Trump and Biden news latest: Live US updates from White House

Crews removed fencing outside the US Capitol on 20 March, more than two months after it was installed in the wake of the insurrection on 6 January.

Homeland Security still has a terrorism advisory bulletin in effect due to a “heightened threat environment” across the US.

Federal law enforcement warned that anti-government “ideologically motivated violent extremists” motivated by “perceived grievances fueled by false narratives” could “continue to mobilize to incite or commit violence”. That advisory is in effect through the end of April.

Second Gentlemen Doug Emhoff is taking the Biden team’s American Rescue Plan into another week of stops across the US to promote the $1.9 trillion relief package among state and local officials.

He heads to Omaha, Nebraska on 23 March and St Louis, Missouri the following day.

The relief package is extremely popular among Americans, and the GOP’s failed plans to obscure the effort – whether in Congress or in statehouses – hasn’t done much to stymie climbing support.

A GOP spokesperson told Reuters that Republicans will aim to respond to “Democrat hypocrisy, making sure voters know how little ‘relief’ this bill provides” – which, once again, extends federal unemployment, food stamps and student loan relief, will cut nationwide poverty by half (according to most economists), sends out $1,400 direct payments to most Americans, and funnels billions of dollars into small business loan services, school systems and vaccine rollouts.

Idaho’s House and Senate are going on break for two weeks to “break the cycle” of Covid-19 infections after at least 10 lawmakers and staffers tested positive.

The Biden administration is preparing a six-month contract to house roughly 1,200 families in hotels in Texas and Arizona, Department of Homeland Security officials told Axios.

Two Atlanta area massage businesses where a gunman waged a deadly assault this week had been repeatedly targeted in police prostitution investigations over the years, raising questions about the mayor’s earlier comments that the spas operated legally.

Police records show officers went to the businesses repeatedly in the past 10 years, which appears to contradict Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms’ statement that officers in her city had not been to the businesses beyond a minor potential theft and that they were not “on the radar” of police. Bottoms added that she did not want to blame the victims.

Robert Aaron Long, 21, is charged with killing four women at the Atlanta spas and four other people inside a massage business about 30 miles (50 kilometers) away in Cherokee County. Long, who is white, told investigators the attacks were not racially motivated and claimed to have a sex addiction, which caused him to lash out at what he saw as sources of temptation.

Police in both Atlanta and Cherokee County said they were investigating if the killings could be considered hate crimes. Seven of the victims were women — six of Asian descent — and the gunman targeted the massage businesses despite a strip club and lingerie stores nearby.

The Biden administration has come under fire for restricting the access of reporters to facilities at the border as a surge of migrants cross into the United States.

Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas travelled to the border on Friday with a group of senators from both parties. The Biden administration blocked journalists from joining the trip, something reporters usually can do when members of the cabinet make trips of this kind with lawmakers.

Gustaf Kilander explains:

The California gubernatorial recall election is likely to go ahead after organisers behind the effort to boot governor Gavin Newsom out of office indicated that they have managed to collect over two million signatures, well over the threshold of 1.5 million to qualify for a recall.

Gustaf Kilander reports from Washington:

The first face-to-face talks between Chinese and US officials since Joe Biden took office descended into a war of words on Friday, intensifying troubled relations between the two nations.

Both sides traded sharp barbs in an unusually public way at the Alaska meeting, with the US accusing the Chinese delegation of “grandstanding” and Beijing firing back, saying there was a “strong smell of gunpowder and drama” that was entirely the fault of the Americans.

Emily Goddard has more details:

Frank Artiles, a Republican former state lawmaker in Florida, has been charged with paying an associate to mount a fake candidacy to run against a similarly named Democratic candidate to spoil a 2020 election.

A man from Texas who allegedly rioted on the US Capital was arrested following a search warrant for GPS phone data.

According to court documents and KXAS-TV, federal investigators were able to arrest Kevin Sam Blakely after phone data from Google revealed that he was, in fact, at the scene of the insurrection.

Gino Spocchia has more details: