While Congress has already authorized $4 trillion, the White House argues that another $1.9 trillion is needed to cover responding to the virus and providing enhanced jobless benefits and payments to households. Relief legislation will likely need bipartisan support to emerge from the Senate.
Asian shares were on the defensive on Monday as rising COVID-19 cases and doubts over the ability of vaccine makers to supply the promised doses on time soured risk appetite.
Pacific island nations are turning to China-led agencies to plug funding gaps in their pandemic-ravaged budgets after exhausting financing options from traditional western partners, stoking fears the region is becoming more dependent on Beijing.
The coming second impeachment trial of former U.S. President Donald Trump on a charge of inciting the deadly storming of the Capitol has aggravated a rift among his fellow Republicans that was on full display on Sunday.
President Vladimir Putin would respond in kind if the new U.S. administration showed willingness to talk, a Kremlin spokesman said on Sunday, while also accusing Washington of meddling in mass protests in support of detained opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
A Republican U.S. congressman played a role in ex-President Donald Trump's efforts to oust the top Justice Department official and replace him with a loyalist willing to support efforts to overturn his election defeat, the New York Times reported on Sunday.
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Sunday he had tested positive for COVID-19, amid an intense second wave of the coronavirus pandemic that has pushed the health system of the country's vast capital city close to saturation.
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