WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Senate on Saturday passed President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief plan in a party-line vote after an all-night session that was delayed repeatedly as the Republican minority tried but failed to push through around three dozen amendments.

The plan passed in a 50-49 vote with the support of every Democrat but no Republicans. It is one of the largest stimulus bills in U.S. history and gives Biden his first major legislative victory since taking office in January.

The partisan victory was made possible by Democrats winning two Senate seats in Georgia special elections in January, giving them narrow control of the chamber.

Biden said on Saturday he hoped for quick passage of the revised bill by the House of Representatives so he could sign it and start sending $1,400 direct payments to Americans.

“This plan will get checks out the door starting this month to the American people, who so desperately need the help,” Biden said at the White House after the vote.

The final bill includes $400 billion in one-time payments of $1,400 to many Americans, with a phase-out starting for those with annual incomes above $75,000.

It also includes $300 a week in extended jobless benefits for the 9.5 million people thrown out of work in the crisis.

Democrats agreed to reduce those benefits from $400 a week in order to secure passage in the Senate. They want the bill signed into law before current unemployment benefits expire on March 15.

About $350 billion in aid was also set aside for state and local governments that have seen the pandemic blow a hole in their budgets.

SENATE FIST BUMPS

House of Representatives Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said on Twitter that the House will vote Tuesday on the Senate-passed bill.

Democrats broke out in applause amid passage of the bill in the Senate on Saturday and liberal independent Senator Bernie Sanders fist-bumped Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.

Schumer said the bill would help the country get the upper hand against a pandemic that has killed more than 520,000 people across the United States and upended most aspects of daily life.

“I want the American people to know that we’re going to get through this and someday soon our businesses will reopen, our economy will reopen and life will reopen,” Schumer said.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, however, had harsh words about the measure. “The Senate has never spent $2 trillion in a more haphazard way or through a less rigorous process,” he said.

Republicans had sought a new round of aid about one-third the size of Biden’s plan.

McConnell argued that even without this legislation, “2021 is already set to be our comeback year” because of relief bills enacted last year.

The measure comes as an increasing number of states have relaxed restrictions designed to curb the pandemic.

Texas earlier this week allowed most businesses to operate at full capacity and California saying it would soon allow Disneyland and other theme parks as well as sports stadiums to reopen at limited capacity.

But even as more and more Americans get vaccinated against COVID-19, top infectious disease official Dr. Anthony Fauci has said that “now is not the time to pull back.”

TWELVE-HOUR STANDOFF

Disagreements among Democrats over the jobless benefits and the all-night effort by Republicans to amend a bill that polls show is popular with voters illustrated the difficulty Biden will face in pushing other policies through a Senate that Democrats control by the narrowest of majorities.

The chamber set a record for its longest single vote in the modern era — 11 hours and 50 minutes — as Democrats negotiated a compromise on unemployment benefits to satisfy centrists such as Senator Joe Manchin, who walks a tightrope as a Democrat representing West Virginia, which backed Republican former President Donald Trump in the November election.

The extended unemployment payments, which are to be paid out on top of state jobless benefits, proved to be the most contentious part of the bill. The House bill had set the supplemental benefit at $400 a week, but Senate Democrats finally agreed to knock that down to $300.

The House bill also featured a measure to more than double the minimum wage to $15 per hour, which the Senate rejected.

Moderate Democrats had feared that the higher jobless benefits and minimum wage hike would overheat the economy and hurt businesses in rural states.

Asked if the changes would frustrate some Democrats who propelled him to office in the November elections, Biden said: “They’re not frustrated. As Senator Sanders said, this is the most progressive bill since he’s been here.”

Senate Democrats used a process called reconciliation to pass the measure with a simple majority rather than the 60 of 100 votes normally required under the chamber’s rules.

It was unclear whether Democrats will try to use that maneuver on other policy goals such as legislation dealing with climate change and immigration.

One Republican, Dan Sullivan of Alaska, left Washington on Friday night for a family funeral, meaning that Democrats did not need Vice President Kamala Harris’ tie-breaking vote in the normally 50-50 chamber.

Republicans broadly supported previous stimulus packages to fight the virus and revive the economy. But with Democrats in charge of the White House and both chambers of Congress, they criticized this bill as too expensive.

The country has yet to replace 9.5 million jobs lost since last year and the White House says it could take years to do so.

Washington got unexpected good news on Friday after data showed that U.S. employment surged in February, adding 379,000 jobs, significantly higher than many economists had expected.

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(Reuters) – Myanmar security forces fired gunshots as they carried out overnight raids in the main city Yangon after breaking up the latest protests against last month’s coup with teargas and stun grenades.

The Southeast Asian country has been plunged into turmoil since the military overthrew and detained elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Feb. 1. Daily demonstrations and strikes have choked business and paralysed administration.

There were sporadic protests across Myanmar on Saturday and local media reported that police fired tear gas shells and stun grenades to break up a protest in the Sanchaung district of Yangon, the country’s biggest city. There were no reports of casualties.

Late at night, residents said soldiers and police moved into several districts of Yangon, firing shots.

They arrested at least three people in the Kyauktada Township, residents there said. They did not know the reason for the arrests.

“They are asking to take out my father and brother. Is no one going to help us? Don’t you even touch my father and brother. Take us too if you want to take them,” one woman screamed as two of them, an actor and his son, were led off.

Soldiers also came looking for a lawyer who worked for Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD), but were unable to find him, a member of the now dissolved parliament, Sithu Maung, said in a Facebook post.

Reuters was unable to reach police for comment. A junta spokesman did not answer calls requesting comment.

ARRESTS AND DEAD

Well over 1,500 people have been arrested under the junta, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners advocacy group. This association and the United Nations say that more than 50 protesters have been killed.

Myanmar authorities said on Saturday they had exhumed the body of 19-year-old Kyal Sin, who has become an icon of the protest movement after she was shot dead in the city of Mandalay on Wednesday wearing a T-shirt that read “Everything will be OK”.

State-run MRTV said a surgical investigation showed she could not have been killed by police because the wrong sort of projectile was found in her head and she had been shot from behind, whereas police were in front.

Photographs on the day showed her head turned away from security forces moments before she was killed. Opponents of the coup accused authorities of an attempted cover-up.

The killings have drawn anger in the West and have also been condemned by most democracies in Asia. The United States and some other Western countries have imposed limited sanctions on the junta. China, meanwhile, has said the priority should be stability and that other countries should not interfere.

Protesters demand the release of Suu Kyi and the respect of November’s election, which her party won in landslide, but which the army rejected. The army has said it will hold democratic elections at an unspecified date.

Israeli-Canadian lobbyist Ari Ben-Menashe, hired by Myanmar’s junta, told Reuters the generals are keen to leave politics and seek to improve relations with the United States and distance themselves from China.

He said Suu Kyi had grown too close to China for the generals’ liking.

“There’s a real push to move towards the West and the United States as opposed to trying to get closer to the Chinese,” Ben-Menashe said. “They want to get out of politics completely… but it’s a process.”

Ben-Menashe said he also had been tasked with seeking Arab support for a plan to repatriate Rohingya refugees, hundreds of thousands of whom were driven from Myanmar in 2017 in an army crackdown after rebel attacks.

Junta leader and army chief Min Aung Hlaing had been under Western sanctions even before the coup for his role in the operation, which U.N. investigators said had been carried out with “genocidal intent”.

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(Reuters) – Myanmar authorities exhumed the body of a 19-year-old woman who was shot dead wearing a T-shirt that read “Everything will be OK” and their examination exonerated police from the killing, state television MRTV said on Saturday.

Kyal Sin, widely known as Angel, died on Wednesday from a shot to the head as protesters came under fire from security forces trying to end demonstrations against the Feb. 1 coup. She has become an icon of the protest movement.

The exhumation of Kyal Sin has brought fresh outrage from opponents of the coup, who accuse the junta of trying to conceal the fact she was killed by their forces.

State television said police, a judge and doctors had exhumed the body and carried out a surgical investigation.

They found a penetration wound in the back of the head and a piece of lead measuring 1.2 cm by 0.7 cm in the brain and said that it was different from the tips of bullets used by the police.

State television said police had been face-to-face with the protesters and the wound was at the back of the head and that the object which killed Kyal Sin could be fired from a gun able to shoot .38 calibre bullets.

“Therefore, it can be assumed that those who do not want stability conducted the assassination,” MRTV said.

On social media, coup opponents described the exhumation as a further insult to Kyal Sin and her family, with the intention of giving a false account of what happened.

A military spokesman did not answer calls seeking comment. Reuters was unable to contact police for comment.

State television said authorities had asked for the family’s permission to exhume the body, but did not say whether it was granted. Reuters was unable to contact the family.

Protesters at the scene of the demonstration in Mandalay on Wednesday said they had come under fire from live bullets at the time Kyal Sin was killed.

Pictures published by Reuters show that Kyal Sin had the back of her head turned towards the line of security forces in the moments before she was killed.

Residents said Kyal Sin’s body had been exhumed on Friday by a team who arrived under police and military guard and kept people away from the grave site. The tomb was sealed with fresh cement and discarded rubber boots and gloves and plastic surgical gowns littered the site on Saturday.

Kyal Sin was among at least 38 people killed on Wednesday, the bloodiest day so far in attempts by security forces to stop protests against the coup that has prompted daily demonstrations for over a month.

The army says it has been restrained in the use of force, but that it will not allow protests to threaten stability.

The army said it overthrew and detained elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi after the electoral commission rejected its allegations of fraud in an election in November that her party had won by a landslide.

Protesters reject the army’s promise of new elections and demand the release of Suu Kyi and other detainees.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden said on Saturday that Senate passage of his $1.9 trillion coronavirus aid bill means that $1,400 payments to most Americans will start to go out this month and the bill’s provisions will speed up manufacturing and distribution of vaccines.

Biden, speaking at the White House after the American Rescue Plan bill passed the Senate on a party-line 50-49 vote, said that over 85% of American households will receive payments, with a couple with two children making $100,000 annually receiving about $5,600.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Senate on Saturday passed President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief plan in a party-line vote after an all-night session that saw Democrats battling among themselves over jobless aid and the Republican minority failing to push through some three dozen amendments.

In brief remarks on Saturday, Biden said passage of the plan will help get relief checks to Americans starting this month. He said he hopes for quick passage by the House of Representatives so he can sign the bill into law soon.

The final bill includes $400 billion in one-time payments of $1,400 to most Americans, $300 a week in extended jobless benefits for the 9.5 million people thrown out of work in the crisis, and $350 billion in aid to state and local governments that have seen the pandemic blow a hole in their budgets.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said in a tweet that the House will vote Tuesday on the Senate-passed bill. After passage by the House, it would be sent to Biden, who hopes to sign the bill before enhanced jobless benefits expire on March 14.

The Senate voted 50-49, with no Republicans supporting what would be one of the largest stimulus packages in U.S. history.

Democrats broke out in applause amid passage of the bill and Senator Bernie Sanders fist-bumped Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.

As the Senate was about to cast its vote, Schumer said the bill was the prescription for getting the upper hand against a pandemic that has killed more than 520,000 people across the country and upended most aspects of American life.

“I want the American people to know that we’re going to get through this and someday soon our businesses will reopen, our economy will reopen and life will reopen,” Schumer said.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, however, had harsh words about the measure. “The Senate has never spent $2 trillion in a more haphazard way or through a less rigorous process,” he said.

Republicans had sought a new round of aid about one-third the size of Biden’s plan.

