JUDY WOODRUFF: President Biden's COVID relief package totaling nearly $2
trillion moves another step closer to enactment today.
The U.S. Senate sent the bill to the House of Representatives for a final vote tomorrow.
In advance, Democrats and Republicans jousted again over the benefits and costs.
REP. PETE AGUILAR (D-CA): This legislation represents the boldest action taken on behalf
of the American people since the Great Depression and will give us the tools to build back better.
It will put money in people's pockets. It will cut poverty in half, cut child poverty in half,
and it will give our communities the resources needed to safely reopen schools.
REP. LIZ CHENEY (D-WY): We could have had a bill that was a fraction of the cost of this one
that could have gotten bipartisan approval and support. But the speaker decided to go in another
direction. And so we're going to be saddled with a burden, a spending burden, and a tax burden
that is really indefensible from the perspective of what it actually accomplishes.
JUDY WOODRUFF: We will return to the COVID relief bill after the news summary.
A trial centered on the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis pushed ahead with jury
selection today. Former police officer Derek Chauvin is charged with second-degree murder
and manslaughter. The judge allowed lawyers to question potential jurors,
while an appeals court considers reinstating an additional murder charge.
The World Health Organization reports nearly one in three women worldwide has
suffered physical or sexual violence. It says one-quarter of young women in relationships
experienced violence by their mid-20s. Today's findings come
from the largest study yet of the problem, spanning 2010 through 2018.
On the west coast of Central Africa, the death toll neared 100 today
from explosions at a military base in equatorial Guinea.
More than 600 others were wounded. Rescue workers have been pulling bodies from
the rubble since Sunday. Officials blame the military for mishandling dynamite at the base.
The British royal family has now responded to allegations of racism
by Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, who is biracial.
A statement from Buckingham Palace today said that Queen Elizabeth and the royal
family are saddened by the claims. It said the family will address the issues privately.
Back in this country, Kansas University dismissed head football coach,
Les Miles, over allegations of sexual misconduct from his time at Louisiana State University.
Miles coached 11 years at LSU, and won a national championship. He was fired in 2016,
and joined Kansas in 2018. An LSU review has cited miles' troubling treatment of female students.
And on Wall Street today, tech stocks roared back, as the rest of the market made modest gains. The
Dow Jones industrial average added 30 points to close at 31832. The Nasdaq jumped 464 points,
nearly 3.7 percent, for its biggest gain in nearly a year. And the S&P 500 rose 54 points.
And longtime political correspondent and anchor Roger Mudd has died. He spent much
of his career with CBS News, before stints at NBC News and then with "The
MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour," a predecessor of this program. Roger Mudd was 93 years old.
We will look at his career later in the program.
Still to come on the "NewsHour": the House prepares to vote on the final version
of the COVID relief bill; we talk to Iran's top nuclear scientist,
as an agreement with the U.S. remains elusive; a surge of unaccompanied minors
at the Southern border tests President Biden's immigration policy; and much more.