And it comes to the United States, where within the last few minutes, the U.

S Senate has confirmed President Biden's pick for the secretary off defense.

On it is General Lloyd Austin, who retired in 2016 at General Lloyd Austin is the first black American to run the department.

That news just breaking in the last few minutes or so.

Also in another development, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has told the US House of Representatives that they will deliver an impeachment measure charging former President Donald Trump with inciting insurrection to the Senate on Monday, starting a trial process that could ban him from holding office again.

This is what he had to say.

Take a listen now, as I mentioned, the Senate will also conduct a second impeachment trial for Donald Trump.

I've been speaking to the Republican leader about the timing and duration of the trial, but make no mistake, a trial will be held in the United States Senate and there will be a vote whether to convict the president.

I have spoken to Speaker Pelosi who inform me that the articles will be delivered to the Senate on Monday.

Now I've heard some of my Republican colleagues argue that this trial would be unconstitutional because Donald Trump is no longer in office, an argument that has been roundly repudiated, debunked by hundreds of constitutional scholars, left, right and center and defies basic common sense.

It makes no sense whatsoever that a president or any official could commit a heinous crime against our country and then be permitted to resign so as to avoid accountability and a vote to disbar them from future office makes no sense.

Regardless, the purveyors of this unusual argument are trying to delay the inevitable.

The fact is, the House will deliver the article of impeachment to the Senate.

The Senate will conduct a trial of the impeachment of Donald Trump.

It will be a full trial.

It will be a fair trial.

But make no mistake, there will be a trial.

And when that trial ends, senators will have to decide if they believe Donald John Donald.

John Trump incited the erection insurrection against the United States.

But is the Senate majority leader there?

Chuck Schumer, speaking a short time ago.

I just want to show you the scene now in the U.

S House of Representatives, where Chuck Schumer delivered that address.

Lots of activity there.

As you can imagine, where this news is now breaking that impeachment articles will be delivered on Monday of next week.

That, of course, triggers thes Senate trial process.

Well, The Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, said his party was asking for more time to prepare for Donald Trump's defense.

Now this is what he had to say a short time ago.

This impeachment began with an unprecedentedly fast and minimal process over in the House.

The sequel cannot be an insufficient Senate process that denies former President Trump has due process or damages the Senate or the presidency itself.

Senate Republicans strongly believe we need a full and fair process where the former president can mount a defense and the Senate can properly consider the factual, legal and constitutional questions at stake.

Well, our correspondent, Gary O.

Donohue, is watching this developing story for us in Washington on Gary.

Just talk us through exactly what this all means, and what's gonna start on Monday means is that the article of impeachment that the House voted through a couple of weeks ago is now going to be transmitted to the Senate.

The House consented over whenever it wants to, and they've been holding onto it for a while.

And the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, has been a bit of bleak about when she was going to send it.

We're now Chuck, Schumer's told us he's getting it on Monday from her.

This is the article that says that Donald Trump is responsible for inciting insurrection over the January, the sixth storming of the capital.

And what happens then is the Senate is obliged to take up that article of impeachment and moved to a trial pretty much straight away.

There are some formalities that have to take place before a trial begins, so it won't start on Monday as such.

But it will be much quicker than the Republicans had hoped for.

On this comes Gary.

On a day that Joe Biden has promised a huge stimulus package for the US economy, can you just talk us through what he is announcing?

Well, his huge stimulus package has already been announced.

That was the $1.9 trillion he's talked about in the run up Thio Inauguration Day.

That's, for example, putting $1400 in the pockets of Americans earning under 75,000 year.

That's money for vaccine distribution.

That's money for the individual states, money for education.

What he's doing today is trying to sort of jump start that process by signing some executive actions that will give money towards, for example, increasing food, food stamps and food parcels for the poorest on deed.

Tryingto get the get towards the goal of a federal minimum age of 15 federal minimum wage of $15 an hour, which is one of his aspirations.

So he's trying Thio get some of the help out there because it could take some time before Congress actually votes through the main package itself.

Okay, Gary, thank you very much for that.

Jerry Donohue there live in Washington and just reminder of that breaking news then, that the impeachment trial of Donald Trump could actually start sooner than expected After the announcement that the article setting out the charge against him will be sent to the United States Senate on Monday, Eso that's the latest regarding the impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump.

We will, of course, have more on that.