McConnell argued that even without this legislation, “2021 is already set to be our comeback year” because of relief bills enacted last year.

The measure comes as an increasing number of states have been relaxing restrictions designed to curb the pandemic, with Texas earlier this week announcing it would allow most businesses to operate at full capacity and California saying it would soon allow Disneyland and other theme parks as well as sports stadiums to reopen at limited capacity. But even as more and more Americans get vaccinated against COVID-19, top infectious disease official Dr. Anthony Fauci has said that “now is not the time to pull back.”

TWELVE-HOUR STANDOFF

The standoff within the Democratic party over the jobless benefits and the all-night effort by Republicans to amend a bill that polls show is popular with voters illustrated the difficulty Biden will face in pushing other policies through a Senate that Democrats control by the narrowest of majorities.

The chamber set a record in its longest single vote in the modern era — 11 hours and 50 minutes — as Democrats negotiated a compromise on unemployment benefits to satisfy centrists like Senator Joe Manchin, who often walks a tightrope as a Democrat representing a state, West Virginia, that overwhelmingly supported Republican former President Donald Trump in the November election.

The extended unemployment payments, which are to be paid out on top of state jobless benefits, proved to be the most contentious part of the bill. The House bill had set the supplemental benefit at $400 a week, but Senate Democrats finally agreed to knock that down to $300.

The House bill also featured a measure to more than double the minimum wage to $15 per hour, which the Senate also rejected.

Moderate Democrats feared that the higher jobless benefits and minimum wage hike would overheat the economy and hurt businesses in rural states.

Senate Democrats used a process called reconciliation to pass the measure with a simple majority rather than the 60 of 100 votes normally required under the chamber’s rules.

It was unclear whether Democrats will try to use that maneuver on other policy goals such as legislation dealing with climate change and immigration.

One Republican, Dan Sullivan of Alaska, left Washington on Friday night for a family funeral, meaning that Democrats did not need Vice President Kamala Harris’ tie-breaking vote in the normally 50-50 chamber.

Republicans broadly supported previous stimulus packages to fight the virus and revive the economy. But with Democrats in charge of the White House and both chambers of Congress, they criticized this bill as too expensive.

The country has yet to replace 9.5 million jobs lost since last year and the White House says it could take years to do so.

Washington got unexpected good news on Friday after data showed that U.S. employment surged in February, adding 379,000 jobs, significantly higher than many economists had expected.

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Washington (Reuters) – President Joe Biden will sign two executive orders on Monday related to women’s economic equity, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said.

Psaki, speaking on Friday during the daily press briefing, did not elaborate on the executive order but promised to provide details over the weekend.

Biden has made women’s issues a priority, handing top White House jobs and staff positions to women and starting a Gender Policy Council, based in the White House and charged with ensuring that all agencies and departments consider women’s issues when developing policy.

As a candidate, Biden pledged to narrow the wage gap between men and women, invest in women-owned businesses and fight against work-place discrimination.

His vice president, Kamala Harris, is the first woman to occupy the position.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Senate on Saturday inched toward passage of President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief plan in an around-the-clock session that began on Friday involving nearly two dozen votes and hours of closed-door negotiations.

Democrats, who narrowly control the chamber, agreed to scale back aid to the millions who have lost their jobs in the crisis. As Friday night turned to Saturday morning, they stuck together to turn back Republican attempts to modify the bill, which according to the Congressional Budget Office would be the largest stimulus package ever.

If the Democratic bill becomes law, Washington will have provided about $6 trillion in emergency assistance over the past year to battle the coronavirus pandemic and help stabilize the American economy.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, during morning debate, said lawmakers were nearing the end of the long amendment process before a vote on the overall bill.

With Republicans united in opposition, Democrats must keep all 50 of their caucus on board in the 100-seat chamber in order to pass the package, with Vice President Kamala Harris able to cast a tie-breaking vote.

The Senate set a record for its longest single vote in the modern era — 11 hours and 50 minutes — as Democrats negotiated a compromise on unemployment benefits to satisfy centrists like Senator Joe Manchin, who worried the massive package might overheat the economy.

With that resolved, senators began working through a stack of proposals to modify the bill.

Democrats voted down Republican amendments to modify how money would be distributed to schools, state governments, transit systems and farmers.

Early on Saturday, Democrats repelled Republican Senator Tom Cotton’s attempt to send the behemoth bill back to a committee to rework part of U.S. immigration policy unrelated to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Republicans were one vote down after Senator Dan Sullivan left Washington to go to Alaska for a family funeral.

The largest public health crisis in a century has killed more than 521,000 people in the United States, thrown millions out of work and upended most aspects of American life.

The relief legislation includes funding for vaccines and medical supplies, extends jobless assistance and provides a new round of emergency financial aid to households, small businesses and state and local governments.

Opinion polls indicate broad public support for the package.

Democrats hope to get it to Biden to sign into law before some current benefits expire on March 14.

FRICTION POINTS

Unemployment aid is just one of many friction points in the legislation. Democrats had earlier modified it to steer more aid to smaller states and cities.

The version passed by the House of Representatives last Saturday calls for $400 per week in federal jobless benefits through Aug. 29, on top of state benefits, to help Americans who have lost jobs amid the pandemic.

The compromise would lower that amount to $300, but extend it slightly through Sept. 6. It would waive taxes on the first $10,200 in aid that jobless people received last year. The agreement also extends a tax break for businesses for an additional year through 2026.

Biden supports the compromise, the White House said.

If the Senate passes the bill, the House would have to sign off on those changes before Biden could sign it into law.

Republicans have broadly supported previous stimulus packages to fight the virus and revive the economy. But with Democrats in charge of the White House and both chambers of Congress, they have criticized this bill as too expensive.

The country has yet to replace 9.5 million jobs lost since last year and the White House says it could take years to do so.

Washington got unexpected good news on Friday after data showed that U.S. employment surged in February, adding 379,000 jobs, significantly higher than many economists had expected.

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ROME (Reuters) – An Italian prosecutor on Saturday demanded life sentences for two young Americans being tried on murder charges after a policeman was killed following a botched drugs sale in Rome.

Finnegan Lee Elder, who was 19 at the time, has admitted to stabbing Mario Cerciello Rega in the early hours of July 26, 2019, while his friend Gabriel Christian Natale-Hjorth, then 18, was tussling with another police officer.

Under Italian law, anyone who participates even indirectly in a murder can face murder charges.

The two Americans, both from California, have said they did not know that Cerciello or his partner, Andrea Varriale, were police officers, telling the court that neither man had identified themselves.

Varriale has denied this, testifying that they had shown their two assailants their badges. Cerciello’s badge was not found at the crime scene.

Elder and Natale-Hjorth were in Rome on holiday at the time and had tried to buy drugs from a local dealer. They have told the court that they were cheated, but managed to snatch a bag off an intermediary as he tried to get away.

They subsequently agreed to meet the dealer again to get their money back in exchange for the bag, but instead the two policemen showed up. Neither man was in uniform and Elder has testified that they immediately attacked them, forcing him and Natale-Hjorth to defend themselves.

“I panicked and believed he wanted to kill me,” Italian media quoted Elder as telling the court earlier this month.

Police say Cerciello, 35, was unarmed at the time and was stabbed 11 times by Elder with an 18-cm (7-inch) blade.

Italian media have reported that the dealer was an informer who had reported the theft of the bag, asking the police to intervene.

In a court appearance last September, Elder apologised for the killing.

Natale-Hjorth initially told police he had not been involved in the killing and did not know his friend had a knife. However, his fingerprints were found on a panel in the ceiling of their hotel room where the knife had been concealed.

Lawyers for Elder and Natale-Hjorth have yet to present their defence. A verdict in the trial is expected in April, legal sources said.

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