‘Very real risk’ US democracy won’t exist in a decade, says Ocasio-Cortez – live | US news

Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer had sounded off on the funding issue:

Remington, the manufacturer of an assault rifle used to kill 20 schoolchildren and six adults in the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook elementary school in Connecticut, has agreed to settle liability claims for the families of nine of the victims.

This will be the first time a gunmaker is held responsible for a mass shooting in the US, and comes one day after the four-year anniversary of the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school in Parkland, Florida, when Joe Biden called for such accountability to take place.

“Congress must do much more – beginning with requiring background checks on all gun sales, banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, and eliminating immunity for gun manufacturers,” Biden said.

Details of the settlement are still unclear, but in July, Remington offered $33m, which was substantially less than what the victims’ families were seeking. In a February court filing, their attorneys estimated the wrongful death claims likely totalled in excess of $225m, rising above $1bn with punitive damages.

The federal government runs out of money at the end of the week, but the usual tense will-they, won’t-they drama of a government shutdown has been muted with by the situation in Ukraine.

Punchbowl News is reporting that the senate is currently stuck on two unrelated government funding snafus.

One of the two snafus stems from Marsha Blackburn, the Republican senator from Tennessee, who is holding out on a three-week stopgap funding bill because she believes that the Biden administration is trying to set aside money to hand out crack pipes. Though the White House has denied this, Blackburn is allegedly waiting on the Biden administration to formally respond to her concerns before she allows the bill to go through.

The last tussle comes from several Republican senators, led by Mike Lee of Utah, who are demanding a vote on the amendment to ban the federal government from funding a vaccine mandate for federal workers, contractors and the military.

However, Punchbowl News noted that these last-minute disputes have become standard for the senate ahead of funding talks, and will likely be resolved – there likely won’t be a shutdown.

Yesterday we reported on how Mazars, the longtime accountancy firm for the Trump Organization, had cut ties with Donald Trump after admitting in a court filing that nearly a decade’s worth of Trump’s filings should “no longer be relied upon”.

The Guardian’s Dominic Rushe has more details here:

Ahoy there, live blog readers. Happy the Valentine Candy is on Sale Day.

As it has been in recent weeks, much of the focus in Washington has been on Ukraine, and the imminent threat of a Russian invasion. Make sure to check out our live blog here for live updates as the situation unfolds.

Meanwhile, in the US, progressive congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has been making waves as she campaigns for progressive candidates in Texas and talks about turning the once staunchly red state blue.

Today, her New Yorker interview raised more eyebrows when she said there was a “very real risk” that democracy would not exist in the US 10 years from now.

Read more about her comments here: