. You can follow politics coverage on our Politics page and at @wsjpolitics on Twitter. |
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