Seven Republican senators voted with all 50 Democrats to maintain a $35 monthly cap on the price of insulin in the Democrats’ $700 billion climate, health and tax reconciliation bill.
The measure targeting people not covered by Medicare was ultimately blocked from being included in the Inflation Reduction Act when it fell three votes short of the 60 required to override a ruling from the Senate parliamentarian.
Many of the seven Republicans who supported the measure have been vocal in their criticism of the reconciliation package broadly — and all of them voted against the bill as a whole.
Democrats won a partial victory when the parliamentarian allowed the $35 insulin cap to apply to Medicare beneficiaries, which could influence prices in the private market.
The Inflation Reduction Act passed the Senate Sunday 51-50, with Vice President Kamala Harris casting the tiebreaker vote.
“While I don’t oppose everything in it, there is no doubt in my mind, based on both substance & process, the Senate should not have passed it,” Murkowski wrote on Twitter after the passage.
Kennedy had proposed his own amendment related to insulin costs, but ended up siding with the Democrats on theirs — though he called his colleagues across the aisle “a special kind of stupid” for the tax increases in the so-called Inflation Reduction Act.
“Democrats’ tax and spending spree will do nothing to decrease inflation, but will raise the tax bill falling on everyday Americans,” Cassidy wrote on Twitter Sunday. “I proudly voted no.”
Hyde-Smith released a statement calling the legislation “a long, forced march toward more economic hardship and more government in our lives.”
The reconciliation bill came out of an agreement between Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), and is aimed at investing in domestic energy and lowering prescription drug costs by closing tax loopholes on wealthy individuals and corporations.
The Hill has reached out to the offices of GOP senators who supported the insulin cap for comment.
Aug 7 (Reuters) – Ukraine said on Sunday that renewed Russian shelling had damaged three radiation sensors and hurt a worker at the Zaporizhzhia power plant, in the second hit in consecutive days on Europe’s largest nuclear facility.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy called Saturday night’s shelling “Russian nuclear terror” that warranted more international sanctions, this time on Moscow’s nuclear sector.
“There is no such nation in the world that could feel safe when a terrorist state fires at a nuclear plant,” Zelenskiy said in a televised address on Sunday.
However, the Russian-installed authority of the area said it was Ukraine that hit the site with a multiple rocket launcher, damaging administrative buildings and an area near a storage facility.
Reuters could not verify either side’s version.
Events at the Zaporizhzhia site – where Kyiv had previously alleged that Russia hit a power line on Friday – have alarmed the world.
“(It) underlines the very real risk of a nuclear disaster,” International Atomic Energy Agency head Rafael Mariano Grossi warned on Saturday.
Elsewhere, a deal to unblock Ukraine’s food exports and ease global shortages gathered pace as another four ships sailed out of Ukrainian Black Sea ports while the first cargo vessel since Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion docked. read more
The four outgoing ships had almost 170,000 tonnes of corn and other food. They were sailing under a deal brokered by the United Nations and Turkey to try to help ease soaring global food prices that have resulted from the war.
Before Moscow’s Feb. 24 invasion, which Russian President Vladimir Putin calls a “special military operation”, Russia and Ukraine together accounted for nearly a third of global wheat exports. The disruption since then has threatened famine in some parts of the world.
BATTLE FOR DONBAS
Putin’s troops are trying to gain full control of the Donbas region of east Ukraine where pro-Moscow separatists seized territory after the Kremlin annexed Crimea to the south in 2014.
Russian forces stepped up their attacks north and northwest of Donetsk city in the Donbas on Sunday, Ukraine’s military said. The Russians attacked Ukrainian positions near the heavily fortified settlements of Piski and Avdiivka, as well as shelling other locations in the Donetsk region, it said.
In addition to tightening its grip over the Donbas, Russia is entrenching its position in southern Ukraine, where it has gathered troops in a bid to prevent a potential counter-offensive near Kherson, Kyiv has said.
As the fighting rages, Russians installed in the wake of Moscow’s invasion have toyed with the idea of joining Ukraine’s occupied territory to Russia. Last month, a senior pro-Russian official said a referendum on such a move was likely “towards next year.” read more
In his video address, Zelenskiy said that any “pseudo-referendums” on occupied areas of his country joining Russia would eliminate the possibility of talks between Moscow and its Ukrainian counterparts or their allies.
“They will close for themselves any change of talks with Ukraine and the free world which the Russian side will clearly need at some point,” Zelenskiy said. read more
Also Sunday, Ukraine’s chief war crimes prosecutor said almost 26,000 suspected war crimes committed since the invasion were being investigated, with 135 people charged, of whom 15 were in custody. Russia denies targeting civilians. read more
Shelling and missile strikes were reported overnight in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv and around military sites in the western region of Vinnitsya, among other places, Ukrainian authorities said. There was no immediate word on casualties.
Beyond Ukraine, a proxy battle played out at the International Chess Federation where former Russian deputy prime minister Arkady Dvorkovich won a second term as president, defeating Ukraine’s Andrii Baryshpolets. read more
And after days of controversy, Amnesty International apologised for “distress and anger” caused by a report accusing Ukraine of endangering civilians. That had infuriated Zelenskiy and prompted the head of the rights group’s Ukraine office to resign. read more
WASHINGTON, Aug 7 (Reuters) – The U.S. Senate on Sunday passed a sweeping $430 billion bill intended to fight climate change, lower drug prices and raise some corporate taxes, a major victory for President Joe Biden that Democrats hope will aid their chances of keeping control of Congress in this year’s elections.
After a marathon, 27-hour weekend session of debate and Republican efforts to derail the package, the Senate approved the legislation known as the Inflation Reduction Act by a 51-50 party line vote Vice President Kamala Harris cast the tie-breaking ballot.
The action sends the measure to the House of Representatives for a vote expected Friday that could forward it, in turn, to the White House for Biden’s signature. In a statement, Biden urged the House to act as soon as possible and said he looked forward to signing the bill into law.
“The Senate is making history,” an elated Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said, after pumping his fists in the air as Democrats cheered and their staff members responded to the vote with a standing ovation.
“To Americans who’ve lost faith that Congress can do big things, this bill is for you,” he said. “This bill is going to change America for decades.”
Schumer said the legislation contains “the boldest clean energy package in American history” to fight climate change while reducing consumer costs for energy and some medicines.
Democrats have drawn harsh attacks from Republicans over the legislation’s $430 billion in new spending and roughly $740 billion in new revenue. read more
Nevertheless, Democrats hope its passage, ahead of an August recess, will help the party’s House and Senate candidates in the Nov. 8 midterm elections at a time when Biden is suffering from anemic public approval ratings amid high inflation.
The legislation is aimed at reducing carbon emissions and shifting consumers to green energy, while cutting prescription drug costs for the elderly and tightening enforcement on taxes for corporations and the wealthy.
Because the measure pays for itself and reduces the federal deficit over time, Democrats contend that it will help bring down inflation, an economic liability that has also weighed on their hopes of retaining legislative control in the run-up to the 2024 presidential election.
1/12
U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) walks into the Radio TV gallery to speak to the media after the 51-50 vote passed the “Inflation Reduction Act of 2022” on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S. August 7, 2022. REUTERS/Ken Cedeno
Republicans, arguing that the bill will not address inflation, have denounced the measure as a job-killing, left-wing spending wish list that could undermine growth when the economy is in danger of falling into recession.
Democrats approved the bill by using a parliamentary maneuver called reconciliation, which allows budget-related legislation to avoid the 100-seat chamber’s 60-vote threshold for most bills and pass on a simple majority.
After several hours of debate, the Senate began a rapid-fire “vote-a-rama” on Democratic and Republican amendments on Saturday evening that stretched into Sunday afternoon.
Democrats repelled more than 30 Republican amendments, points of order and motions, all intended to scupper the legislation. Any change in the bill’s contents wrought by an amendment could have unraveled the Democrats’ 50-senator coalition needed to keep the legislation on track.
NO CAP ON INSULIN COSTS
But they were unable to muster the votes necessary to retain a provision to cap soaring insulin costs at $35 a month on the private health insurance market, which fell outside the reconciliation rules. Democrats said the legislation would still limit insulin costs for those on Medicare.
In a foreshadowing of the coming fall election campaign, Republicans used their amendment defeats to attack vulnerable Democrats who are seeking reelection in November.
“Democrats vote again to allow chaos on the southern border to continue,” Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said in a statement that named Democratic Senators Mark Kelly of Arizona, Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire and Raphael Warnock of Georgia. All four are facing tight contests for reelection.
The bill was more than 18 months in the making as Biden’s original sweeping Build Back Better plan was whittled down in the face of opposition from Republicans and key legislators from his own party.
“It required many compromises. Doing important things almost always does,” Biden said in a statement.
More human skeletal remains were found Saturday at a beach on Lake Mead, the fourth set of remains found at the lake where water levels have dramatically receded in recent years because of a lingering drought, authorities said.
Park Rangers responded to a call about the discovery of the remains at Swim Beach at Lake Mead National Recreation Area about 11:30 a.m. Saturday, according to the National Park Service. They were assisted in their investigation by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department dive team.
The skeletal remains are the second set to be found at Swim Beach.
Authorities provided no additional information about the discovery. A spokesperson with the Clark County Office of the Coroner-Medical Examiner could not be reached for comment.
This is the fourth time since May that human remains have been discovered at Lake Mead, the nation’s largest reservoir, which has dropped to unprecedented lows amid a 22-year drought. The lake provides water to 25 million people and millions of acres of farmland in several states in the Southwest, including California.
🚨 ALERT: National Park Service rangers received an emergency call reporting the discovery of human skeletal remains at Swim Beach at Lake Mead on Saturday, August 6.
Six days later, another set of remains was found at Callville Bay. A third set was recovered last month at the lake’s Swim Beach.
Authorities believe the region’s extreme drought and Lake Mead’s dropping water levels will lead them to discover more remains. None of the remains discovered have been identified.
In addition to human remains, the receding waters have revealed watercraft, including a World War II-era boat that had been put into service at the lake before sinking.
One was Brooks Lambertson, a young and rising bank vice presidentfrom Los Angeles. There was Donna Mueller, 75, a retired teacher, and her husband James Mueller, 76, who camefrom Wisconsin toWashington to celebrate their 56th wedding anniversary. And there was Amber, a young woman from California whose travels in the Middle East teaching English had kindled a desireto help those stricken by war and poverty in that region.
At the same time, the plunging cost of natural gas and renewable energy has weakened the coal industry. Environmentalists forged alliances with groups they had previously sparred with, like unions and farmers. They began to talk about climate change not only as a threat to polar bears and coastlines, but also as an opportunity for the United States to develop a new economy untethered to fossil fuels.
