Democrats are proposing new taxes for ultra-wealthy Americans with assets of $50m or more.

The “Ultra-Millionaire Tax Act”, led by Elizabeth Warren and others, would see a 2 per cent annual tax applied to the net worth of households and trusts between $50m and $1bn.

Assets above $1bn would be subject to a 1 per cent annual surtax, according to the plan, which was unveiled on Monday and whose co-sponsors include Bernie Sanders.

“As Congress develops additional plans to help our economy, the wealth tax should be at the top of the list to help pay for these plans because of the huge amounts of revenue it would generate,” Ms Warren said in a statement reported by CNN.

Johnson & Johnson began shipping out its one-shot Covid-19 vaccine on Monday morning and revealed that Americans would receive their first dose within the next 48 hours.

Johnson & Johnson CEO Alex Gorsky told NBC’s TODAY on Monday morning that the vaccines are “on trucks as we’re talking.”

“We’re shipping 4 million literally as we speak,” The CEO added: “Within the next 24 to 48 hours, Americans should start receiving shots in arms.”

 The US Food and Drug Administration granted the one-dose vaccine emergency authorisation on Saturday, with the treatment now available alongside two-dose vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech.

The Biden administration is “going to start acting now” on reparations for descendants of slavery in the US, as a commission has been formed to research how it could be implemented.

During an interview with Axios on HBO, which will air on Monday, White House senior adviser Cedric Richmond revealed that the Biden administration is looking at how to implement reparations.

“We don’t want to wait on a study. We’re going to start acting now,” Mr Richmond told Axios.

“We have to start breaking down systemic racism and barriers that have held people of colour back and especially African Americans,” Mr Richmond continued. “[W]e have to do stuff now,” he added.

Civil Rights advocates have long argued that reparations should be paid to descendants of slaves to help tackle the inequalities faced by Black people in America, but no administration has yet implemented them.

The Biden administration is sending negotiators to the Middle East for peace talks with the Taliban, according to the US State Department.

US Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad will travel to both Qatar and Afghanistan over the next few days to meet representatives from the Taliban and the Afghan government.

In a statement on Sunday, the State Department said that Mr Khalilzad will “resume discussions on the way ahead with the Islamic Republic and Afghan leaders, Taliban representatives, and regional countries whose interests are best served by the achievement of a just and durable political settlement and permanent and comprehensive ceasefire.”

In February 2020, the Trump administration, who also used Mr Khalilzad as its Taliban negotiator, signed an agreement that called for the militant group to cut ties with terrorist organisations and to reduce violence.

If the target was met, then the US would remove troops from Afghanistan. The Biden administration does not yet feel that the Taliban have honoured commitments made in the agreement, so are returning for more negotiations.

Kamala Harris remains favourite to win the 2024 US presidential election despite Donald Trump hinting at a possible run, Ladbrokes said.

The vice president has an implied probability of 22.2 per cent, while Joe Biden has 20 per cent chance and Mr Trump has 14.3 per cent probability, Ladbrokes said.

“The former POTUS is just 6-1 in the betting to win the 2024 U.S. Election, while he’s the 3-1 favourite to be the 2024 GOP nominee,” Ladbrokes said.

“Donald Trump’s time in politics is far from over if the latest odds are anything to go by, and while Kamala Harris currently heads the next election winner betting, Trump isn’t far behind.”

Joe Biden offered his support for Amazon workers in Alabama to decide whether they wished to form a union in a tweet on Sunday.

“America wasn’t built by Wall Street. It was built by the middle class, and unions built the middle class,” he said.

His comments come as some Amazon workers are organising the biggest unionisation push at the company since it was founded (in 1995) in Bessemer, Alabama – a state with laws that don’t favour unions. 

CPAC’s annual unscientific straw poll of just over 1,000 attendees found that 97 per cent approved of the job Donald Trump did as president.

But they were much more ambiguous when asked whether he should run again, with only 68 per cent saying he should.  If the 2024 primary were held today and Trump were in the race, just 55 per cent said they would vote for him, followed by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis at 21 per cent.

Without Mr Trump in the field, Mr DeSantis garnered 43 per cent support, followed by 8 per cent for South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem and 7 per cent each for former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Texas Senator Ted Cruz. 

It was Sunday night at CPAC and everyone was waiting for the big star, recent election loser and twice-impeached former president Donald J Trump, writes Holly Baxter.

The loyalists with their Confederate flags were perched outside by the palm trees; trucks with “JANUARY 6TH REUNION!” stamped on the side sped past the conference doors; scaremongering videos about “Antifa going international” were playing on the big screen.

Everyone was getting a little antsy. It was over an hour since Don had been due onstage — was everything OK? Had he been hit by a Jewish space laser? Had Melania turned him to stone with a particularly withering look?

Sacha Baron Cohen ripped into Rudy Giuliani in his Golden Globe acceptance speech.

The British comedian and writer collected the Best Actor in a Comedy or Musical award for sequel Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, and joked that the movie “couldn’t have been possible” without Donald Trump’s personal lawyer.

“This movie couldn’t have been possible without my co-star,” Cohen began. “A fresh new talent who came from nowhere, and turned out to be a comedy genius. I’m talking, of course, about Rudy Giuliani.”

Joe Biden is planning a virtual meeting today with his Mexican counterpart, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, in an effort to address issues around migration, coronavirus, the economy and national security.

Mexico’s president has said he intends during the meeting to propose a new immigrant labour programme that could bring 600,000 to 800,000 Mexican and Central American immigrants a year to work legally in the United States.

A senior Biden administration official declined to say whether the US president would back or oppose the proposal, saying only that both countries agree on the need to expand legal pathways for migration. The official insisted on anonymity to discuss private conversations.