Biden administration receives extension on decision to release Trump taxes
The Biden administration again asked a federal judge for another month to decide whether to turn over former President Donald Trump’s tax returns to Congress.
In a court filing Wednesday, the Treasury Department said it was still weighing how to respond to a subpoena by House Democrats seeking six years of Trump’s personal and business tax returns. U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden later granted the extension to April 30. Earlier this month, he had delayed the deadline to March 31 from March 3.
After the previous extension, attorneys for House Democrats said any delay “should be limited, given how long the Committee’s request has been stymied.” But on Wednesday, House Democrats joined the Biden administration in asking for more time. In a joint filing, the two parties said they “have had communications, and anticipate further communications, that may inform” the Treasury Department’s position on whether to hand over the returns.
The back-and-forth is part of a multipronged legal effort by House Democrats to gain access to the returns, after Trump became the first president in modern history not to release them to the public. This case dates to 2019, when the House Ways and Means Committee sued to compel then-Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin to hand over the records.
— Bloomberg News
Harris to return to LA for Easter and promote water improvements in Oakland
WASHINGTON — Vice President Kamala Harris plans to return to her home state of California for the third time since taking office this weekend, a trip that will combine a personal Easter visit to Los Angeles with an official trip to Northern California to promote the administration’s $2 trillion infrastructure proposal.
Harris plans to spend Thursday through Sunday, as well as Monday night, in Los Angeles. An administration official said she and husband Doug Emhoff would be visiting family.
On Monday, she plans to travel to Oakland for events related to improving water infrastructure and helping small businesses, an official said.
Harris, who spent most of the past year in Washington and on the campaign trail, returned in February to the home she shares with Emhoff in Brentwood for a weekend visit that included no public events. She also spent a night there between official travel to Las Vegas and Denver in mid-March.
She recently sold her condominium in San Francisco, where she launched her political career.
Harris has been active in recent weeks traveling to promote the Biden administration’s agenda, including a trip to Connecticut last Friday to advertise the $1.9 trillion COVID relief law. Biden last week tapped Harris to lead the administration’s diplomatic response to the recent surge of asylum seekers from Central America at the southern border, but she has yet to plan travel to the region.
— Los Angeles Times
Jailed Kremlin critic Navalny on hunger strike over medical care
Russian dissident Alexei Navalny, who is imprisoned in a labor camp outside of Moscow, has gone on hunger strike to protest a lack of medical care.
"I declared hunger strike with the demand to respect the law and to let the invited doctor see me," Navalny said in a statement published on Instagram on Wednesday.
The Kremlin critic is reportedly suffering from back pain that is radiating into his right leg, where it is causing paralysis.
Doctors and his lawyers fear that he could lose his leg.
"I now lie hungry, but still with both legs," Navalny wrote.
"Instead of being given medical help, I’m being tortured with lack of sleep (they wake me eight times per night)," he said, adding that going on hunger strike was the only means left to him.
Dozens of Russian doctors had launched an appeal on Monday for Navalny to receive medical attention quickly, after reports surfaced of his back problems.
In a video and open letter to the head of the prison authority, the doctors called for appropriate treatment to avert "the danger to his life and health."
Prison authorities denied the torture allegations and said Navalny is receiving the necessary care, reported the Interfax news agency.
Navalny was sentenced to imprisonment at the penal camp in early February for violating parole requirements from an earlier sentence while he was recovering in Germany from the poison attack.
The dissident has blamed his poisoning on Russian President Vladimir Putin and said his imprisonment was a personal act of vengeance for surviving the attack.
— dpa
Haiti's leader defies protester calls to cancel election and quit
Haiti’s government will not give in to demands to halt elections and hand over power, as doing so would only fuel the unrest that is gripping the nation, the country’s top electoral official said.
Protesters are calling for President Jovenel Moise to scuttle a constitutional referendum scheduled for June and make way for a transitional government. But that would condemn the country to years of “chaos,” said Elections Minister Mathias Pierre, who was appointed by Moise.
“We need people to understand there is no ‘if’ when it comes to elections,” he said in a telephone interview, “in a democracy elections are a must.”
The poorest nation in the Americas, Haiti has been seized by gang violence and civil disorder as it suffers its worst economic downturn since a devastating 2010 earthquake.
Moise — who has been ruling by decree for more than a year after authorities failed to organize congressional elections — wants the country to vote on a new constitution June 27 and then elect a new president and legislature Sept. 19.
Moise “has to hand power over to another elected president,” not a transitional government, Pierre said. “That’s the way democracy works and people should accept the principle.”
— Bloomberg News