“The movement had to mature,” said Senator Brian Schatz, Democrat of Hawaii, who fought back tears immediately after Sunday’s vote. “There’s plenty to catastrophize about, but that was no way to build political momentum. We started to try to answer the question, ‘What’s in it for me if we take climate action’ as a farmer, a surfer, a blue collar union worker.”
President Biden took that cue, equating climate action with jobs when he won the White House in 2020, partly with help from a record turnout of young, climate-minded voters.
But Joe Manchin III, the Democrat from coal-rich West Virginia and a crucial swing vote in an evenly divided Senate, would determine the limits of what was possible.
As Democrats sought to advance a broad spending bill that would include climate provisions, senators took one last stab at putting a price on carbon. They tried to include a measure that would have rewarded electric utilities that replaced fossil fuels with clean sources of energy and penalized those that did not. That provision would have enabled the United States to meet Mr. Biden’s long-term climate goals, and rapidly transform the nation’s energy sector.
JACKSON, Ky. — Teresa Watkins worked to salvage a few mud-caked belongings from her home on a Breathitt County branch of the Kentucky River after July 28floods slammed her neighborhood for the second time in 17 months.
The 54-year-old, who has lived off Quicksand Road since she was a teenager, said the flooding in recent years – “more and more, worse and worse” – has left difficult dilemmas in a county where median household incomes of $29,538 areless than half the national average.
She pointed to a mobile home one family abandoned last year. Now, more say they’re leaving for safer areas, she said, but it’s not that easy.
“I don’t know how they can afford it, or where they’re going to go. Any property is basically along the river line or creek banks,” she said. “And if they go up on the mountains, the mountains slide.”
Devastating floods that killed at least 37 people in Kentucky and recent damage in other parts of Appalachia, including Virginia and West Virginia, are fueling urgent questions about how to mitigate the impact of hazardous flooding that is only expected to increase as climate change fuels more extreme weather.
But in one of America’s most economically depressed regions, there are few easy answers.
The region’s mountainous landscape, high poverty rates, dispersed housing in remote valleys, coal-mining scarred mountainsthat accelerate floods and under-resourced local governments all make solutions extremely difficult.
Measures such as flood wells, drainage systems or raising homes are expensive for cash-strapped counties. Buyouts or building restrictions are difficult in areas where safer options and new home construction are limited. Many are unable or unwilling to uproot.
And tamping down extreme weather by reducing climate-changing emissions nationwide is a goal that is politically fraught, including in a region with coal in its veins, that promises no quick relief.
“If we had all the money in the world, and we had the political will and cooperation, we could go a long way towards solving these problems,” said William Haneberg, director of the Kentucky Geological Survey and a professor of Earth & Environmental Sciences at the University of Kentucky.
Even as Kentucky’s devastation renews attention to longstanding challenges, some residents say they have little hope that effective protections will arrive anytime soon.
For now, the emphasis is on trying to rebuild what was lost.In Kentucky, Gov. Andy Beshear said recently that he may call a special legislative session for more aid to the region, and FEMA is providing housing and other help.
Still, repeat floods have prompted some officials to search for longer-term answers. Buchanan County, Virginia, for example, is drawing up a flood-resiliency plan to identify projects to blunt flooding’s impact. But those projects would still have to be paid for.
Some residents are fatalistic or doubt the government can do much. Others are pushing for more protections in areas where many have few options to move and can’t afford flood insurance.
In the Buchanan County community of Pilgrim’s Knob, Sherry Honaker, 55, this week watched crews remove debris from her niece’s home on Dismal Creek. It was gutted in a major flood about two weeks before the Kentucky floods – the county’s second this year.
“Something needs to be done,” she said.
How susceptible is Appalachia?
Central Appalachia is no stranger to flooding. But the latest high water in Eastern Kentucky was record-breaking, and experts expect more to follow.
Amid the larger pattern of extreme weather in the United States, from wildfires to heat waves, meteorologists and climate scientists say human-driven climate change comes with a warmer atmosphere capable of holding more moisture.
That can mean more bouts of intense rainfall, and more rain in a short period of time fuels flash flooding, said Antonia Sebastian, an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill specializing in flood resilience and mitigation.
The region’s topography also contributes to how “flashy” a flood can be, Sebastian said.
The steep slopes of the Appalachians allow water to rush quickly into the narrow valleys below, sometimes swamping hollows before residents have a chance to escape.
In 2019, an Inside Climate News analysis of U.S. Army Corps of Engineers streamflow data and satellite images of disturbed land from strip mining found areas such as the Big Sandy watershed, which straddles the Kentucky and West Virginia state line, to be among the most threatened by climate-change-fueledextreme weather within the Ohio River Basin.
The region’s history of coal mining, as well as logging, can exacerbate flooding, experts said, by dramatically altering the landscape.
With surface mining, trees are the first to go, then sometimes hundreds of feet of rock are blasted away from the tops and sides of mountains to get at underground seams of coal.
“Normally, on a forested hillside, the trees and their roots will absorb 40% to 50% of the rain that falls, then slowly release it,” said Jack Spadaro, a former top federal mine safety engineer. After mining, surfaces robbed of vegetation help fuel flash flooding, he said.
Housing patterns also contribute to the area’s vulnerability, with many residences scattered in smaller communities along a road that often winds along a creek lined with steep hillsides.
In Kentucky’s Breathitt County, for example, half of all homes are at a high risk of flooding, according to data provided to USA TODAY by the First Street Foundation, a research and technology nonprofit that tracks flood risks.
The same is true of 46% of homes in Perry County and 58% in Letcher County.
“You hear people say, ‘Oh, you know, they shouldn’t live in a floodplain. They should move someplace else.’ But if you look at a lot of these towns, there are really not a lot of good options,” Haneberg said.
Added to that is the area’s economic vulnerability. Many residents cannot afford flood insurance.
Amid coal’s decline, good jobs are hard to find. Breathitt County’s poverty rate is 28%, more than twice the national rate of 11%. The median home value of $53,000 is less than a quarter of the national average, according to the U.S. Census.
The region has higher rates of chronic disease and populations that have fallen in recent decades.
Jessica Willett, 34, whoseremote Jackson homewas pushed downstream by floodingwhile she and her two children were inside, said she was nervous about rebuilding on Bowling Creek.
But it’s also a home she doesn’t want to leave.
“My aunt down the road, she is going to move. She lost everything,” she said. “It’s just hard because down here, there’s a lot of family land. We want our kids and grandkids to grow up on it.”
The ‘pain points’ of climate change
Standing near Dismal Creek in Virginia, Honaker looked over a giant pile of rubble. She said she wants officials to ramp up unclogging draining culverts or increasing the creek’s depth.
She looked at her niece’s home: “Maybe stilts would have helped,” she said.
While it’s impossible to halt heavy rains and flooding, counties and towns can consider measures to limit their impact, said Tee Clarkson, a principal at First Earth 2030, a company helping Buchanan County develop its flood resiliency plan.
That could include flood walls, strengthening creek banks, dredging creeks to greater depths and expanding piping and drainage systems, he and others said. Houses could also be raised on stilts.
“It’s hard to keep areas from flooding, but you want to lower the pain points” for residents and infrastructure, he said.
U.S. Rep. Hal Rogers, who represents Eastern Kentucky, said in an area with a “long and daunting history of flooding,” he’s helped secure more than $800 million over 40 years to help build flood walls, levees, tunnels and other public safety projects.
“However, this flash flood was a natural disaster that turned small creeks and mountain run-off into raging rivers that chartered a new destructive course through our valleys and hollows,” he said. “These types of floods have always been one of the greatest challenges to mitigate in the mountains, and I will continue to advocate for every possible resource that we can afford to protect our mountain communities.”
What could also help, experts say, is tackling the hundreds of thousands of acres of former mine land in Appalachia still to be reclaimed, according to a 2021 report by the environmental group Appalachian Voice.
Counties can also restrict building or add stricter building requirements, but that is easiest for new construction – in places like Perry County, Kentucky, few new building permits were issued in recent years, according to the U.S. Census.
Perry County Judge-Executive Scott Alexander said he’s looking for ways to make his county more flood-resilient, such as raising bridges or expanding reservoirs. He said a future discussion might include raising homes in flood-prone areas.
“We’ve got to start looking at preventive flooding measures,” he said. But he cautioned that “when you get to 12 inches of rain, especially in Appalachia, there’s not a whole lot of anything that can handle that.”
Federal Emergency Management Agency buyouts have been an option, but they take time and can be fraught with potential harm, Sebastian said. The Central Appalachian population is one of the poorest in the country and moving that population out of a region with a generally low cost of living could bring further economic hardship.
And the properties in the most flood-prone areas tend to be the most affordable, further endangering the very poorest Appalachians, said Colette Easter, president of Kentucky’s section of the American Society of Civil Engineers.
“That involves gut-wrenching questions about moving away from a place that you’ve lived for a very long time, maybe generations, and you’re very connected to,” Eric Dixon, a researcher at the Ohio River Valley Institute, said with a deep sigh. “But maybe you don’t have another choice. Maybe that’s literally what you have to do. That’s the real heartbreaking part of this, I think.”
Flooded residents, difficult choices
For 15 years, Angie Rosser has lived along the Elk River in Clay County, West Virginia.
In 2016, a powerful flood hit the state, killing 23 people and causing more than $1 billion in damage.
Six years later, Rosser said her community still doesn’t have a grocery store. She hasn’t replaced much of the furniture she lost. In Rosser’s house today, you’ll find a bed, but no couch and no dining table.
“My house is pretty empty, because I am expecting another flood to happen – which is not a great way to live,” said Rosser, the executive director of the West Virginia Rivers Coalition.
Rosser understands the commitment to stay and rebuild shared by many of her neighbors, but “I’m not one of those people,” she said. “If it floods again, I’m out. I can’t do it again. It was just too exhausting.”
That same weary uncertainty has spread across hard-hit counties in Kentucky this week, where the next disaster lurks behind each heavy rainfall to come.
Dee Davis was a Hazard, Kentucky, kindergartener when a flood devastated the area in 1957. It is seared into his memory. He recalls his grandmother and great-uncle taking a canoe to buy groceries.
“We lost everything,” he said.
That flood 65 years ago set a record water level for the North Fork Kentucky River, at 14.7 feet in Whitesburg. Locals never forgot the damage it wrought.
The most recent flooding put that same river at about 21 feet. The water rushed in with enough force to destroy the U.S. Geological Survey sensor designed to monitor the water level.
On Whitesburg’s Main Street this week, the stuffy odor of mud lingered everywhere. The sidewalks were littered with growing piles of discarded furniture, rubble and children’s toys.
For now, the path ahead starts by reckoning with what was lost.
“You mourn the dead,” Davis said, “and you find a way to go forward.”
James Bruggers is a reporter for Inside Climate News.
Contact USA TODAY national reporter Chris Kenning at ckenning@usatoday.com
A 27-year-old Muslim man killed last week in Albuquerque, New Mexico, is being remembered as a “brilliant public servant” committed to “improving conditions and inclusivity for disadvantaged minorities,” according to the mayor of the city he worked for.
Police believe the death of Muhammad Afzaal Hussain on August 1 could be linked to the killings of three other Muslim men. The most recent killing, which Albuquerque police were alerted to Friday night, came a day after authorities determined there was a connection between the killings of Hussain and 41-year-old Aftab Hussein, who, like Hussain was from Pakistan.
Detectives are working to determine whether the November killing of Mohammad Ahmadi, a Muslim man from Afghanistan killed outside a business he ran with his brother, was also related.
Authorities are now looking for a “vehicle of interest” they say is potentially connected to the murders, Albuquerque Police Department Deputy Chief Cecily Parker said Sunday. The car is described as a dark silver, sedan-style Volkswagen Jetta or Passat with tinted windows, Parker said.
At the time he was killed, Hussain worked on the planning team for the city of Española, New Mexico, according to a news release from the mayor, who said he was “deeply saddened” to learn of the man’s death.
“Muhammad was soft-spoken and kind, and quick to laugh,” Mayor John Ramon Vigil said in a news release last Wednesday. “He was well-respected and well-liked by his coworkers and members of the community.”
Hussain, who had worked for the office for a year, studied law and human resource management at the University of Punjab in Pakistan, the mayor’s release said, before receiving both master’s and bachelor degrees in community and regional planning from the University of New Mexico.
“Our City staff has lost a member of our family,” the mayor’s statement said, “and we all have lost a brilliant public servant who wanted to serve and improve his community.”
The University of New Mexico community is similarly “heartbroken” over Hussain’s death, President Garnett S. Stokes said in a statement, calling Hussain “an inspiring leader and a really special Lobo who touched so many lives.”
“It was my privilege to know and work with him,” Stokes said.
Jesse Alemán, the acting dean of graduate studies at the university, called Hussain a “brilliant, respected student leader” who “continued to extend his compassionate leadership skills and educational expertise at the local and state levels” after he graduated.
Congresswoman Melanie Stansbury, who said Hussain worked on her campaign for Congress, said his “smile and his passion lit up a room.”
“His work as a field organizer for our campaign inspired countless people with his compassion and dedication to working in partnership with our communities, as one of the kindest and hardest working people I have ever known,” Stansbury said at the news conference Sunday.
Victims were ‘ambushed with no warning,’ police say
The attacks have drawn condemnation from political leaders, including President Joe Biden, who said he was “angered and saddened” by the attacks.
“While we await a full investigation, my prayers are with the victims’ families, and my Administration stands strongly with the Muslim community,” Biden wrote on Twitter.
Vice President Kamala Harris and New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham similarly expressed support for New Mexico’s Muslim community, with the latter describing the attacks as “deeply angering and wholly intolerable.”
“I am incredibly angry about the situation,” the governor said Sunday. “Every New Mexican should stand up and be against this kind of hatred. It has no place in this city and it has no place in our state,” Lujan Grisham said.
Speaking to the Muslim community in Albuquerque and across the state Sunday, Congresswoman Stansbury said Muslims are “part and parcel of who we are in New Mexico.”
“I want to say that every one of us in New Mexico must rise to meet these acts of hatred by demonstrating love, by demonstrating friendship and by demonstrating solidarity. This is not New Mexico. This is not who we are,” Stansbury said. “We will stand in solidarity. We will stand in grief and in mourning. And we will stand in our commitment to love and inclusion and belonging in this community.”
Albuquerque police officers responded just before midnight Friday to reports of a shooting in the area of Truman Street and Grand Avenue, and found the victim dead, according to the police department’s news release. The victim, a Muslim man believed to be in his mid-20s, was from South Asia, police said. His identity has not been positively confirmed, the release added.
Hussain, Hussein and Ahmadi, were all “ambushed with no warning, fired on and killed,” Kyle Hartsock, deputy commander of the police department’s Criminal Investigations Division, previously said.
“Our top priority is keeping the community safe and we are asking the Muslim community especially, to be vigilant, to watch out for one another. If you see something, say something,” the police chief said Saturday. “Evil will not prevail.”
The Muslim community is living in fear due to the killings, Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller said Sunday, and the city is taking steps to increase security.
“We have heard from the community that the fear is so strong, there is a concern about even things like groceries and getting meals for certain folks in certain areas of town,” Keller said. The city is providing meals for those affected by the shootings, he added.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations is also offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction of those responsible, the organization announced, calling the series of killings a “horrific, hateful shooting spree.”
“We thank local, state and federal law enforcement for their ongoing work on this crisis, and we call the Biden administration to ensure that authorities all of the resources needed to both protect the Albuquerque Muslim community and stop those responsible for these horrific crimes before they claim more innocent lives,” CAIR National Deputy Director Edward Ahmed Mitchell said in a statement.
CNN’s Claudia Dominguez, Raja Razek and Christina Maxouris contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON—The Senate voted 51 to 50 to approve Democrats’ climate, healthcare and tax package after more than 15 hours of amendments, passing elements of President Biden’s agenda that have languished on Capitol Hill for more than a year.
Vice President Kamala Harris cast the tiebreaking vote in the evenly divided chamber. Passage of the legislation came after an all-night amendment process that began Saturday night and stretched into Sunday afternoon, testing lawmakers’ endurance but not derailing the bill’s passage. The House is expected to vote on the legislation Friday.
Despite an adverse ruling from the chamber’s parliamentarian, Democrats opted to keep the full price cap provision in the bill anyway. That gave Republicans, led in debate by Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), an opening for a challenge on the Senate floor. Democrats would have needed 60 votes — their entire caucus plus the support of 10 GOP members — to beat back that challenge. They came up short.
GAZA/JERUSALEM, Aug 7 (Reuters) – Israel and Palestinian militants agreed to a Cairo-mediated truce to take effect late on Sunday, sources said, raising hopes of an end to the most serious flare-up on the Gaza frontier in more than a year.
Israeli forces pounded Palestinian targets through the weekend, triggering longer-range rocket attacks against its cities.
Islamic Jihad, the faction that Israel has been fighting in Gaza since Friday, and a Palestinian official familiar with the ceasefire efforts said the truce would come into effect at 23:30 (20:30 GMT). Israel did not immediately confirm this.
Palestinian and Egyptian sources had previously given earlier times for the truce.
The latest clashes have echoed preludes to previous Gaza wars, though they have been relatively contained as Hamas, the governing Islamist group in the Gaza Strip and a more powerful force than Iranian-backed Islamic Jihad, has so far stayed out.
Gaza officials said 41 Palestinians, almost half of them civilians and including children, had so far been killed. The rockets have threatened much of southern Israel and sent residents in cities including Tel Aviv and Ashkelon to shelters.
1/15
Palestinians gather at the scene where senior commander of Islamic Jihad militant group Khaled Mansour was killed in Israeli strikes, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, August 7, 2022. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa
Israel launched what it called pre-emptive strikes on Friday against what it anticipated would be an Islamic Jihad attack meant to avenge the arrest of a leader of the group, Bassam al-Saadi, in the occupied West Bank.
In response, Islamic Jihad fired hundreds of rockets at Israel. The group said the truce would involve al-Saadi’s release. Israeli officials did not immediately comment.
On Sunday, Islamic Jihad extended its range to fire toward Jerusalem in what it described as retaliation for the overnight killing of its southern Gaza commander by Israel – the second such senior officer it has lost in the fighting.
Israel said its Iron Dome interceptor, whose success rate the army put at 97%, shot down the rockets just west of the city.
Palestinians dazed by another surge of bloodshed – after outbreaks of war in 2008-09, 2012, 2014 and last year – picked through the ruins of houses to salvage furniture or documents.
“Who wants a war? No one. But we also don’t like to keep silent when women, children and leaders are killed,” said a Gaza taxi driver who identified himself only as Abu Mohammad. “An eye for an eye.”
A senior correspondent with nearly 25 years’ experience covering the Palestinian-Israeli conflict including several wars and the signing of the first historic peace accord between the two sides.
LAS VEGAS — More human remains have been found at drought-stricken Lake Mead National Recreation Area east of Las Vegas, authorities said Sunday.
It’s the fourth time since May that remains have been uncovered as Western drought forces the shoreline to retreat at the shrinking Colorado River reservoir behind the Hoover Dam.
National Park Service officials said rangers were called to the reservoir between Nevada and Arizona around 11 a.m. Saturday after skeletal remains were discovered at Swim Beach.
Rangers and a Las Vegas Metropolitan Police dive team went to retrieve the remains.
Park Service officials said the Clark County Medical Examiner’s Office will try to determine when and how the person died as investigators review records of missing people.
On May 1, a barrel containing human remains was found near Hemenway Harbor. Police believe the remains were that of a man who died from a gunshot wound and the body was likely dumped in the mid-1970s to early 1980s.
Less than a week later, authorities say human skeletal remains were found at Calville Bay.
More recently, partial human remains were found in the Boulder Beach area on July 25.
Police have speculated that more remains may be discovered as the water level at Lake Mead continues to recede.
The discoveries have prompted speculation about long-unsolved missing person and murder cases dating back decades — to organized crime and the early days of Las Vegas, which is just a 30-minute drive from the lake.
The lake surface has dropped more than 170 feet (52 meters) since the reservoir was full in 1983.
The drop in the lake level comes while a vast majority of peer-reviewed science says the world is warming, mainly because of rising levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
Scientists say the U.S. West, including the Colorado River basin, has become warmer and drier in the past 30 years.
Ukraine accused Russian forces on Sunday of launching rockets at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, further ratcheting fears of an accident a day after the United Nation’s watchdog warned that fighting at the occupied complex risked a “nuclear disaster.”
It was the second time in as many days that the plant, which is the largest of its kind in Europe, was hit. Ukraine and Russia have traded blame for both attacks.
The rockets launched on Saturday night struck near a dry storage facility, where 174 casks with spent nuclear fuel are kept, according to Energoatom, Ukraine’s state-run nuclear power company. Explosions blew out windows in parts of the plant and one worker was hospitalized with shrapnel wounds.
“Apparently, they aimed specifically at the containers with processed fuel, which are stored outside next to the site of shelling,” the company said in a statement on Telegram.
Three radiation monitoring detectors were also damaged on Saturday, making “timely detection and response in case of aggravation of the radiation situation or leakage of radiation from spent nuclear fuel casks are currently impossible,” Energoatom said.
“This time a nuclear catastrophe was miraculously avoided, but miracles cannot last forever,” it added.
