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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Maanvi Singh (now) and Joan E Greve in Washington (earlier)

Joe Biden signs bill making Juneteenth a federal holiday – as it happened

Joe Biden speaks in the East Room of the White House.
Joe Biden speaks in the East Room of the White House. Photograph: Evan Vucci/AP

Summary

  • Joe Biden signed the bill making Juneteenth, which commemorates the end of slavery in America, a federal holiday. “Great nations don’t ignore their most painful moments,” Biden said before signing the bill at the White House. “Great nations don’t walk away. We come to terms with the mistakes we made. And remembering those moments, we begin to heal and grow stronger.”
  • The supreme court dismissed a challenge to the Affordable Care Act, preserving healthcare coverage for millions of Americans. In a 7-2 ruling, the court said the Republican-led states and individuals who had challenged the law, better known as Obamacare, did not have standing to bring their case.
  • Barack Obama praised the court’s decision, saying, “The Affordable Care Act is here to stay.” The former president added, “Now we need to build on the Affordable Care Act and continue to strengthen and expand it.” Other Democrats, including Biden, echoed that sentiment, committing to expanding affordable healthcare access to all Americans.
  • The supreme court also ruled in favor of a Catholic charity that barred gay parents from fostering children. Catholic Social Services sued the city of Philadelphia after the charity was excluded from the city’s foster-care program because of its policy against gay parents. In the majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts said the city violated the Free Exercise Clause of the first amendment by refusing to work with the charity.
  • Mitch McConnell criticized Joe Manchin’s compromise proposal on a voting rights bill, which received the endorsement of voting rights leader Stacey Abrams earlier today. “Senate Democrats seem to have reached a so-called ‘compromise’ election takeover among themselves,” the Senate minority leader said. “In reality, the plan endorsed by Stacey Abrams is no compromise.”

Updated

Officer injured in Capitol attack says Republican ran from him ‘like a coward’

A Republican congressman “ran as quickly as he could, like a coward” when a police officer injured in the attack on Congress on 6 January saw him and tried to shake his hand, the officer said.

“I was very cordial,” Michael Fanone told CNN on Wednesday of his interaction with Andrew Clyde, in a Capitol elevator earlier that day.

Fanone, of the DC metropolitan police, was assaulted and injured after he rushed to help defend the Capitol from supporters of Donald Trump who rioted in service of his attempt to overturn his election defeat.

Fanone returned this week with a colleague from the US Capitol police, in an attempt to speak to Republicans including Clyde who voted against awarding the congressional gold medal to officers who defended the building.

When he saw the Georgia representative, Fanone said, he “extended my hand to shake his hand. He just stared at me. I asked if he was going to shake my hand, and he told me that he didn’t who know I was. So I introduced myself.

“I said that I was Officer Michael Fanone. That I was a DC Metropolitan police officer who fought on 6 January to defend the Capitol and, as a result, I suffered a traumatic brain injury as well as a heart attack after having been tased numerous times at the base of my skull, as well as being severely beaten.

“At that point, the congressman turned away from me.”

Fanone said Clyde “pulled out his cellphone and started thumbing through the apps”, apparently trying to record the encounter. Once the elevator doors opened, Fanone said, the congressman “ran as quickly as he could, like a coward”.

Clyde has not so far provided comment.

Read more:

The US embassy in Kabul has entered a lockdown due to a surge in coronavirus cases.

“Military hospital ICU resources are at full capacity, forcing our health units to create temporary, on-compound Covid-19 wards to care for oxygen-dependent patients. 95% of our cases are individuals who are unvaccinated or not fully vaccinated,” the embassy said in a statement.

All embassy personnel will be confined to their quarters, except for when they need to get food or exercise.

Afghanistan has seen a 2,400% rise in its infection rate over the past month, according to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. Hospitals and medical centers have been overwhelmed, and are short on supplies.

Updated

‘Targeted for violence’: the dangers LGBTQ+ Native Americans face

The last time Fochik Hashtali* spoke with her close friend Poe Jackson, he was telling her about his plans to start a mental health group for transgender people in Slab City, a section of southern California known for its community of squatters.

It was a Saturday evening in April and the 21-year-old, who identified as Two Spirit, a term typically used to distinguish members of the Native LGBTQ+ community, had just moved to the area, according to Hashtali.

After a childhood in Tennessee spent dealing with poverty and bullying, he had traveled to the encampment in the hopes of being accepted for who he was, Hashtali explained. Jackson, a Wyandot descendent, told Hashtali that he wanted to help people heal, “do art, calm down, talk about trauma healthily”.

One month later, law enforcement recovered Jackson’s body from the Coachella Canal, near Slab City, and ruled his death a homicide.

“I couldn’t believe it,” said Hashtali.

“I was like a train wreck. I cried myself to sleep that night”.

Violence against the Native LGBTQ+ and Two-Spirit community is prevalent. It stems from heteropatriarchal violence and racism coming together to put the community at an elevated risk. And yet it remains largely overlooked.

The Sovereign Bodies Institute and the California Rural Indian Health Board, released a report this month highlighting the issue in California, which has more people of Native American or Alaska Native heritage than any other state in the US, according to the most recent census.

The report found that of the 18 respondents who identified as Native LGBTQ2, 60% experienced domestic violence and 40% experienced child abuse. But perhaps most alarming was that almost all had experienced sexual assault and nearly 90% had experienced two or more forms of violence.

“We know that Native people are targeted for violence because of racial stereotypes, jurisdictional complexities that in a general culture of lawlessness is created when law enforcement don’t respond meaningfully to crimes against Native people,” said Annita Lucchesi, a Cheyenne descendant and the founding executive director of the Sovereign Bodies Institute.

“On top of that, law enforcement agencies especially can be a good ol’ boys club and can be very hyper-masculine, and are not necessarily spaces that are going to be welcoming or safe or supportive to folks in different gender and sexual identities,” she added.

Read more:

Updated

Earth is trapping ‘unprecedented’ amount of heat, Nasa says

The Earth is trapping nearly twice as much heat as it did in 2005, according to new research, described as an “unprecedented” increase amid the climate crisis.

Scientists from Nasa, the US space agency, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), reported in a new study that Earth’s “energy imbalance approximately doubled” from 2005 to 2019. The increase was described as “alarming”.

“Energy imbalance” refers to the difference between how much of the Sun’s “radiative energy” is absorbed by Earth’s atmosphere and surface, compared to how much “thermal infrared radiation” bounces back into space.

“A positive energy imbalance means the Earth system is gaining energy, causing the planet to heat up,” Nasa said in a statement about this study.

Scientists determined there was an energy imbalance by comparing data from satellite sensors – which track how much energy enters and exits Earth’s system – and data from ocean floats.

This system of data-gathering floats, which stretches across the globe, allows for “an accurate estimate of the rate at which the world’s oceans are heating up”.

Because about 90% of excess energy from an imbalance winds up in the ocean, the satellite sensors’ data should correspond with temperature changes in oceans.

“The two very independent ways of looking at changes in Earth’s energy imbalance are in really, really good agreement, and they’re both showing this very large trend, which gives us a lot of confidence that what we’re seeing is a real phenomenon and not just an instrumental artifact,” said Norman Loeb, lead study author and a Nasa researcher.

“The trends we found were quite alarming in a sense.”

Read more:

Today so far

That’s it from me today. My west coast colleague, Maanvi Singh, will take over the blog for the next few hours.

Here’s where the day stands so far:

  • Joe Biden signed the bill making Juneteenth, which commemorates the end of slavery in America, a federal holiday. “Great nations don’t ignore their most painful moments,” Biden said before signing the bill at the White House. “Great nations don’t walk away. We come to terms with the mistakes we made. And remembering those moments, we begin to heal and grow stronger.”
  • The supreme court dismissed a challenge to the Affordable Care Act, preserving health care coverage for millions of Americans. In a 7-2 ruling, the court said the Republican-led states and individuals who had challenged the law, better known as Obamacare, did not have standing to bring their case.
  • Barack Obama praised the court’s decision, saying, “The Affordable Care Act is here to stay.” The former president added, “Now we need to build on the Affordable Care Act and continue to strengthen and expand it.” Other Democrats, including Biden, echoed that sentiment, committing to expanding affordable health care access to all Americans.
  • The supreme court also ruled in favor of a Catholic charity that barred gay parents from fostering children. Catholic Social Services sued the city of Philadelphia after the charity was excluded from the city’s foster-care program because of its policy against gay parents. In the majority opinion, chief Justice John Roberts said the city violated the Free Exercise Clause of the first amendment by refusing to work with the charity.
  • Mitch McConnell criticized Joe Manchin’s compromise proposal on a voting rights bill, which received the endorsement of voting rights leader Stacey Abrams earlier today. “Senate Democrats seem to have reached a so-called ‘compromise’ election takeover among themselves,” the Senate minority leader said. “In reality, the plan endorsed by Stacey Abrams is no compromise.”

Maanvi will have more coming up, so stay tuned.

Updated

Joe Biden celebrated that Democrats and Republicans came together to advance the Juneteenth legislation this week.

The Senate passed the bill unanimously by voice vote, while the House approved the proposal in a vote of 415 to 14. (All 14 “no” votes came from Republicans.)

Republican Senator John Cornyn, one of the co-sponsors of the legislation, even stood behind Biden as he signed the bill into law.

Now that Joe Biden has signed the Juneteenth bill, 19 June officially becomes a federal holiday just two days before America commemorates the end of slavery in the country.

The US Office of Personnel Management confirmed earlier today that federal employees will get tomorrow off to observe the holiday because it falls on a Saturday this year.

Updated

Joe Biden was applauded at the White House as he signed the Juneteenth bill into law, officially making 19 June the 12th US federal holiday.

Joe Biden is applauded as he reaches for a pen to sign the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act into law.
Joe Biden is applauded as he reaches for a pen to sign the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act into law. Photograph: Carlos Barría/Reuters

The president handed out the pens he used to sign the bill to some of the lawmakers and activists who worked diligently for national recognition of Juneteenth, which commemorates the end of slavery in America.

The first pen went to Opal Lee, the 94-year-old activist who has been pushing for years to make Juneteenth a federal holiday.

Updated

Biden signs Juneteenth bill: 'Great nations don’t ignore their most painful moments'

Joe Biden has now signed the bill to make Juneteenth, which commemorates the end of slavery in America, a federal holiday.

“Today, we consecrate Juneteenth for what it ought to be, what it must be – a national holiday,” Biden said before signing the bill.

The president emphasized the need for America to recognize and reckon with its history, even when that history is shameful.

“Great nations don’t ignore their most painful moments,” Biden said. “Great nations don’t walk away. We come to terms with the mistakes we made. And remembering those moments, we begin to heal and grow stronger.”

Just before signing the bill, Biden added, “I’ve only been president for several months, but I think this will go down for me as one of the greatest honors I will have had as president.”

Updated

'We have come far, and we have far to go,' Harris says before Biden signs Juneteenth bill

Kamala Harris reflected on the historic nature of the Juneteenth legislation and the presence of Black lawmakers who worked diligently to advance the bill.

Harris, who is the first Black woman to serve as vice-president, told those at the White House for the bill-signing, “We are gathered here in a house built by enslaved people. We are footsteps away from where President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.

“And we are here to witness President Joe Biden establish Juneteenth as a national holiday. We have come far, and we have far to go, but today is a day of celebration.”

Kamala Harris expressed gratitude to Opal Lee, the 94-year-old activist who has been working for years to make Juneteenth a federal holiday.

Lee is at the White House to witness the signing of the bill, and she received a standing ovation from those with her in the East Room. Joe Biden also walked over to Lee’s seat to personally greet her.

Joe Biden has arrived in the East Room of the White House to sign the Juneteenth bill, which will make June 19 a federal holiday to commemorate the end of slavery in America.

Before the signing of the bill, Kamala Harris delivered remarks to celebrate the historic legislation.

The vice-president noted Juneteenth has been known by many names throughout the years since the end of the Civil War, including Jubilee Day and Emancipation Day.

“And today, a national holiday,” Harris added, sparking loud applause in the East Room.

Usher is at the White House for Joe Biden’s signing of the Juneteenth bill, which is expected to happen at any moment.

A Reuters reporter captured a photo of the Grammy-winning artist:

Biden was scheduled to sign the bill about 10 minutes ago, but the president seems to be running late, as he often is.

Once the bill is signed, Juneteenth, which commemorates the end of slavery in America, will officially become the 12th US federal holiday.

Donald Trump has told Fox News he “didn’t win” the 2020 presidential election, and wishes Joe Biden well.

The former president made the admission seven months after the election was called for his rival and five months after Biden’s inauguration, during a rambling phone interview with Fox show host Sean Hannity on Wednesday night.

He did not drop his lie that the Democrat won thanks to electoral fraud.

“We were supposed to win easily, 64m votes,” Trump said. “We got 75m votes and we didn’t win, but let’s see what happens on that.”

Biden won more than 7m more votes than Trump and won by 306-232 in the electoral college, a result Trump called a landslide when it was in his favour over Hillary Clinton in 2016.

Nonetheless Trump has pursued his lie about electoral fraud both in court – where more than 80 lawsuits challenging the result have been thrown out – and in a speech which stoked the deadly attack on the US Capitol by supporters on 6 January.

Health and human services secretary Xavier Becerra described the supreme court’s decision on the Affordable Care Act as “a great victory”.

“It’s the law of the land,” Becerra told MSNBC. “Thank God that, by a decision 7-2 number, we have common sense prevailing in the supreme court.”

Before he was sworn in as HHS secretary, Becerra served as attorney general of California. In that role, Becerra was part of a coalition of Democratic officials defending the ACA against the Republican challenge that was dismissed today.

Becerra said the American people owed “a debt of gratitude” to the officials at the California department of justice, who argued the case before the supreme court.

Michael Wolff to release third Trump book

Michael Wolff’s third book about Donald Trump, focusing on the final days of his presidency, will be published in July under a provocative title: Landslide.

Trump lost to Joe Biden by more than 7m ballots in the popular vote and by 306-232 in the electoral college – a result he called a landslide when it was in his favour against Hillary Clinton in 2016.

On Thursday, publisher Henry Holt said Wolff’s book would focus on Trump’s “tumultuous last months at the helm of the country”.

Out on 27 July, the book is based on what the publisher called “extraordinary access to White House aides and to the former president himself, yielding a wealth of new information and insights about what really happened inside the highest office in the land, and the world”.

Trump has claimed to be writing “the book of all books” himself. In a statement last week, he claimed he had “turned down two book deals, from the most unlikely of publishers”.

Multiple top publishers subsequently told Politico they would not touch a Trump memoir with, to reach for a technical term, a bargepole.

News of Wolff’s return to the lucrative world of the Trump book prompted widespread comment.

Wolff’s first White House tell-all, Fire & Fury, set off a bomb under Trump’s White House – when the Guardian broke news of its contents.

His second, Siege, set off a bomb under Wolff – when the Guardian broke news of its contents, including what Wolff said was a three-count indictment of the president drawn up by Robert Mueller’s team, but which the special counsel strenuously denied.

Full story:

Joe Biden had a somewhat cheekier response on Twitter to the supreme court’s decision to dismiss the Obamacare challenge.

“A big win for the American people,” the president said in a tweet. He also encouraged Americans to sign up for a health insurance plan through the Affordable Care Act portal.

Biden added, “With millions of people relying on the Affordable Care Act for coverage, it remains, as ever, a BFD. And it’s here to stay.”

That is, of course, a reference to when Barack Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law in 2010. After Obama signed the bill, then-vice president Biden was caught on a mic telling him, “This is a big fucking deal.”

'It is time to move forward,' Biden says after supreme court upholds ACA

Joe Biden has released a statement celebrating the supreme court’s decision to dismiss a challenge brought against the Affordable Care Act.

“The Affordable Care Act remains the law of the land,” the president said.

