BIDEN'S $1.9TN COVID RELIEF BILL PASSES US CONGRESS

President Joe Biden's $1.9tn (£1.4tn) relief bill to help Americans deal with the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic has cleared its final hurdle in Congress.

The House of Representatives approved the massive economic aid plan 220-211 on Wednesday along partisan lines, with no Republicans voting in favour.

Having already passed through the Senate, the relief package now heads to Mr Biden's desk to be signed into law.

This sixth Covid-19 relief bill is a major legislative win for Mr Biden.

The bill passed with all but one House Democrat voting in favour.

White House spokesperson Jen Psaki said the president will sign the bill into law on Friday.

The bill "is about giving the backbone of this nation - the essential workers, the working people who built this country, the people who keep this country going - a fighting chance" Mr Biden said.

He later vowed to share any surplus Covid-19 vaccines globally after ensuring that Americans are immunised. "If we have a surplus, we're going to share it with the rest of the world," he said.

REPUBLICANS CLASH WITH BIDEN DOJ NOMINEE VANITA GUPTA

Senate Republicans took aim at associate attorney general nominee Vanita Gupta's past tweets at a contentious confirmation hearing Tuesday, where Gupta was pressed on her previous comments and whether she supports defunding the police and decriminalizing drugs.

The pointed questions directed at Gupta came as a conservative judicial group launched an ad campaign to try to defeat her nomination, while she touted the backing of numerous law enforcement organizations. Gupta is the latest non-White Cabinet nominee of President Joe Biden who's faced intense pushback from Republicans, following the pulling of Neera Tanden's nomination to be Biden's budget chief and Republican senators slowing the confirmations of Health and Human Services secretary nominee Xavier Becerra and interior secretary nominee Deb Haaland.

Gupta apologized for her prior tweets directed at Republicans, saying at Tuesday's hearing that she wished she could take back the harsh rhetoric. She vowed to take a nonpartisan approach to the No. 3 position at the Justice Department if she's confirmed.

"I regret the harsh rhetoric that I have used at times in the last several years," Gupta said. "I can pledge to you today that if I am confirmed, you won't be hearing that kind of rhetoric for me."

The Republican criticism of Gupta's tweets follows their successful efforts to sink Tanden's nomination to be Biden's budget chief. Tanden withdrew her nomination last week after her path to confirmation in the 50-50 Senate was closed off by West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin's opposition.

The Judicial Crisis Network, a group that's fought to confirm conservative judges, announced Tuesday a $1 million ad campaign against Gupta's nomination, accusing her of a "dark money assault on the Supreme Court" while she led the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.

U.N.S.C 'STRONGLY CONDEMNS' MYANMAR MILITARY'S VIOLENCE

The U.N. Security Council unanimously agreed on a statement Wednesday condemning the Myanmar military's use of violence against peaceful anti-coup protesters, diplomats said.

It was the second time in just over a month that the council's 15 members, including China, a traditional ally of the former Burma, made a rare show of unity over Myanmar.

The new statement criticizes the military in Myanmar, saying the council "strongly condemns the use of violence against peaceful protesters, including against women, youth and children."

It does not use the word "coup" or mention the possibility of international sanctions if the generals who seized power last month do not halt their repression, as featured in earlier versions of the statement that has been under discussion since Friday.

Still, the text goes hard against the generals who overthrew Myanmar's democratically elected government on February 1.

The council "expresses deep concern at restrictions on medical personnel, civil society, labor union members, journalists and media workers, and calls for the immediate release of all those detained arbitrarily," says the text, written by Britain.

"The council calls for the military to exercise utmost restraint and emphasizes that it is following the situation closely," it adds.

It also urges the U.N. envoy for Myanmar, Christine Schraner Burgener, to visit the country as soon as possible.

BE PREPARED TO RESPOND TO ‘COMPLEX AND DIFFICULT’ SITUATIONS: PRESIDENT XI TELLS CHINESE MILITARY

Chinese President Xi Jinping has told the country’s military that it must be prepared to respond to a variety of “complex and difficult” situations at any time, and to resolutely safeguard national sovereignty.

Xi, 67, who heads the ruling Communist Party and the military made the remarks at a panel discussion attended by representatives of the armed forces during the annual Parliament session in Beijing on Tuesday.

“The current security situation of our country is largely unstable and uncertain,” Xi said.

“The entire military must coordinate the relationship between capacity building and combat readiness, be prepared to respond to a variety of complex and difficult situations at any time, resolutely safeguard national sovereignty, security and development interests, and provide strong support for the comprehensive construction of a modern socialist state,” he said.

Xi spoke to the military delegates of the National People’s Congress, (NPC) which is due to end its six-day annual session on Thursday.

BRAZIL COVID SURGE REACHES NEW LEVEL

Brazil has exceeded 2,000 Covid-related deaths in a single day for the first time, as infection rates soar.

The country has the second highest death toll in the world, behind the US, with a total of 268,370 fatalities. Wednesday's total was 2,286.

Experts warn the transmission rate is made worse by more contagious variants.

On Wednesday, former leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva hit out at President Jair Bolsonaro's "stupid" decisions made during the pandemic.

Mr Bolsonaro, who was pictured wearing a mask for the first time in a month on Wednesday, has consistently sought to downplay the threat posed by the virus. Earlier this week he told people to "stop whining".

The surge in cases has put health systems in most of Brazil's largest cities under immense pressure, with many close to collapse, Brazil's leading public health centre Fiocruz warns.

Margareth Dalcolmo, a doctor and researcher at Fiocruz said the country was "at the worst moment of the pandemic".

"2021 is still going to be a very hard year," she told AFP news agency.

On Wednesday, the country recorded 79,876 new cases, the third highest number in a single day. A total of 2,286 people died with the virus on Wednesday.

'WE MAKE LIVES BETTER': FACEBOOK MOVES TO DISMISS FEDERAL, STATE ANTITRUST SUITS

Facebook has asked a court to dismiss state and federal antitrust lawsuits that accuse it of abusing its market power in social networking to crush smaller competitors.

The social media giant said Wednesday that the complaints “do not credibly claim" that its conduct harmed either consumers or market competition.

The antitrust suits, filed in December by the Federal Trade Commission and 48 states, are seeking remedies that could include a forced spinoff of the social network’s popular Instagram and WhatsApp services.

“As we said when the FTC and the state attorneys general announced these lawsuits, people around the world use our products not because they have to, but because we make their lives better," Facebook said in a statement.

In an emailed statement, James said Facebook is “wrong on the law and wrong on our complaint."

“We are confident in our case, which is why almost every state in this nation has joined our bipartisan lawsuit to end Facebook’s illegal conduct," the statement said.

FRANCE, SPAIN WORKING ON ‘VACCINE PASSPORTS’

France said on Wednesday it was working on launching Covid-19 vaccine passports, while Spain said it could start using such vaccination passes starting this May.

The announcements came a day after China said it has already launched “digital vaccine certificates” that are being trialled domestically and will later be opened up for international travel.

France announced the development after a meeting of the cabinet on Wednesday. On the same day, Spain’s tourism minister Reyes Maroto revealed a similar plan as Madrid gears up to host a tourism fair called FITUR. “We could be in a position to start implementing the digital passport (when FITUR starts on May 19),” she said.

MALAYSIAN COURT RULES NON-MUSLIMS CAN USE ‘ALLAH’

A Malaysian court ruled on Wednesday that non-Muslims can use the word “Allah” to refer to God, in a major decision in a divisive issue for religious freedom in the Muslim-majority country.

The High Court decision squashed a 35-year-old government ban on the usage of Allah and three other Arabic words by Christian publications, deeming the ban unconstitutional, said the plaintiff’s lawyer, Annou Xavier.

The government has previously said Allah should be reserved exclusively for Muslims to avoid confusion that could lead them to convert to other religions, a stance that is unique to Malaysia and hasn’t been an issue in other Muslim-majority nations with sizeable Christian minorities.

Christian leaders in Malaysia say the ban is unreasonable because Christians who speak the Malay language have long used Allah, a Malay word derived from Arabic, in their Bibles, prayers and songs.

“The court has now said the word Allah can be used by all Malaysians,” Xavier said.

“Today’s decision entrenches the fundamental freedom of religious rights for non-Muslims in Malaysia” enshrined in the constitution, he added.

NASA'S PERSEVERANCE 'SUPERCAM' BEGINS HUNT FOR PAST LIFE ON MARS

The return to Earth years from now of the rocks and soil it retrieves "will give scientists the Holy Grail of planetary exploration," Jean-Yves le Gall, president of France's National Centre for Space Studies (CNES), which mostly built the mobile observatory, commented via a YouTube broadcast.

These "pieces of Mars", he said, may "finally answer this fascinating and fundamental question: was there ever life elsewhere than Earth?"

After seven months in space, NASA's Perseverance rover gently set down on Martian soil last month and sent back black-and-white images revealing the rocky fields of Jezero Crater, just north of the Mars equator.

"The critical component of this astrobiology mission is SuperCam," said Thomas Zurbuchen, deputy head of NASA's Science Mission Directorate.

Mounted on the rover's mast, the shoebox-sized gizmo is packed with spectrometers, a laser, and an audio recording device to analyse the chemistry, mineralogy and molecular composition of Mars' famously red surface.

SuperCam's laser can zap objects smaller than a pencil point from as far away as seven metres (20 feet), and enables the observation of spots beyond the reach of the rover's robotic arm.

"The laser is uniquely capable of remotely clearing away surface dust, giving all of its instruments a clear view of the targets," said Roger Wiens, an engineer at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and SuperCam principal investigator.