Kyiv has accused Russian forces of storing heavy weaponry in and launching attacks from the plant, which they took over in early March and still occupy. Moscow, meanwhile, has claimed Ukrainian troops are targeting the complex.
The head of the pro-Russian regional administration in Zaporizhzhia, Yevgeny Balitsky, said in a statement on Telegram Sunday that Ukrainian forces had targeted the spent fuel storage area and damaged administrative buildings.
Fears about the security of Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant have been growing since Russian forces seized the site, but reached an inflection point on Friday when shelling damaged a high-voltage power line and forced one of the plant’s reactors to stop operating – despite no radioactive leak being detected.
After the attack, Energoatom said that Russian shellfire had damaged a nitrogen-oxygen station and the combined auxiliary building, and that there were “still risks of hydrogen leakage and sputtering of radioactive substances, and the fire hazard is also high.”
The director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Mariano Grossi, said he was alarmed by the reports of damage and demanded that an IAEA team of experts urgently be allowed to visit the plant, to assess and safeguard the complex.
“I’m extremely concerned by the shelling yesterday at Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, which underlines the very real risk of a nuclear disaster that could threaten public health and the environment in Ukraine and beyond,” Grossi said in a statement Saturday.
“Military action jeopardizing the safety and security of the Zaporizhzya nuclear power plant is completely unacceptable and must be avoided at all costs,” he added.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who has accused Russia of using Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant to wreak terror in Europe, said Sunday that he spoke with European Council President Charles Michel about the situation at the complex.
“Russian nuclear terror requires a stronger response from the international community – sanctions on the Russian nuclear industry and nuclear fuel,” Zelensky tweeted.
CNN was unable to verify claims of damage at the plant, which lies on the banks of Dnipro River. Ukrainian prosecutors have opened an investigation into the shelling.
‘Irresponsible breach of nuclear safety rules’
The European Union’s top diplomat has slammed Russia’s military activities around the Zaporizhzya power plant and called for the IAEA to gain access to the complex.
“This is a serious and irresponsible breach of nuclear safety rules and another example of Russia’s disregard for international norms,” Josep Borrell, the EU’s foreign policy chief, said Saturday on Twitter.
Several Western and Ukrainian officials believe that Russia is now using the giant nuclear facility as a stronghold to shield their troops and mount attacks, because they assume Kyiv will not return fire and risk a crisis.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has accused Moscow of using the plant to shield its forces, while Britain’s ministry of defense said in a recent security assessment that Russia’s actions at the complex sabotage the safety of its operations.
The Ukrainian mayor of Enerhodar, Dmytro Orlov, said in late July that Russian forces had been observed using heavy weaponry near the plant because “they know very well that the Ukrainian Armed Forces will not respond to these attacks, as they can damage the nuclear power plant.”
“The possible consequences of hitting an operating reactor are equivalent to the use of an atomic bomb,” the ministry said on Twitter.
Grossi has called for all parties to “exercise the utmost restraint in the vicinity of this important nuclear facility, with its six reactors.”
While the security situation is stable and there is no immediate threat to nuclear safety, according to the IAEA, Grossi warned of the dire risk that further fighting at the site could pose.
“Any military firepower directed at or from the facility would amount to playing with fire, with potentially catastrophic consequences,” Grossi said.
The IAEA has been trying to coordinate a mission of safeguarding experts to visit the plant since it was seized by Russian forces.
“This mission would play a crucial role in helping to stabilise the nuclear safety and security situation there, as we have at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and elsewhere in Ukraine in recent months,” he said.
The IAEA sent teams to Chernobyl nuclear power plant in late April and in May to deliver equipment and conduct radiological assessments of the site, which was held by Russian forces for more than a month before they withdrew in late March.
CNN’s Mariya Knight, Vasco Cotovio and Tim Lister contributed to this report.
JACKSON, Ky. — Teresa Watkins worked to salvage a few mud-caked belongings from her home on a Breathitt County branch of the Kentucky River after July 28floods slammed her neighborhood for the second time in 17 months.
The 54-year-old, who has lived off Quicksand Road since she was a teenager, said the flooding in recent years – “more and more, worse and worse” – has left difficult dilemmas in a county where median household incomes of $29,538 areless than half the national average.
She pointed to a mobile home one family abandoned last year. Now, more say they’re leaving for safer areas, she said, but it’s not that easy.
“I don’t know how they can afford it, or where they’re going to go. Any property is basically along the river line or creek banks,” she said. “And if they go up on the mountains, the mountains slide.”
Devastating floods that killed at least 37 people in Kentucky and recent damage in other parts of Appalachia, including Virginia and West Virginia, are fueling urgent questions about how to mitigate the impact of hazardous flooding that is only expected to increase as climate change fuels more extreme weather.
But in one of America’s most economically depressed regions, there are few easy answers.
The region’s mountainous landscape, high poverty rates, dispersed housing in remote valleys, coal-mining scarred mountainsthat accelerate floods and under-resourced local governments all make solutions extremely difficult.
Measures such as flood wells, drainage systems or raising homes are expensive for cash-strapped counties. Buyouts or building restrictions are difficult in areas where safer options and new home construction are limited. Many are unable or unwilling to uproot.
And tamping down extreme weather by reducing climate-changing emissions nationwide is a goal that is politically fraught, including in a region with coal in its veins, that promises no quick relief.
“If we had all the money in the world, and we had the political will and cooperation, we could go a long way towards solving these problems,” said William Haneberg, director of the Kentucky Geological Survey and a professor of Earth & Environmental Sciences at the University of Kentucky.