“Today’s U.S. Supreme Court decision is a major victory for all Americans benefitting from this groundbreaking and life-changing law. It is a victory for more than 130 million Americans with pre-existing conditions and millions more who were in immediate danger of losing their health care in the midst of a once-in-a-century pandemic.”

Echoing other Democrats, Biden emphasized the need to expand upon the law, more commonly known as Obamacare, to ensure all Americans have access to affordable health care.

“After more than a decade of attacks on the Affordable Care Act through the Congress and the courts, today’s decision – the third major challenge to the law that the U.S. Supreme Court has rejected – it is time move forward and keep building on this landmark law,” Biden said.

“Today’s decision affirms that the Affordable Care Act is stronger than ever, delivers for the American people, and gets us closer to fulfilling our moral obligation to ensure that, here in America, health care is a right and not a privilege.”

Affordable Care Act 'is here to stay', says Obama

Barack Obama has tweeted in celebration of yet another upholding by the US supreme court of his signature legislative achievement, the Affordable Care Act, which even the former president also came to call Obamacare.

The 44th Potus said of the decision this morning, with the 7-2 vote on the bench: “This ruling reaffirms what we have long known to be true: The Affordable Care Act is here to stay.”

Obama added on another post: “Now we need to build on the Affordable Care Act and continue to strengthen and expand it. That’s what @POTUS Biden has done through the American Rescue Plan, giving more families the peace of mind they deserve.

He also promoted the current, extended sign-up period in another tweet.

Back when: Potus Obama runs on the south lawn of the White House with a young Bo in 2009, before the ACA became his signature legislative achievement.
Back when: Potus Obama runs on the south lawn of the White House with a young Bo in 2009, before the ACA became his signature legislative achievement. Photograph: Jim Young/Reuters

Updated

McConnell snubs Manchin compromise on voting rights legislation

The Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, has said he opposes a compromise version of voting rights legislation offered by Joe Manchin, the West Virginia Democrat who has infuriated the left of his party with his obdurate opposition to full reform.

Mitch McConnell.
Mitch McConnell. Photograph: Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters

House Democrats passed the For the People Act, a wide-ranging package of federal voting rights reforms, in answer to laws passed in the states by Republicans seeking to restrict voting among communities more likely to vote Democratic and to make it easier to overturn election results.

But Manchin opposes it and also reform to the filibuster, by which the Senate minority can block the will of the majority, which would undoubtedly be necessary to pass it in an upper chamber split 50-50 and therefore controlled through the vote of Vice-President Kamala Harris.

“Senate Democrats seem to have reached a so-called ‘compromise’ election takeover among themselves,” McConnell said on Thursday. “In reality, the plan endorsed by Stacey Abrams is no compromise.”

Manchin’s compromise, revealed on Wednesday and indeed endorsed by Abrams, the voting rights campaigner who ran for governor in Georgia in 2018, includes outlawing partisan gerrymandering, making election day a public holiday, offering 15 days of early voting in federal elections, establishing automatic voter registration and requiring some forms of voter ID. He also proposes to scale back campaign finance reforms.

McConnell’s opposition was of course no surprise. The Kentucky senator said the compromise “still subverts the first amendment to supercharge cancel culture and the left’s name-and-shame campaign model. It takes redistricting away from state legislatures and hands it over to computers.

“And it still retains [the For the People Act’s] rotten core: an assault on the fundamental idea that states, not the federal government, should decide how to run their own elections.”

Here’s more on Manchin:

Updated

The US is one of the only developed nations without universal health coverage. The supreme court’s decision on Obamacare prevented Republicans from upending health insurance and consumer protections for hundreds of millions of Americans, but still leaves roughly 29 million people uninsured and subject to the whims of the world’s most expensive healthcare system.

Conservatives largely avoided commenting on the ACA victory except to note Justice Amy Coney Barrett, considered part of the court’s conservative wing, voted to uphold the law. In her confirmation hearing, Democrats had argued she would overturn the ACA given the chance.

