Biden news: President assesses storm damage in California as classified documents scandal hurts polls

During a tour of storm damage on Thursday, President Biden and California governor Gavin Newsom both touched on the fate of Kyle Doan, a 5-year-old who was swept away by flood waters during the January storms and remains missing despite an intensive search efforts.

Mr Newsom provided one of the first major updates on the search, noting that rescuers had found one of Doan’s sneakers.

“We won’t give up until we find Kyle and hopefully, miracle of miracles, he’ll be ok,” the governor said.

Mr Biden also talked about the emotional impact of seeing the storm damage firsthand, and said local residents he spoke with frequently brought up Doan and his story.

“It’s not as obvious form the air just how much damage has been done,” Mr Biden said, later adding, “You don’t feel it until you walk the streets.”

Here’s our report on Doan’s disappearance.

The Republican-controlled House Committee on Oversight and Accountability with hold a hearing on the “invasion of our southern border” on the week of 6 February to investigate the Biden administration’s policies “that have fueled the ongoing border crisis”.

“President Biden’s radical open borders agenda has ignited the worst border crisis in American history. The Biden Administration’s deliberate actions are fueling human smuggling, stimulating drug cartel operations, enabling deadly drugs such as fentanyl to flow into American communities, and encouraging illegal immigrants to flout US immigration laws. Republicans will hold the Biden Administration accountable for this ongoing humanitarian, national security, and public health crisis that has turned every town into a border town,” said Chairman James Comer.

President Joe Biden is scheduled to deliver his State of the Union address on 7 February.

During his California visit on Thursday, President Biden continued to downplay a Republican-led inquiry into his handling of classified materials.

The president said he had “no regrets” about how he handled official documents, telling reporters he followed the advice of his lawyers and immediately turned over materials requested by the National Archives under law.

“There’s no there there,” Mr Biden said.

The daughter-in-law of former President Donald Trump held a discussion about Joe Biden’s retention of classified documents from his time as vice president this week which quickly devolved into conspiracies about allies of Mr Biden.

Lara Trump hosted a podcast discussion with ex-Trump administration official Lynne Patton and Turning Point USA contributor Erin Elmore where the three quickly agreed that there was a nefarious conspiracy afoot behind the discovery of documents at Mr Biden’s Wilmington home and a DC think tank linked to him. The comments were first reported by RawStory.

John Bowden has the story.

The president toured storm damage in California by air and foot on Thursday.

His stops included Capitola, where a historic pier and iconic set of painted beach houses were heavily damaged.

Here’s our report on some of the hardest-hit regions.

An “atmospheric river” drenched California with storms, bringing exceptionally high levels of precipitation across the golden state.

Thanks to a series of storms beginning in late December, areas of California have received 400 to 600 per cent of their normal rain levels, according to the National Weather Service. By early January, state scientists at Phillips Station in the Sierra Nevada mountains were recording snows that were 177 per cent higher than average.

The intense weather has often proved catastrophic on the ground, causing flooding, downed trees, and mudslides that have killed at least 16 people and left roughly 224,000 people in the state without power, the Washington Post reports.

Despite all the destruction it has caused, will the atmospheric river end California’s historic drought, the worst in state history? Not quite, according to scientists.

Read our full story on the question for more details.

As the president enters his third year in office, how should we remember his term at its halfway point? The Republican takeover of the House likely signals the end of Mr Biden’s ability to pass new laws, so answering that question is a decent start on evaluating his presidency as a whole.

Summarising a Washington chameleon-like Mr Biden under one headline misses the achievements – and shortcomings – of one of the most successful and interesting Democrats in US history. Sometimes it can seem like we’re dealing with a variety of characters who all happen to live in the White House.

Introducing the six Joe Bidens. Read more of our special report on the six key themes of the Biden administration so far.

A monthslong investigation by the Marshal of the Supreme Court has failed to determine who leaked a draft version of the court’s decision overturning Roe v Wade to Politico last year, the court said on Thursday.

In a statement, the court said the leak of Justice Samuel Alito’s draft opinion in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization was “one of the worst breaches of trust in its history” and “a grave assault on the judicial process,” but the person who provided the draft to a pair of reporters for the Washington, DC-based publication has not yet been identified despite the Marshal’s best efforts.

Andrew Feinberg has the latest from Washington, DC.

To mark the second anniversary and halfway point of President Joe Biden’s term in office, The Independent takes an in-depth look at his time in the White House so far.

This special report looks at how Mr Biden, a Washington survivor, has managed to last so long in government, as one of the longest-serving senatorsm before becoming the oldest-ever president.

Josh Marcus introduces the series by showing how Mr Biden has changed over his five decades in national office as he went from backslapping, tough-on-crime Democrat to passionate speaker on global warming, racial equity, and abortion rights. These days, he usually manages to fall in the exact middle of a Democratic caucus ranging from socialists to coal boosters.

Meet the six Joe Bidens: