As the Democrats’ spending plan moves closer to a House vote, one of the more controversial provisions — nearly $80 billion in IRS funding, with $45.6 billion for “enforcement” — has raised questions about who the agency may target for audits.
IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig said these resources are “absolutely not about increasing audit scrutiny on small businesses or middle-income Americans,” in a recent letter to the Senate.
However, with the investment projected to bring in $203.7 billion in revenue from 2022 to 2031, according to the Congressional Budget Office, opponents say IRS enforcement may affect everyday Americans.
“Our biggest worry in this is that the burden for these audits will land on Walmart shoppers,” Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, said Tuesday on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”
Overall, IRS audits plunged by 44% between fiscal years 2015 and 2019, according to a 2021 Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration report.
While audits dropped by 75% for Americans making $1 million or more, the percentage fell by 33% for low-to-moderate income filers claiming the earned income tax credit, known as EITC, the report found.
Ken Corbin, chief taxpayer experience officer for the IRS, said returns claiming the EITC have “historically had high rates of improper payments and therefore require greater enforcement,” during a May House Oversight Subcommittee hearing.
Since many lower-income Americans are wage earners, these audits are generally less complex and many may be automated.
How the IRS picks which tax returns to audit
Currently, the IRS uses software to rank each tax return with a numeric score, with higher scores more likely to trigger an audit. The system may flag a return when deductions or credits compared to income fall outside of acceptable ranges.
For example, let’s say you make $150,000 and claim a $50,000 charitable deduction. You’re more likely to get audited because it’s “disproportionate” to what the system expects, explained Lawrence Levy, president and CEO of tax resolution firm Levy and Associates.
Other red flags for an IRS audit may include unreported income, refundable tax credits such as the EITC, home office or auto deductions, and rounded numbers on your return, experts say.
How IRS audits may change with more funding
While the legislation still must be approved by the House and signed into law, it will take time to phase in the funding, hire and train new workers.
The IRS aims to hire roughly 87,000 new agents, according to the Treasury Department.
New auditors may have a six-month training program and receive cases worth few hundred thousand dollars rather than tens of millions, Levy said.
“You’re not going to give a new trainee General Motors, for example,” he said. “It just isn’t going to happen.”
The chance of an audit may increase for self-employed taxpayers, Levy said, depending on their return. However, the odds may not change for traditional workers with an error-free filing, he said.
“The W-2 employee is much less likely to get audited than a self-employed person by far, in my opinion,” Levy said.
Of course, one of the best way to avoid future headaches is by keeping accurate records with detailed bookkeeping and saving all receipts, he said.
A grand jury in Mississippi has declined to indict the white woman whose accusation set off the lynching of Black teenager Emmett Till nearly 70 years ago, despite revelations about an unserved arrest warrant and an unpublished memoir by the woman, a prosecutor said Tuesday.
After hearing more than seven hours of testimony from investigators and witnesses, a Leflore County grand jury last week determined there was insufficient evidence to indict Carolyn Bryant Donham on charges of kidnapping and manslaughter.
It is now increasingly unlikely that Donham, who is now in her 80s, will ever be prosecuted for her role in the events that led to Till’s lynching.
In this file combo photo, John W. Milam, 35, left, his half-brother Roy Bryant, 24, center, who were charged with the murder of Emmett Till from Chicago, Bryant’s wife Carolyn, is seen right.
AP
Till’s cousin, Reverend Wheeler Parker, Jr., condemned the decision as “unfortunate but predictable” in a statement to CBS News.
“The prosecutor tried his best, and we appreciate his efforts, but he alone cannot undo hundreds of years of anti-Black systems that guaranteed those who killed Emmett Till would go unpunished, to this day,” Parker said in the statement. “The fact remains that the people who abducted, tortured, and murdered Emmett did so in plain sight, and our American justice system was and continues to be set up in such a way that they could not be brought to justice for their heinous crimes.”
An email and voicemail seeking comment from Donham’s son Tom Bryant weren’t immediately returned Tuesday.
A group searching the basement of the Leflore County Courthouse in June discovered the unserved arrest warrant charging Donham, then-husband Roy Bryant and brother-in-law J.W. Milam in Till’s abduction in 1955. While the men were arrested and acquitted on murder charges in Till’s subsequent slaying, Donham, 21 at the time and 87 now, was never taken into custody.
A photo of Emmett Till is included on the plaque that marks his gravesite at Burr Oak Cemetery May 4, 2005 in Aslip, Illinois.
Scott Olson/Getty Images
In an unpublished memoir obtained last month by The Associated Press, Donham said she was unaware of what would happen to the 14-year-old Till, who lived in Chicago and was visiting relatives in Mississippi when he was abducted, killed and tossed in a river. She accused him of making lewd comments and grabbing her while she worked alone at a family store in Money, Mississippi.
Donham said in the manuscript that the men brought Till to her in the middle of the night for identification but that she tried to help the youth by denying it was him. Despite being abducted at gunpoint from a family home by Roy Bryant and Milam, the 14-year-old identified himself to the men, she claimed.
Till’s battered, disfigured body was found days later in a river, where it was weighted down with a heavy metal fan. The decision by his mother, Mamie Till Mobley, to open Till’s casket for his funeral in Chicago demonstrated the horror of what had happened and added fuel to the civil rights movement.
“No family should ever have to endure this pain for this long,” Parker said in his statement to CBS News Tuesday. “Going forward, we must keep the details, and memory, of the brutal murder of Emmett Till, and the courage of Mamie Mobley, alive, so that we can reduce racial violence, improve our system of justice, and treat each other with the dignity and respect with which Mrs. Mobley graced us all.”
The U.S. Justice Department last year said it was ending its investigation into Till’s killing.
The Justice Department in 2004 had opened an investigation of Till’s killing after it received inquiries about whether charges could be brought against anyone still living. The department said the statute of limitations had run out on any potential federal crime, but the FBI worked with state investigators to determine if state charges could be brought. In February 2007, a Mississippi grand jury declined to indict anyone, and the Justice Department announced it was closing the case.
Mr. Trump delayed returning 15 boxes of material requested by officials with the National Archives for many months, only doing so when there became a threat of action to retrieve them. The case was referred to the Justice Department by the archives early this year.
Former President Donald J. Trump said F.B.I. agents had searched Mar-a-Lago, his private club and residence in Florida, and broken open a safe.Credit…MediaPunch, via Associated Press
The search marked the latest remarkable turn in the long-running investigations into Mr. Trump’s actions before, during and after his presidency — and even as he weighs announcing another candidacy for the White House.
It came as the Justice Department has stepped up its separate inquiry into Mr. Trump’s efforts to remain in office after his defeat at the polls in the 2020 election and as the former president also faces an accelerating criminal inquiry in Georgia and civil actions in New York.
Mr. Trump has long cast the F.B.I. as a tool of Democrats who have been out to get him, and the search set off a furious reaction among his supporters in the Republican Party and on the far right of American politics. Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the Republican leader in the House, suggested that he intended to investigate Attorney General Merrick B. Garland if Republicans took control of the House in November.
The F.B.I. would have needed to convince a judge that it had probable cause that a crime had been committed, and that agents might find evidence at Mar-a-Lago, to get a search warrant. Proceeding with a search on a former president’s home would almost surely have required sign-off from top officials at the bureau and the Justice Department.
The search, however, does not mean prosecutors have determined that Mr. Trump committed a crime.
An F.B.I. representative declined to comment, as did Justice Department officials. The F.B.I. director, Christopher A. Wray, was appointed by Mr. Trump.
Mr. Trump was in the New York area at the time of the search. “Another day in paradise,” he said Monday night during a telephone rally for Sarah Palin, who is running for a congressional seat in Alaska.
Eric Trump, one of his sons, told Fox News that he was the one who informed his father that the search was taking place, and he said the search warrant was related to presidential documents.
Mr. Trump, who campaigned for president in 2016 criticizing Hillary Clinton’s practice of maintaining a private email server for government-related messages while she was secretary of state, was known throughout his term to rip up official material that was intended to be held for presidential archives. One person familiar with his habits said that included classified material that was shredded in his bedroom and elsewhere.
The search was at least in part for whether any records remained at the club, a person familiar with it said. It took place on Monday morning, the person said, although Mr. Trump said agents were still there many hours later.
“After working and cooperating with the relevant Government agencies, this unannounced raid on my home was not necessary or appropriate,” Mr. Trump said, maintaining it was an effort to stop him from running for president in 2024. “Such an assault could only take place in broken, Third-World Countries.”
“They even broke into my safe!” he wrote.
Mr. Trump did not share any details about what the F.B.I. agents said they were searching for.
Aides to President Biden said they were stunned by the development and learned of it from Twitter.
The search came as the Justice Department has also been stepping up questioning of former Trump aides who had been witnesses to discussions and planning in the White House of Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn his election loss.
Mr. Trump has been the focus of questions asked by federal prosecutors in connection with a scheme to send “fake” electors to Congress for the certification of the Electoral College. The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol also continues its work and is interviewing witnesses this week.
The law governing the preservation of White House materials, the Presidential Records Act, lacks teeth, but criminal statutes can come into play, especially in the case of classified material.
Criminal codes, which carry jail time, can be used to prosecute anyone who “willfully injures or commits any depredation against any property of the United States” and anyone who “willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates or destroys” government documents.
In 1999, the C.I.A. announced it had suspended the security clearance of its former director, John M. Deutch, after concluding that he had improperly handled national secrets on a desktop computer at his home.
In January of this year, the archives retrieved 15 boxes that Mr. Trump took with him to Mar-a-Lago from the White House residence when his term ended. The boxes included material subject to the Presidential Records Act, which requires that all documents and records pertaining to official business be turned over to the archives.
The items in the boxes included documents, mementos, gifts and letters. The archives did not describe the classified material it found other than to say that it was “classified national security information.”
Because the National Archives “identified classified information in the boxes,” the agency “has been in communication with the Department of Justice,” David S. Ferriero, the national archivist, told Congress at the time.
Federal prosecutors subsequently began a grand jury investigation, according to two people briefed on the matter. Prosecutors issued a subpoena earlier this year to the archives to obtain the boxes of classified documents, according to the two people familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation.
The authorities also made interview requests to people who worked in the White House in the final days of Mr. Trump’s presidency, according to one of the people.
In the spring, a small coterie of federal agents visited Mar-a-Lago in search of some documents, according to a person familiar with the meeting. At least one of the agents was involved in counterintelligence, according to the person.
The question of how Mr. Trump has handled sensitive material and documents he received as president loomed throughout his time in the White House, and beyond.
He was known to rip up pieces of official paper that he was handed, forcing officials to tape them back together. And an upcoming book by a New York Times reporter reveals that staff members would find clumps of torn-up paper clogging a toilet, and believed he had thrown them in.
The question of how Mr. Trump handled classified material is complicated because as president he had the authority to declassify any government information. It is unclear whether Mr. Trump, before leaving office, had declassified materials the archives discovered in the boxes. Under federal law, he no longer maintains the ability to declassify documents after leaving office.
While in office, he invoked the power to declassify information several times as his administration publicly released materials that helped him politically, particularly on issues like the investigation into his campaign’s ties to Russia.
Toward the end of the administration, Mr. Trump ripped pictures that intrigued him out of the President’s Daily Brief — a compendium of often classified information about potential national security threats — but it is unclear whether he took them to the residence with him. In one prominent example of how he dealt with classified material, Mr. Trump in 2019 took a highly classified spy satellite image of an Iranian missile launch site, declassified it and then released the photo on Twitter.
Earlier this year, Kash Patel, a former Defense Department senior official and Trump loyalist whom Mr. Trump named as one of his representatives to engage with the National Archives, suggested to the right-wing website Breitbart that Mr. Trump had declassified the documents before leaving the White House and that the proper markings simply had not been adjusted.
“Trump declassified whole sets of materials in anticipation of leaving government that he thought the American public should have the right to read themselves,” he said, according to Breitbart.
Local television crews showed supporters of Mr. Trump gathering near Mar-a-Lago, some of them being aggressive toward reporters.
Mr. Trump made clear in his statement that he sees potential political value in the search, something some of his advisers echoed, depending on what any investigation produces.
His political team began sending fund-raising solicitations about the search late on Monday evening.
Jonathan Martin, Luke Broadwater and Glenn Thrush contributed reporting.
A nurse from Houston was charged Monday with six counts of murder and five counts of gross vehicular manslaughter for the fiery crash that killed six people, including an infant and a pregnant woman.
Nicole Lorraine Linton, 37, was behind the wheel of a Mercedes-Benz that barreled through a red light at Slauson and La Brea avenues last Thursday and slammed into several other vehicles in the Windsor Hills area, according to the CHP. The six people killed included all the members of one family — 23-year-old Asherey Ryan, the child she was pregnant with, her boyfriend, 24-year-old Reynold Lester, who was the father of her unborn son, and her infant son Alonzo, who was about to celebrate his first birthday.
The charges include six counts of murder and five counts of vehicular manslaughter. District Attorney George Gascón said his office cannot file a manslaughter charge in a case involving an unborn child.
“This is a case that will always be remembered for the senseless loss of so many innocent lives as they simply went about their daily routines,” Gascón said in a statement.
Linton is expected to make an initial court appearance in the case on Monday. If convicted as charged, she could face 90 years to life in prison, Gascón said.
Surveillance video from the scene showed the Mercedes speeding through a red light in a 35 mph zone on La Brea at a speed authorities estimated was about 100 mph and broadsiding another vehicle, which exploded into flames. It was pushed into at least one other vehicle, and both ended up against a gas station sign on the corner of the intersection. The impact of the fiery crash left a trail of flames from the intersection.
Eight vehicles in total, including Linton’s, were involved in the crash. Linton’s Mercedes ended up near a bench down the street.
Two other women who died in the crash have yet to be identified, according to Gascón. The occupants of six other vehicles, including five in an SUV and another driver in another vehicle, were also injured.
“While the wreckage of this fiery crash at this intersection was removed and traffic eventually resume, there is catastrophic damage to the families and friends of those killed and injured,” Gascón said. “It is not only a tremendous loss to the families but our entire community who learned of this incredible tragedy or have watched the now viral video of the collision.”
Gascón said there was no evidence alcohol or drugs were a factor in the crash, but it has not yet been ruled out.
The traveling nurse from Houston was arrested Friday while she was still hospitalized for moderate injuries she sustained in the crash. She was released from Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center over the weekend, and is being held on $9 million bail.
(CNN)Gregory and Travis McMichael, the White father and son convicted in the killing of Ahmaud Arbery, were sentenced Monday to life in prison for their federal convictions on interference with rights — a hate crime — along with attempted kidnapping and weapon use charges.
Olivia Newton-John, who sang some of the biggest hits of the 1970s and ’80s while recasting her image as the virginal girl next door into a spandex-clad vixen — a transformation reflected in miniature by her starring role in “Grease,” one of the most popular movie musicals of its era — died on Monday at her ranch in Southern California. She was 73.
The death was announced by her husband, John Easterling.
Though never a critical favorite, Ms. Newton-John amassed No. 1 hits, chart-topping albums and four records that sold more than two million copies each. More than anything else, she was likable.
In the earlier phase of her career, this English-Australian singer beguiled listeners with a high, supple, vibrato-warmed voice that paired amiably with the kind of swooning middle-of-the-road pop that, in the mid-1970s, often passed for country music.
Households that get help paying for health insurance through the public marketplace are likely to continue qualifying for more generous subsidies under a congressional bill moving closer to final approval.
The Inflation Reduction Act, which cleared the Senate on Sunday, includes an extension of temporarily expanded health insurance subsidies — technically tax credits — that were put in place for 2021 and 2022. The vote was 50-50 with no Republican support. Vice President Kamala Harris cast the tie-breaking vote in favor of the legislation.
Assuming the House approves the measure — which it is expected to do later this week — and President Joe Biden signs it into law, the more generous subsidies would remain available through the end of 2025.
“Without the extension, the vast majority of the 13 million people who get subsidies … would see premium payments rise,” said Krutika Amin, associate director for the Kaiser Family Foundation’s Affordable Care Act program. “This would avert the massive premium increase [those] people would have seen otherwise.”
Nearly 13 million of the 14.5 million people enrolled in private health insurance through the public marketplace — which was authorized by the Affordable Care Act of 2010 — are receiving subsidies in 2022. Some people also may qualify for help with cost-sharing such as deductibles and copays on certain plans, depending on their income.
How the extension helps enrolled consumers
Generally speaking, people who get coverage this way — either through healthcare.gov or their state’s exchange — are self-employed or can’t get workplace insurance, or they don’t qualify for Medicaid or Medicare.
Before the temporary changes, the aid was generally only available to households with income from 100% to 400% of the poverty level. The American Rescue Plan Act, which was signed into law in March 2021, removed — for two years — that income cap, and the amount that anyone pays for premiums is limited to 8.5% of their income as calculated by the exchange.
The bill currently headed to the house would extend these modified calculations.
For some enrollees, the difference is significant: Premium payments could rise by more than 50% without the extension, Amin said. For instance, a 60-year-old with income just above $50,000 would see those monthly payments jump to $900 from $400.
The extension of the subsidies is one of a handful of provisions in the bill related to health care. The legislation also would allow Medicare to negotiate the price of certain drugs and would cap yearly outlays on prescription drugs under Part D to $2,000, as well as cap beneficiaries’ monthly insulin prices at $35.
Joe Biden’s $740bn package tackling climate, the deficit and healthcare that has just passed the Senate and is almost certain now to become law is a far cry from his original even bigger ambitions, but it still represents a major triumph for the president.
The bill – the Inflation Reduction Act – was virtually dead in the water before a last-minute turnaround by the conservative West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin saw it suddenly revived.
It then endured another round of political horse-trading as it navigated the choppy waters of a 50-50 split Senate. But, being carried by a tie-breaking vote from Biden’s vice-president, Kamala Harris, it emerged mostly intact. And, after a vote in the House later this week, it is set to land on Biden’s Oval Office desk.
Here is what’s in it and what it means:
Overview
The estimated $740bn package is full of Democratic priorities. Those include capping prescription drug costs at $2,000 out of pocket for seniors, helping Americans pay for private health insurance, and what Democrats are calling the most substantial investment in history to fight the climate crisis: $375bn over the decade.
Almost half the money raised, $300bn, will go toward paying down federal deficits.
It’s paid for largely with new corporate taxes, including a 15% minimum tax on big corporations to ensure they don’t skip paying any taxes at all, as well as projected federal savings from lower Medicare drug costs.
It’s not at all clear the 755-page bill will substantially ease inflationary pressures, though millions of Americans are expected to see some relief in healthcare and other costs.
What does it mean for Biden?
For Biden, the bill’s passage delivers a much-needed domestic win at a time when his popularity has sunk and key midterm elections loom in November.
Though the bill has been stripped of much of his original ambitious program, it remains a major achievement. Biden can now go to the polls and portray himself as a president able to get things done even in the difficult political circumstances of a deeply divided country.
Climate crisis
The bill would invest nearly $375bn over the decade in climate-fighting strategies, including investments in renewable energy production and tax rebates for consumers to buy new or used electric vehicles.
It’s broken down to include $60bn for a clean energy manufacturing tax credit and $30bn for a production tax credit for wind and solar, seen as ways to boost and support the industries that can help curb the country’s dependence on fossil fuels. The bill also gives tax credits for nuclear power and carbon capture technology that oil companies such as ExxonMobil have invested millions of dollars to advance.
The bill would impose a new fee on excess methane emissions from oil and gas drilling while giving fossil fuel companies access to more leases on federal lands and waters.
A late addition pushed by Senator Kyrsten Sinema and other Democrats in Arizona, Nevada and Colorado would designate $4bn to combat a mega-drought in the west, including conservation efforts in the Colorado river basin, on which nearly 40 million Americans rely for drinking water.
For consumers, there are tax breaks as incentives to go green. One is a 10-year consumer tax credit for renewable energy investments in wind and solar. There are tax breaks for buying electric vehicles, including a $4,000 tax credit for purchase of used electric vehicles and $7,500 for new ones.
In all, Democrats believe the strategy could put the country on a path to cut greenhouse gas emissions 40% by 2030, and “would represent the single biggest climate investment in US history, by far”.
Prescription drug costs
Launching a long-sought goal, the bill would allow the Medicare program to negotiate prescription drug prices with pharmaceutical companies, saving the federal government $288bn over the 10-year budget window.
Those new revenues would be put back into lower costs for seniors on medications, including a $2,000 out-of-pocket cap for older adults buying prescriptions from pharmacies.
Seniors would also have insulin prices capped at $35 a dose. A provision to extend that price cap on insulin to Americans with private health insurances was out of line with Senate budget rules and Republicans stripped it from the final bill.
Health insurance
The bill would extend the subsidies provided during the pandemic to help some Americans who buy health insurance on their own.
Under earlier pandemic relief, the extra help was set to expire this year. But the bill would allow the assistance to keep going for three more years, lowering insurance premiums for people who are buying their own healthcare policies.
How is it paid for?
The biggest revenue-raiser in the bill is a new 15% minimum tax on corporations that earn more than $1bn in annual profits. The new corporate minimum tax would kick in after the 2022 tax year and raise more than $258bn over the decade.
The revenue would have been higher, but Sinema insisted on one change to the 15% corporate minimum, allowing a depreciation deduction used by manufacturing industries. That shaves about $55bn off the total revenue.
To win over Sinema, Democrats dropped plans to close a tax loophole long enjoyed by wealthier Americans – so-called carried interest, which under current law taxes wealthy hedge fund managers and others at a 20% rate.
Money is also raised by boosting the IRS to go after tax cheats. The bill proposes an $80bn investment in taxpayer services, enforcement and modernization, which is projected to raise $203bn in new revenue – a net gain of $124bn over the decade.
Washington — The Senate on Sunday passed Democrats’ sweeping economic package designed to combat climate change, address health care costs and raise taxes on large corporations, marking a crucial achievement for President Biden and his party as they look to maintain their hold on Congress in the November midterm elections.
The plan, called the Inflation Reduction Act, cleared the upper chamber by a vote of 51 to 50 along party lines, with Vice President Kamala Harris providing the tie-breaking vote in the evenly divided Senate.Democrats used a fast-track legislative process known as reconciliation to pass the measure in the face of unanimous opposition from Republicans.
“It’s been a long, tough and winding road but at last, at last, we have arrived,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said in remarks on the Senate floor as members prepared to vote for final passage. “Today, after more than a year of hard work, the Senate is making history. I am confident the Inflation Reduction Act will endure as one of the defining legislative feats of the 21st century.”
The vote came after a marathon session that lasted through the night and into Sunday afternoon, with Democrats breaking into applause as members cast their final votes. In a process known as a “vote-a-rama,” Republicans offered a slew of amendments that Democrats successfully swatted down over nearly 16 hours of debate.
GOP senators did manage to block a provision that would have capped the price of insulin at $35 a month for those covered under private health care plans. Democrats needed 60 votes to waive reconciliation rules and keep that part of the bill, but it failed 57 to 43, with seven Republicans joining Democrats in support of the measure.
House Democratic leaders announced last week the lower chamber will return from its month-long recess on Friday to take up the legislation, which is expected to pass.
Mr. Biden praised Senate Democrats for passing the plan and acknowledged it required “many compromises.” He urged the House to swiftly approve the bill.
“Today, Senate Democrats sided with American families over special interests, voting to lower the cost of prescription drugs, health insurance, and everyday energy costs and reduce the deficit, while making the wealthiest corporations finally pay their fair share,” the president said in a statement. “I ran for president promising to make government work for working families again, and that is what this bill does — period.”
The package is the culmination of months of negotiations over Mr. Biden’s domestic policy agenda, which at times appeared to be on life support but was revived late last month with the surprise announcement of an agreement between Schumer and Sen. Joe Manchin, a moderate Democrat from West Virginia.
Sen. Joe Manchin chats with his staffers on Capitol Hill in Washington on Aug. 6, 2022.
Shuran Huang for The Washington Post via Getty Images
While the legislation is much more narrow than the sprawling $3.5 trillion proposal put forth by Mr. Biden last year, the tailored package had the backing of Manchin and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, a Democrat from Arizona whose support was crucial.
Still, Democrats praise the plan as their answer to addressing rising consumer prices and for its nearly $400 billion investment in fighting climate change, the largest ever. The package allows Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices, a key Democratic priority that is expected to save hundreds of billions of dollars over the next 10 years. It also extends enhanced health insurance subsidies that were set to expire at the end of the year, and imposes a 15% minimum tax on most corporations that make more than $1 billion each year.
The corporate tax provision emerged as a point of contention as senators neared a final vote on Sunday. Seven Democratic senators — Sinema, Jon Ossoff, Raphael Warnock, Catherine Cortez Masto, Maggie Hassan, Mark Kelly and Jacky Rosen — joined Republicans in backing an amendment put forward by GOP Sen. John Thune of South Dakota that exempts some firms with private equity backing from the 15% minimum corporate tax rate. That amendment passed 57 to 43.
To boost clean energy, the measure includes tax credits for buying electric vehicles and manufacturing solar panels and wind turbines. It also provides rebates for consumers who buy energy efficient appliances and provides $4 billion for drought relief.
Schumer lauded the bill as the “boldest climate package” in U.S. history, and called it a “game-changer” and “turning point.”
“It’s been a long time in coming,” he said.
One piece of Democrats’ drug-pricing plan — imposing penalties on drug manufacturers that raised prices beyond inflation on private insurers — was removed after it was reviewed by Senate parliamentarian Elizbeth MacDonough. Her approval of the rest of the package, however, cleared the way for the upper chamber to move forward with its consideration of the bill.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates the legislation will cut the deficit by $102 billion over the next 10 years. Republicans, though, argued the plan will have little impact on inflation and instead raise taxes while leading to jobs losses.
In an interview with “Face the Nation” on Sunday, Sen. Rick Scott, a Republican from Florida, claimed Democrats’ drug pricing plan will harm seniors, while the tax component will increase taxes on Americans.
“Why would you be increasing the cost of government? We’re increasing taxes,” he said.
KYIV, Aug 8 (Reuters) – International alarm over the weekend shelling of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear complex grew on Monday, as Kyiv and Moscow traded blame for the attacks while seeking to address fears that their battle for control of the plant might trigger catastrophe.
United Nations chief Antonio Guterres, calling any attack on a nuclear plant a “suicidal thing”, demanded that U.N. nuclear inspectors be given access. The largest complex of its kind in Europe, Zaporizhzhia is situated in a southern region seized by Russian invaders in March and now targeted by Ukraine for a counter-offensive.
Kyiv appealed for the area to be demilitarised and for the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog, to be let in. Russia’s foreign ministry said it too favoured an IAEA visit, which it accused Ukraine of blocking while trying to “take Europe hostage” by shelling the plant. read more
Ukraine blamed Russia for weekend attacks in the area of the complex, which is still run by Ukrainian technicians. It said three radiation sensors were damaged, with two workers hospitalised with shrapnel injuries.
Reuters could not verify either side’s version of what happened.
Petro Kotin, head of Ukraine’s state nuclear power company Energoatom, called for peacekeepers to be deployed in and run the Zaporizhzhia site, with operational control handed back to Ukraine.
He flagged the danger of shells hitting containers of highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel as especially dire. If two or more containers were broken, “it is impossible to assess the scale” of the resulting disaster.
“Such insane actions could leave to the situation spiralling out of control and it will be a Fukushima or Chornobyl,” Kotin said.
‘WORKING UNDER RUSSIAN GUNS’
Yevhenii Tsymbaliuk, Ukraine’s ambassador to the IAEA, said Zaporizhzhia staff were “working under the barrels of Russian guns”. He called for a U.N.-led international mission to the plant by the end of August and accused Russia of trying to cause blackouts along Ukraine’s southern electricity grid by targeting the plant. read more
The Russian defence ministry meanwhile said Ukrainian attacks had damaged high-voltage power lines servicing the Soviet-era plant and forced it to reduce output by two of its six reactors to “prevent disruption”. read more
A Russian-installed official in the Zaporizhzhia region earlier said the facility was operating normally.
The U.N.’s Guterres said IAEA personnel needed access to Zaporizhzhia to “create conditions for stabilisation”.
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A view shows the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in the course of Ukraine-Russia conflict outside the Russian-controlled city of Enerhodar in the Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine August 4, 2022. REUTERS/Alexander Ermochenko
“Any attack (on) a nuclear plant is a suicidal thing,” he told a news conference in Japan, where he attended the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Ceremony on Saturday to commemorate the 77th anniversary of the world’s first atomic bombing.
The world’s worst civil nuclear disaster occurred in 1986 when a reactor at the Chornobyl complex in northwest Ukraine exploded. Soon after this year’s Feb. 24 invasion Russian troops occupied that site, withdrawing from the area in late March.
Ukraine has said it is planning to conduct a major counter-offensive in the Russian-occupied south, apparently focused on the city of Kherson, west of Zaporizhzhia, and that it has already retaken dozens of villages.
GRAIN EXPORTS PICK UP STEAM
Nearby, a deal to unblock Ukraine’s food exports and ease global shortages gathered pace as two grain ships sailed out of Ukrainian Black Sea ports on Monday, raising the total to 12 since the first vessel left a week ago. read more
The two latest outgoing ships were carrying almost 59,000 tonnes of corn and soybeans and were bound for Italy and southeastern Turkey. The four that left on Sunday bore almost 170,000 tonnes of corn and other food.
The July 22 grain export pact brokered by Turkey and the United Nations represents a rare diplomatic triumph as fighting churns on in Ukraine. The deal aims to help ease soaring global food prices arising from the war.
Before the invasion, Russia and Ukraine together accounted for nearly a third of global wheat exports. The disruption since then has raised the spectre of famine in parts of the world.
Ukraine has said it hopes to export 20 million tonnes of grain in silos and 40 million from its new harvest to help rebuild its wrecked economy.
Russia says it is waging a “special military operation” in Ukraine to rid it of nationalists and protect Russian-speaking communities. Ukraine and the West describe Russia’s actions as an unprovoked imperial-style war to reassert control over a pro-Western neighbour lost when the Soviet Union broke up in 1991.
The conflict has displaced millions, killed thousands of civilians and left cities, towns and villages in ruins.
Russian forces are trying to gain full control of Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region where pro-Moscow separatists seized territory after the Kremlin annexed Crimea to the south in 2014.
“Ukrainian soldiers are firmly holding the defence, inflicting losses on the enemy and are ready for any changes in the operational situation,” Ukraine’s general staff said in an operational update on Monday.
Russian forces stepped up attacks north and northwest of Russian-held Donetsk city in the Donbas on Sunday, Ukraine’s military said.
LONDON, Aug 8 (Reuters) – More than 450 foreign-made components have been found in Russian weapons recovered in Ukraine, evidence that Moscow acquired critical technology from companies in the United States, Europe and Asia in the years before the invasion, according to a new report by Royal United Services Institute defence think tank.
Since the start of the war five months ago, the Ukrainian military has captured or recovered from the battlefield intact or partially damaged Russian weapons. When disassembled, 27 of these weapons and military systems, ranging from cruise missiles to air defence systems, were found to rely predominantly on Western components, according to the research shared with Reuters.
It is the most detailed published assessment to date of the part played by Western components in Russia’s war against Ukraine.
About two-thirds of the components were manufactured by U.S.-based companies, RUSI found, based on the weapons recovered from Ukraine. Products manufactured by the U.S.-based Analog Devices and Texas Instruments accounted for nearly a quarter of all the Western components in the weapons.
Other components came from companies in countries including Japan, South Korea, Britain, Germany, Switzerland, and the Netherlands.
“Russian weapons that are critically dependent upon Western electronics have resulted in the deaths of thousands of Ukrainians,” Jack Watling, a land warfare specialist at RUSI, told Reuters.
While many of the foreign components are found in everyday household goods such as microwaves that are not subject to export controls, RUSI said a strengthening of export restrictions and enforcement could make it harder for Russia to replenish its arsenal of weapons such as cruise missiles.
In one case, a Russian 9M727 cruise missile, one of the country’s most advanced weapons that can manoeuvre at low altitude to evade radar and can strike targets hundreds of miles away, contained 31 foreign components. The parts were made by companies that included U.S-based Texas Instruments Inc and Advanced Micro Devices Inc(AMD.O) , as well as Cypress Semiconductor, which is now owned by Infineon AG(IFXGn.DE) , a German company, the RUSI investigation found.
In another case, a Russian Kh-101 cruise missile, which has been used to strike Ukrainian cities, including the capital Kyiv, also had 31 foreign components with parts manufactured by companies including U.S.-based Intel Corporation and AMD-owned Xilinx.
In response to questions about how their chips ended up in Russian weapons, the companies said they comply with trade sanctions and they have stopped selling components to Russia.
Analog Devices said the company closed their business in Russia and instructed distributors to halt shipments to the country.
Texas Instruments said it follows all laws in the countries where they operate and the parts found in the Russian weapons were designed for commercial products. Intel said it “does not support or tolerate our products being used to violate human rights.”
Infineon said it was “deeply concerned” if its products are being used for purposes which they were not designed for. AMD said it strictly follows all global export control laws.
Many of the foreign components only cost a few dollars and Russian companies would have been able to buy them before the start of the Ukraine invasion online through domestic or international distributors because they could be used in non-military applications.
However, more than 80 Western-manufactured microchips were subject to U.S. export controls since at least 2014 meaning they would have required a licence to be shipped to Russia, RUSI said. The companies exporting the parts had a responsibility to carry out due diligence to ensure they were not being sent to the Russian military or for a military end-use, according to RUSI.
The investigation’s findings show how Russia’s military remains reliant on foreign microchips for everything from tactical radios to drones and precision long-range munitions, and that Western governments were slow to limit Russia’s access to these technologies particularly after President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Crimea in 2014.
Russia’s war with Ukraine, which began on Feb. 24, has killed thousands of people, displaced millions more and laid waste to several cities. Russia’s superior firepower, including its use of cruise and ballistic missiles, has helped its forces grind through eastern Ukraine and occupy around a fifth of the country.
Russian troops have fired more than 3,650 missiles and guided rockets in the first five months of the war, according to the Staff of the National Security and Defense Council. These include the 9M727 and Kh-101 missiles. Russian missiles have been used to hit targets including railway lines to disrupt Western supply lines, military infrastructure and civilian targets such as shopping centres and hospitals. Russia said it has only fired at military targets. Russian authorities didn’t provide further comment for this story.
In the aftermath of the invasion of Ukraine, the United States announced sweeping sanctions to try to weaken Russia’s economy and its military. This included a ban on many sensitive microchips being sold to Russia. Countries in Europe, as well as Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea – all key chipmaking countries – have announced similar restrictions. Russia characterises the conflict as a special military operation meant to disarm Ukraine. Moscow has cast the sanctions as a hostile act and has denied targeting civilians.
Russia is currently working to find new routes to secure access to Western microchips, according to RUSI. Many components are sold through distributors operating in Asia, such as Hong Kong, which acts as a gateway for electronics making their way to the Russian military or companies acting on its behalf, RUSI found.
Russia’s government did not respond to a request for comment.
The U.S. government said in March that Russian firms were front companies that have been buying up electronics for Russia’s military. Russian customs records show that in March last year one company imported $600,000 worth of electronics manufactured by Texas Instruments through a Hong Kong distributor, RUSI said. Seven months later, the same company imported another $1.1 million worth of microelectronics made by Xilinx, RUSI said.
Texas Instruments and AMD-owned Xilinx did not respond to a request for comment about the customs data.
Russia’s military could be permanently weakened if Western governments strengthen export controls, manage to shut down the country’s clandestine procurement networks and prevent sensitive components being manufactured in states that support Russia, RUSI said.
((reporting by Andrew MacAskill; edited by Janet McBride))
“I am angered and saddened,” the president also said in a tweet Sunday. “While we await a full investigation, my prayers are with the victims’ families, and my administration stands strongly with the Muslim community.”
Biden’s remarks further thrust into the national spotlight the shooting deaths of three Muslim men of South Asian descent 10 days apart in Albuquerque, New Mexico. A fourth man with a similar background was killed late last year.
Law enforcement officials have acknowledged the strong possibility that the men’s race and religion made them targets. And on Sunday police – scrambling to make an arrest in any of the cases – said they were searching for a particular car that they suspected was linked: a dark gray or silver four-door Volkswagen, possibly a Jetta, with tinted windows.
“We have got to find this vehicle,” the Albuquerque mayor, Tim Keller, told reporters.
The murders in question date back to November 2021, when 62-year-old Mohammad Ahmadi died in a shooting.
I am angered and saddened by the horrific killings of four Muslim men in Albuquerque. While we await a full investigation, my prayers are with the victims’ families, and my Administration stands strongly with the Muslim community.
Later, Aftab Hussein, 41, and Muhammad Afzaal Hussain, 27, who were from Pakistan and members of the same mosque, were fatally shot on 26 July and 1 August, respectively.
Then, hours after going to the burials of both Aftab Hussein and Muhammad Hussain, 25-year-old Nayeem Hossain died after being shot late Friday.
The four slayings have rattled Albuquerque’s Muslim community, with many of its members trying to stay in as much as possible while the murders are unsolved.
Notably, officials with the Islamic Center of New Mexico in Albuquerque said they were asking students – especially those from Pakistan living around campus – to be on alert.
“We are faith leaders – we ask people to be strong,” the center’s imam, Dr Mahmoud Eldenawi, told the Guardian on Saturday. “But we are human – we do feel concerned about our [wives] and children.”
Eldenawi described an atmosphere where Albuquerque’s Muslims were “rushing to finish everything during the daytime” and staying home in the evening because “everybody thinks they’re a target”.
The first step toward determining whether the deaths of Ahmadi, Hussein, Hossain and Hussain constitute hate crimes is jailing a suspect, according to authorities.
In New Mexico, hate crimes targeting race and religion have the highest number of victims among other kinds of hate crimes reported in the state.
The state’s governor, Michelle Lujan Grisham, said she was sending a detachment of state police to reinforce local authorities as well as FBI agents working “to bring the killer or killers to justice”.
So far, GOP Sens. Susan Collins (Maine), Thom Tillis (N.C.), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Rob Portman (Ohio), whose son is gay, have publicly said they would support the legislation. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) initially indicated he would not oppose it, but recently told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that he now has concerns about the bill’s language.
Carlie Brown (left) and Molly Pela exchange wedding vows as their friend, Julie Takahashi, officiates the ceremony. Both women said they rushed to get married after reading Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ concurring opinion in striking down Roe v. Wade, in which he suggested also overturning the landmark case that legalized same-sex marriage.
Carlie A. Brown
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Carlie A. Brown
Carlie Brown (left) and Molly Pela exchange wedding vows as their friend, Julie Takahashi, officiates the ceremony. Both women said they rushed to get married after reading Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ concurring opinion in striking down Roe v. Wade, in which he suggested also overturning the landmark case that legalized same-sex marriage.
Carlie A. Brown
Carlie Brown and Molly Pela had big plans for a big wedding in the spring of 2023.
The ceremony and reception would be held at a lovely restaurant near the park where they’d watched an outdoor movie on their first date. They’d hire a DJ and maybe throw a bachelorette party into the mix. More importantly, they’d give out-of-town friends and family plenty of time to make travel arrangements for the nuptials in Houston, where the couple now lives.
“We wanted some of the traditional fanfare … and time to invite Crazy Uncle Rob and all those types of people,” Pela told NPR, laughing into her phone.
But after the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade in June and the specter that it may signal the toppling of other hard-won constitutional rights, the two women scrapped their dreams of a large celebration, cobbling together a much more immediate affair.
“We were nervous about what was happening at the Supreme Court, so we just decided, let’s not take any chances and let’s just go ahead and get married sooner,” Pela said.
Pela, a partner at the law firm Thompson, Coe, Cousins & Irons, and Brown, the executive vice president of the nonprofit Healthcare for the Homeless — Houston, are new parents. Brown gave birth to a baby boy about a week before the high court’s ruling, and Pela wants to adopt the child.
“For Molly, it’s a lot easier when you’re married,” Brown explained, adding that the thought of waiting until 2023 to begin the adoption process filled them both with anxiety. “We are worried about the future of marriage equality. We didn’t want that to go away before we could get through it.”
So they scrambled and made the best of the situation.
They rescheduled their wedding for nine months earlier and officially tied the knot in a simple ceremony on July 30.
“The wedding was great!” they exclaimed almost simultaneously, although Brown admitted she “would have liked it if there would have been some more folks and some additional people.”
Carlie Brown and Molly Pela scrapped plans for a big wedding in the spring of 2023. Instead, they held a simple ceremony in July outside Rothko Chapel in Houston.
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Carlie A. Brown
Carlie Brown and Molly Pela scrapped plans for a big wedding in the spring of 2023. Instead, they held a simple ceremony in July outside Rothko Chapel in Houston.
Carlie A. Brown
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas suggests a rollback of several rights
The high court’s conservative-majority ruling included a concurring opinion by Justice Clarence Thomas, who wrote that the same rationale that was applied in the abortion case could also apply to the 2015 landmark same-sex marriage ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges.
“[I]n future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell,” Thomas stated. (The 1965 Griswold v. Connecticut decision established the right of married couples to buy and use contraception, while the 2003 Lawrence v. Texas decision decriminalized consensual same-sex sex.)
Thomas added, “[W]e have a duty to ‘correct the error’ established in those precedents.”
Same-sex marriage rates have remained static since 2015
Thomas’ words sent a jolt of fear through LGTBQ communities across the U.S., and for couples like Pela and Brown, who had their child in June, that meant racing to the altar.
Still, data experts agree that it is too soon after the Supreme Court’s decision to tell whether the fall of Roe has triggered a significant surge in same-sex marriage.
Gallup senior editor Jeffrey Jones told NPR that it will take at least a year of data collecting to draw any definitive conclusions.
Jones said same-sex marriage rates in 2014 — the year before Obergefell — indicated that 8% of LGBT adults were married to a same-sex spouse. “And then in the first year after the decision was handed down, that increased to 10%.” He attributes the modest spike to same-sex couples finally being allowed to marry in states where it had been illegal.
“And they’ve pretty much held at that level,” Jones added.
During that time, public opinion in favor of same-sex marriage has continued to grow, including among conservatives. Overall, 71% of Americans say they support it, according to a Gallup poll conducted in May.
Federal legislation to codify same-sex marriage is stalled
But despite the cultural shift, civil rights remain vulnerable without federal legislation, says Caroline Medina, an associate director for the LGBTQI+ Research and Communications Project at the Center for American Progress.
“Given the recent wave of anti-LGBTQ legislation that we’ve been seeing, specifically anti-trans legislation, it wouldn’t surprise me to see states taking action in that area despite the fact that marriage equality is widely supported,” Medina told NPR.
It passed with substantial bipartisan support — 47 Republicans joined all House Democrats to push it through.
The Senate, where 60 votes are needed to overcome a filibuster, may be a different matter.
A Senate vote was put on hold last week, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has said the chamber will take up the bill only once it has secured 10 Republican votes. At the moment, only five of 50 Senate Republicans have indicated they’ll vote for it, but they’re facing a lot of pressure to pass the bill.
Now that the wedding is behind them, Molly Pela (right) can begin the adoption process of the couple’s new son. Carlie Brown (left) gave birth to the boy six days before the Supreme Court’s ruling overturning Roe v. Wade.
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Carlie A. Brown
Now that the wedding is behind them, Molly Pela (right) can begin the adoption process of the couple’s new son. Carlie Brown (left) gave birth to the boy six days before the Supreme Court’s ruling overturning Roe v. Wade.
Carlie A. Brown
Waiting to feel safe
Carlie Brown and Molly Pela say they won’t feel completely secure until federal legislative protections for marriages like theirs are in place.
“We live in Ted Cruz Texas, and I wouldn’t be surprised at all if he tried to make a name for [himself] on a national platform and tried to push something ridiculous through that would prevent us from being married and completing our family in the way that we want to,” Pela said.
Brown is also scared. “In a lot of ways, it’s really kind of emotionally devastating because I’m reminded of how vulnerable we are just because of who I’m married to,” she said.
She added, “It’s tough, emotionally, to kind of feel like you’re second rate to straight couples or opposite-sex couples.”
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