The ACA was former President Barack Obama’s signature legislature achievement and the most sweeping health reform law in generations. Its 2010 passage heralded nearly a decade of anti-Obamacare rhetoric from the right.

However, when Republicans finally held the White House and majorities in Congress during the Trump era, they failed to repeal the law. Controversy over ending protections for the sick, healthcare for the poor and consumer protections for all Americans proved too controversial to overcome, and their efforts failed in a dramatic vote.

The supreme court upheld the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare, in a 7-2 decision that ended with the justices agreeing Republican states did not have the right, or “standing”, to sue.

Supporters of Obamacare, from health plans to advocacy groups to Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, quickly heralded the court’s decision, calling the law a “lifeline” in a “devastating” pandemic.

“Today, the court ensured that the ACA will continue to be a critical lifeline for the people most in need by rejecting yet another frivolous challenge,” said Lambda Legal senior attorney and healthcare strategist Omar Gonzalez-Pagan. Lambda is a civil rights group which focuses on the LBGTQ community.

Pelosi said the ruling is, “a landmark victory for Democrats’ work to defend protections for people with pre-existing conditions against Republicans’ relentless efforts to dismantle them.” Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer said Democrats now plan to make the ACA, “bigger and better”.

However, even as relief was palpable, the law was notably criticized from the left. The change shows how American politics have shifted since the ACA’s passage in 2010. The ACA alone, said Senator Bernie Sanders, “not enough”.

“Health care is a human right, not a privilege,” said Sanders. “We must join other major countries in guaranteeing health care for all and pass Medicare for All.” Medicare for All would extend the benefits of the single-payer public health insurance program Medicare, which is provided to all Americans older than 65, to the rest of the public.

Today so far

Here’s where the day stands so far:

  • The supreme court dismissed a challenge to the Affordable Care Act, preserving health care coverage for millions of Americans. In a 7-2 ruling, the court said the Republican-led states and individuals who challenged the law, better known as Obamacare, did not have standing to bring their case.
  • The court also ruled in favor of a Catholic charity that barred gay parents from fostering children. Catholic Social Services sued the city of Philadelphia after the charity was excluded from the city’s foster-care program because of its policy against gay parents. In the majority opinion, chief Justice John Roberts said the city violated the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment by refusing to work with the charity.
  • Joe Biden will soon sign a bill to make Juneteenth, which commemorates the end of slavery in America, a federal holiday. The House approved the Juneteenth bill last night, in a vote of 415 to 14. All 14 “no” votes came from Republicans. The Senate passed the legislation by voice vote earlier this week.

The blog will have more coming up, so stay tuned.

Congressional Democrats had hoped that Republicans would be more willing to repeal the 2002 AUMF now that Joe Biden, not Donald Trump, is in the White House.

Democrats thought Republicans would be more amenable to the idea of curtailing presidential military power when a Democrat was sitting in the White House.

Democrats’ strategy was vindicated with today’s House vote. As an editor for the Dispatch noted, 11 Republicans supported repealing the AUMF last year, while 49 Republicans voted to repeal the authorization today.

Progressive congresswoman Barbara Lee, who has fought to repeal the 2002 AUMF for 19 years, celebrated the bill’s House passage today.

“After nearly 20 years of fighting for this, we’re finally one step closer to ending forever wars,” Lee said on Twitter.

A Politico reporter who spoke to Lee shortly after the House passed her bill said the congresswoman was “all smiles”.

She described the bill’s approval as a “humbling moment” and emphasized she would now work to ensure the legislation makes it through the Senate.

House votes to repeal AUMF that gave Bush authority to invade Iraq

The House has voted to repeal the 2002 Authorization for Use of Military Force, which gave George W Bush the power to invade Iraq in 2003.

The final vote was 268 to 161, with 49 Republicans supporting the repeal. All but one Democrat, Elaine Luria of Virginia, voted for the repeal as well.

The bill now heads to the Senate, where the proposal has bipartisan support. However, Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell has spoken out against the repeal, so an interesting debate lies ahead.

Joe Biden has indicated he supports the repeal as well, in part because his administration believes it would have a limited effect on the country’s current military operations.

