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Human rights lawyers have accused the UK and other large donors of blocking the release of a multimillion-dollar UN fund to provide relief to victims of a cholera epidemic that has killed 10,000 people in Haiti.

The outbreak, which affected hundreds of thousands of Haitians, was caused when infected UN peacekeepers from Nepal brought the disease to the country in 2010.

Ban Ki-moon said deadly outbreak that killed up thousands ‘leaves a blemish’ on United Nations’ reputation, ending six years of refusing to claim responsibility

A senior Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee introduced a bill Thursday seeking to reclaim $3.6 billion in emergency funds the Trump administration reallocated to fund a U.S.-Mexico border wall.

Secretary of Defense Mark Esper last month signed off on $3.6 billion in Defense Department construction funds for 175 miles of wall on the border.

In August, the Supreme Court cleared the way for the government to use about $2.5 billion in Defense Department funds after that money had been frozen by lower courts while a lawsuit was proceeding. Trump had directed $155 million to be diverted to border facilities from FEMA disaster relief.

Bigger stimulus checks. More aid for the unemployed, the hungry and those facing eviction. Additional support for small businesses, states and local governments. Increased funding for vaccinations and testing.

The new payments would go to adult dependents that were left out of the earlier rounds, like some children over the age of 17.

Billed as the American Rescue Plan, the package augments many of the measures in Congress' historic $3 trillion coronavirus relief bill from March and in the $900 billion legislation from December,

On Wednesday, Kamala Harris will become the first woman, and the first woman of color, to serve as vice president of the United States.Twelve years ago, hundreds of thousands of people filled the National Mall to watch Barack Obama make history as the nation's first Black president.But when Harris takes the oath, the mall will very likely be nearly empty.

A surging pandemic had already led President-elect Joe Biden and Harris to urge supporters to watch the inauguration from home. Now, after a deadly siege of the U.S. Capitol by supporters of President Trump, thousands of National Guard members have been deployed to protect the transfer of power against more violence. The brazen attempt to block Congress from certifying Biden and Harris' November election victory was unprecedented. But for Harris, the undercurrents of hate and racism it represented were not.

"It was the same thing that went through my mind when I saw Charlottesville. I mean, it's the same thing that went through my mind when I saw a picture of Emmett Till," Harris told NPR

A deadly tornado ripped through New Orleans.The twister was part of a severe weather outbreak across the South.Homes were ripped apart and cars flipped from Texas to Alabama.Damage assessments and surveys continued across the South Wednesday as residents began the long cleanup after homes were ripped apart, cars flipped over and at least two people killed in an outbreak of severe weather that included multiple tornadoes.

Authorities said the person killed Tuesday night in St. Bernard Parish was Connor Lambert, 25, the Associated Press reported.A neighbor told nola.com that Lambert had returned home in his truck just as the storm was starting to hit. After the tornado passed, the neighbor saw the destruction and ran over and started calling for Lambert.A news release from St. Bernard Parish Sheriff James Pohmann said Lambert died of "multiple blunt force injuries."

New Orleans Area Damage Consistent With At Least EF-3 Tornado, NWS SaysInitial surveys by the National Weather Service show the damage in Arabi was caused by at least an EF-3 tornado, which has winds between 158 mph and 206.

Upended by the coronavirus outbreak, nonprofits are laying off workers and seeking help from stretched donors.

Nonprofits like No Limits are ubiquitous in the United States: built on a dream, dedicated to good works, thinly capitalized. Like so much in American life, they have been upended — perhaps temporarily, maybe forever.

Crucial spring fund-raisers and conferences have been canceled or moved to less lucrative online venues. Donors are stretched in many directions, preoccupied with their own problems, and much less flush than they were two months ago. Nonprofits that are paid by local governments said new rules against large gatherings were making their services impossible to deliver, placing their existence at risk.

The former president this week escalated a standoff over the Republican Party’s financial future, blasting party leaders and urging his backers to send donations to his new political action committee — not to the institutional groups that traditionally control the G.O.P.’s coffers.

The aggressive move against his own party is the latest sign that Mr. Trump is trying to wrest control of the low-dollar online fund-raising juggernaut he helped create, diverting it from Republican fund-raising groups toward his own committee, which has virtually no restrictions on how the money can be spent.

What’s more, Mr. Trump’s advisers believe the future of party fund-raising is in low-dollar contributions, not the class of major donors who have mostly signaled that they want distance from him after his monthslong push falsely claiming that the Nov. 3 election had been stolen, which led to the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol.

A Commonwealth in Crisis

On Sunday, Puerto Rico will likely default again on some of its debts, which now total over $70 billion.

It is an entity that is often almost completely at the whim of Congress, the most dysfunctional body in national politics today.

President Joe Biden on Friday proposed a $6 trillion budget for fiscal year 2022, laying out details of a proposed dramatic increase in federal spending that serves as the underpinning of an economic agenda that seeks to transform the American economy as the country emerges from dual public health and economic crises.

The budget proposal, which is an opening bid in negotiations with Congress and is expected to change before being signed into law, calls for the most sustained period of spending in more than half a century. The White House budget serves more as a marker of administration priorities than a policy blueprint destined to be signed into law. It would invest heavily in Biden's top priority areas including infrastructure, education, research, public health, paid family leave and childcare.

The proposal includes the American Jobs Plan and the American Families Plan, the $4 trillion infrastructure, jobs and economic proposal that the President had previously laid out and is negotiating with lawmakers. It also outlines additional funds to launch a new health research agency to focus on diseases like cancer, and funds to address gun violence, tackle the climate crisis, help end homelessness and curb the opioid epidemic.

Congress passed legislation this spring that bars insurers from applying any cost sharing, such as a co-payment or deductible. It layered on additional protections barring pharmacies, doctors and hospitals from billing patients.