“The Administration supports the repeal of the 2002 AUMF, as the United States has no ongoing military activities that rely solely on the 2002 AUMF as a domestic legal basis, and repeal of the 2002 AUMF would likely have minimal impact on current military operations,” the White House said in a statement this week.

“Furthermore, the President is committed to working with the Congress to ensure that outdated authorizations for the use of military force are replaced with a narrow and specific framework appropriate to ensure that we can continue to protect Americans from terrorist threats.”

Federal employees to observe Juneteenth tomorrow, OPM says

In some non-supreme court news, the US Office of Personnel Management has just confirmed that federal employees will get tomorrow off to observe Juneteenth, which commemorates the end of slavery in America.

“Today @POTUS will sign the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act, establishing June 19th as a federal holiday. As the 19th falls on a Saturday, most federal employees will observe the holiday tomorrow, June 18th,” OPM said on Twitter.

The House passed the Juneteenth bill yesterday in a vote of 415 to 14, one day after the Senate approved the legislation by voice vote.

Joe Biden is scheduled to sign the bill into law this afternoon, allowing federal employees to observe Juneteenth tomorrow.

The US supreme court has upheld the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare, after Republicans attempted to gut an important provision of the law during the Trump era.

In a 7-2 decision, the court ruled Republican states ultimately did not have “standing” or the right to sue. The ruling avoided the issue of whether the tax provision of the law called the “individual mandate”, and therefore the entire law, was unconstitutional.

The ACA was the most important health reform law in generations and was Barack Obama’s signature legislative achievement during his time in the White House. However, the provision over which Republican states sued, the individual mandate, has long been a sore spot for many Americans.

Supporters of Obamacare, from health insurance plans to advocacy groups to Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, quickly heralded the court’s decision as preserving a “lifeline” in a “devastating” pandemic.

Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer also celebrated the supreme court’s ruling to dismiss a challenge to the Affordable Care Act.

“Let me say definitively: the Affordable Care Act has won,” the Democratic leader said in a Senate floor speech moments ago.

“The supreme court has just ruled the ACA is here to stay. And now we’re going to try and make it bigger and better, establish once and for all affordable health care as a basic right of every American citizen.”

Supreme court rules in favor of Catholic charity that excluded gay foster parents

The supreme court has also ruled in favor of Catholic Social Services in its case against the city of Philadelphia over the charity’s policy excluding gay parents from fostering children.

CSS sued the city after the charity was excluded from the Philadelphia foster-care program because of its policy against gay parents.

The decision was unanimous, and chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion.

“The refusal of Philadelphia to contract with CSS for the provision of foster care services unless CSS agrees to certify same-sex couples as foster parents violates the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment,” Roberts wrote in the decision.

House speaker Nancy Pelosi celebrated the supreme court’s ruling, describing the Affordable Care Act as “a pillar of American health and economic security”.

“Thanks to the tireless advocacy of Americans across the country and the work of Democrats in Congress, the Affordable Care Act endures as a pillar of American health and economic security alongside Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security,” the Democratic speaker said on Twitter.

Two of the three supreme court justices nominated by Donald Trump, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, sided with the majority to uphold the Affordable Care Act.

The third justice nominated by Trump, Neil Gorsuch, joined Samuel Alito in dissenting to the majority opinion.

When Barrett was nominated to fill the seat of Ruth Bader Ginsburg last year, there was widespread speculation among Democrats that she would support gutting the ACA because of her past criticism of the law. But that prediction has not come to pass.

One of Trump’s greatest ambitions during president was ending Obamacare, but he was unable to do it in Congress, and conservatives have now failed to do it in court for the third time.

Joe Biden’s chief of staff, Ron Klain, reacted to the supreme court’s ruling on Twitter, saying, “It’s still a BFD.”

That is, of course, a reference to when Barack Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law in 2010, and Biden was caught on a mic telling the then-president, “This is a big fucking deal.”

The court found that the Republican-led states who challenged the Affordable Care Act did not have standing to bring their case.

“Plaintiffs do not have standing to challenge §5000A(a)’s minimum essential coverage provision because they have not shown a past or future injury fairly traceable to defendants’ conduct enforcing the specific statutory provision they attack as unconstitutional,” the decision says.

Supreme court dismisses Obamacare challenge, preserving healthcare for millions

The supreme court has dismissed a challenge to the Affordable Care Act, preserving healthcare coverage for millions of Americans.

The decision was 7-2, with Justice Stephen Breyer writing the majority opinion. Justices Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch dissented.

The blog will have more details on the decision coming up, so stay tuned.

Updated

House speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Congressional Black Caucus celebrated the passage of the Juneteenth bill on Capitol Hill this afternoon.

Members of the CBC sang the African-American national anthem, “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” after Pelosi formally signed the bill to send it to Joe Biden’s desk.

The president will sign the bill this afternoon.

Millions of Americans are in a “race against the clock” to receive rental assistance before the end of the month, when a federal eviction moratorium designed to help people cope during the coronavirus pandemic expires.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) eviction moratorium ends on 30 June, and some states will still have local renter protections in place. But in the vast majority of states, rental assistance – an essential lifeline for millions – could arrive too late, according to housing advocates.

“At this point it’s a race against the clock to try to get the money to the tenants who need it to keep them stably housed when the eviction moratorium expires,” said Diane Yentel, president and CEO of the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC).

In mid-May, 7.49 million US adults said they were not current on rent or mortgage payments and had slight or no confidence they could make next month’s payment, according to the Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey.

So far, the eviction moratorium has kept many of these families housed. There were 1.55m fewer eviction cases last year than would be filed in a typical year, according to an estimate by the Eviction Lab.

Without the moratorium, they will need access to the $46.55bn in rental assistance allocated by the government to help renters and landlords – though its distribution got off to a slow start.

Here are the 14 House Republicans who voted against the Juneteenth bill:

  • Andy Biggs of Arizona.
  • Mo Brooks of Alabama.
  • Andrew Clyde of Georgia.
  • Scott DesJarlais of Tennessee.
  • Paul Gosar of Arizona.
  • Ronny Jackson of Texas.
  • Doug LaMalfa of California.
  • Thomas Massie of Kentucky.
  • Tom McClintock of California.
  • Ralph Norman of South Carolina.
  • Mike Rogers of Alabama.
  • Matt Rosendale of Montana.
  • Chip Roy of Texas.
  • Tom Tiffany of Wisconsin.

In a statement explaining his vote, Rosendale claimed the bill was an attempt by Democrats to “celebrate identity politics”.

“Since I believe in treating everyone equally, regardless of race, and that we should be focused on what unites us rather than our differences, I will vote no,” Rosendale said.

Joe Biden will sign the Juneteenth bill into law at the White House this afternoon, and he and Kamala Harris will deliver remarks about the historic legislation.

Once Biden signs the bill, Juneteenth will officially become the 12th federal holiday in the US, marking the first time a new federal holiday has been created since Martin Luther King Jr Day was first recognized in 1983.

Congress approves federal Juneteenth holiday as Biden returns to Washington

Greetings from Washington, live blog readers.

Congress voted yesterday to make Juneteenth, which commemorates the end of slavery in America, a federal holiday.

The Senate approved the Juneteenth bill by voice vote on Tuesday, and the House passed the legislation last night in a vote of 415 to 14. (All 14 “no” votes came from Republicans.)

Lawmakers who have been fighting for recognition of Juneteenth celebrated the bill’s passage, which came just three days before the US commemorates the holiday.

“Our federal holidays are purposely few in number and recognize the most important milestones,” said the Democratic congresswoman Carolyn Maloney. “I cannot think of a more important milestone to commemorate than the end of slavery in the United States.”

The bill’s passage also came as Joe Biden made his way back to Washington after a week in Europe for the G7 and Nato summits, as well as his first in-person meeting with Vladimir Putin since becoming president.

Despite the success of the Juneteenth bill, Biden’s other legislative priorities are piling up in the Senate, and it’s unclear whether they will be able to advance.

The blog will have more details on that coming up, so stay tuned.

Updated

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