To consumer advocates, the rules seem nearly ironclad — yet they still fear that surprise vaccine bills will find their way to patients, just as they did with coronavirus testing and treatment earlier this year.

Americans vaccinated this year and next generally will not pay for the vaccine itself, because the federal government has purchased hundreds of millions of doses on patients’ behalf.

Communities across the country are grappling with a new paradigm for both intensity and recovery from weather activity. Yet even as the storms change, the politics around disaster recovery remain entirely predictable.

As evidence of this issue, look no further than the recent letter penned by California Governor Jerry Brown to President TrumpDonald John TrumpHouse Democrat slams Donald Trump Jr. for ‘serious case of amnesia’ after testimony Skier Lindsey Vonn: I don’t want to represent Trump at Olympics Poll: 4 in 10 Republicans think senior Trump advisers had improper dealings with Russia MORE asking for federal funds to help those affected by recent wildfires

Instead of engaging in familiar yet predictable rhetoric, it’s time for lawmakers to take a hard look at the current system and ensure response capabilities match the new weather reality.

A $2tn US coronavirus relief package will dole out billions to struggling airlines and offer low-interest loans that fossil fuel companies could compete for – without requiring any action to stem the climate crisis.

The House is expected to vote on the package on Friday. It also includes nearly $500bn in lending authority that one environment group, Friends of the Earth, called a “corporate slush fund with insufficient guardrails to protect workers, taxpayers and the climate”.

In the end, the stimulus package focused on direct aid to individuals and the worst-hit industries, while setting climate considerations aside.

In the new poll, 61% support the $1.9 trillion economic relief bill proposed by Biden and expected to pass in the House Wednesday, and several key provisions of the bill are even more popular. A broad majority of Americans (85%) say they support policies in the bill that would provide larger tax credits for families and make them easier for low-income households to claim, including majorities across party lines (95% of Democrats and 73% of Republicans support it). Around three-quarters favor provisions to provide funding to facilitate a return to the classroom for K-12 students (77%), and sending stimulus checks worth up to $1,400 per person to most families and individuals (76%). Both of those policies also have majority support across party lines (55% of Republicans support each, among Democrats, support tops 90% for each one).

Roughly two-thirds of Americans say that if the bill becomes law, it will help the economy at least some (66%), and 55% say it would help people like them. Those with lower annual incomes are more likely to say the bill will do a lot to help them than are those with higher incomes (46% of those earning less than $25,000 per year say it will help people like them a lot, compared with just 6% among those earning $100,000 or more per year), as are women (28% of women say it will help them a lot vs. 19% of men), and people of color (37% among people of color vs. 16% among Whites).

The broad popularity of the bill comes as just over half of Americans say they approve of the way Biden is handling the presidency (51%), while 41% disapprove.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development will allow the US territory to access the $8.2 billion once the agency publishes a Federal Register notice on how it plans to distribute the funds, according to Politico.

HUD has been authorized to administer nearly $20 billion to the island’s hurricane relief efforts through its Community Development Block Grant.

So far, it has only received $1.5 billion

Oregon earmarked $62 million to explicitly benefit Black individuals and business owners. Now some of the money is in limbo after lawsuits alleging racial discrimination.

Data and anecdotes around the country suggested that the coronavirus was disproportionately killing Black people.

the pandemic has starkly exposed the socioeconomic and health disparities that African-Americans face.

“All you can do is grip the bar as tight as you can, make the smartest decisions you can in real time, plan for the worst and be surprised at something less than worst,” said Mr. Lembo.

Nationwide, the U.S. state budget shortfall from 2020 through 2022 could amount to about $434 billion, according to data from Moody’s Analytics, the economic analysis arm of Moody’s Corp.

States are dependent on taxes for revenue—sales and income taxes make up more than 60% of the revenue states collect for general operating funds, according to the Urban Institute. Both types of taxes have been crushed by historic job losses and the steepest decline in consumer spending in six decades.

The United Nations appealed Tuesday for $301 million in emergency assistance to help millions of people in the Philippines affected by the typhoon that struck on Friday.

Hampered by impassable roads, obliterated seaports and severely damaged airstrips, international aid groups mobilized to rush food, water and sanitation equipment to the region.

United Nations officials in Geneva said more than 11 million people were in need of assistance and around 670,000 people had been displaced.

The $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act that President Joe Biden will sign into law on Friday contains a number of provisions intended to help small businesses, especially restaurants.

It authorizes another $7.25 billion for the Paycheck Protection Program, which offers forgivable loans to small businesses and other organizations hurt by the pandemic. The loans will only be forgiven, however, if at least 60% of the money is used to support payroll expenses and the remainder goes to mortgage interest, rent, utilities, personal protective equipment or certain other business expenses.

Despite the added funds, however, the legislation doesn't actually extend the program, which is currently set to expire on March 31.

State officials are skeptical that President-elect Joe Biden can meet his goal of 100 million coronavirus shots in his first 100 days, with a week to go before his start date and a slew of unanswered questions still swirling around his plan.

Multiple state officials and sources familiar with the Biden transition team's outreach told CNN in recent interviews that they are unclear on major details of the Biden team's plans -- including those for mass vaccination sites, vaccine supply issues and funding for local governments.

But states have questions, too, starting with a critical one: Will there even be enough vaccines to pull off 100 million shots in the first 100 days?

On the other side of the world in Washington, two deep-pocketed organizations, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, vowed to spare poor countries from desperation. Their economists warned that immense relief was required to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe and profound damage to global prosperity. Emerging markets make up 60 percent of the world economy, by one I.M.F. measure. A blow to their fortunes inflicts pain around the planet.

The shutdown of tourism has punished many developing countries.

$11 billion going to low-income countries.