Even as Kentucky’s devastation renews attention to longstanding challenges, some residents say they have little hope that effective protections will arrive anytime soon.
For now, the emphasis is on trying to rebuild what was lost.In Kentucky, Gov. Andy Beshear said recently that he may call a special legislative session for more aid to the region, and FEMA is providing housing and other help.
Still, repeat floods have prompted some officials to search for longer-term answers. Buchanan County, Virginia, for example, is drawing up a flood-resiliency plan to identify projects to blunt flooding’s impact. But those projects would still have to be paid for.
Some residents are fatalistic or doubt the government can do much. Others are pushing for more protections in areas where many have few options to move and can’t afford flood insurance.
In the Buchanan County community of Pilgrim’s Knob, Sherry Honaker, 55, this week watched crews remove debris from her niece’s home on Dismal Creek. It was gutted in a major flood about two weeks before the Kentucky floods – the county’s second this year.
“Something needs to be done,” she said.
How susceptible is Appalachia?
Central Appalachia is no stranger to flooding. But the latest high water in Eastern Kentucky was record-breaking, and experts expect more to follow.
Amid the larger pattern of extreme weather in the United States, from wildfires to heat waves, meteorologists and climate scientists say human-driven climate change comes with a warmer atmosphere capable of holding more moisture.
That can mean more bouts of intense rainfall, and more rain in a short period of time fuels flash flooding, said Antonia Sebastian, an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill specializing in flood resilience and mitigation.
The region’s topography also contributes to how “flashy” a flood can be, Sebastian said.
The steep slopes of the Appalachians allow water to rush quickly into the narrow valleys below, sometimes swamping hollows before residents have a chance to escape.
In 2019, an Inside Climate News analysis of U.S. Army Corps of Engineers streamflow data and satellite images of disturbed land from strip mining found areas such as the Big Sandy watershed, which straddles the Kentucky and West Virginia state line, to be among the most threatened by climate-change-fueledextreme weather within the Ohio River Basin.
The region’s history of coal mining, as well as logging, can exacerbate flooding, experts said, by dramatically altering the landscape.
With surface mining, trees are the first to go, then sometimes hundreds of feet of rock are blasted away from the tops and sides of mountains to get at underground seams of coal.
“Normally, on a forested hillside, the trees and their roots will absorb 40% to 50% of the rain that falls, then slowly release it,” said Jack Spadaro, a former top federal mine safety engineer. After mining, surfaces robbed of vegetation help fuel flash flooding, he said.
Housing patterns also contribute to the area’s vulnerability, with many residences scattered in smaller communities along a road that often winds along a creek lined with steep hillsides.
In Kentucky’s Breathitt County, for example, half of all homes are at a high risk of flooding, according to data provided to USA TODAY by the First Street Foundation, a research and technology nonprofit that tracks flood risks.
The same is true of 46% of homes in Perry County and 58% in Letcher County.
“You hear people say, ‘Oh, you know, they shouldn’t live in a floodplain. They should move someplace else.’ But if you look at a lot of these towns, there are really not a lot of good options,” Haneberg said.
Added to that is the area’s economic vulnerability. Many residents cannot afford flood insurance.
Amid coal’s decline, good jobs are hard to find. Breathitt County’s poverty rate is 28%, more than twice the national rate of 11%. The median home value of $53,000 is less than a quarter of the national average, according to the U.S. Census.
The region has higher rates of chronic disease and populations that have fallen in recent decades.
Jessica Willett, 34, whoseremote Jackson homewas pushed downstream by floodingwhile she and her two children were inside, said she was nervous about rebuilding on Bowling Creek.
But it’s also a home she doesn’t want to leave.
“My aunt down the road, she is going to move. She lost everything,” she said. “It’s just hard because down here, there’s a lot of family land. We want our kids and grandkids to grow up on it.”
The ‘pain points’ of climate change
Standing near Dismal Creek in Virginia, Honaker looked over a giant pile of rubble. She said she wants officials to ramp up unclogging draining culverts or increasing the creek’s depth.
She looked at her niece’s home: “Maybe stilts would have helped,” she said.
While it’s impossible to halt heavy rains and flooding, counties and towns can consider measures to limit their impact, said Tee Clarkson, a principal at First Earth 2030, a company helping Buchanan County develop its flood resiliency plan.
That could include flood walls, strengthening creek banks, dredging creeks to greater depths and expanding piping and drainage systems, he and others said. Houses could also be raised on stilts.
“It’s hard to keep areas from flooding, but you want to lower the pain points” for residents and infrastructure, he said.
U.S. Rep. Hal Rogers, who represents Eastern Kentucky, said in an area with a “long and daunting history of flooding,” he’s helped secure more than $800 million over 40 years to help build flood walls, levees, tunnels and other public safety projects.
“However, this flash flood was a natural disaster that turned small creeks and mountain run-off into raging rivers that chartered a new destructive course through our valleys and hollows,” he said. “These types of floods have always been one of the greatest challenges to mitigate in the mountains, and I will continue to advocate for every possible resource that we can afford to protect our mountain communities.”
What could also help, experts say, is tackling the hundreds of thousands of acres of former mine land in Appalachia still to be reclaimed, according to a 2021 report by the environmental group Appalachian Voice.
Counties can also restrict building or add stricter building requirements, but that is easiest for new construction – in places like Perry County, Kentucky, few new building permits were issued in recent years, according to the U.S. Census.
Perry County Judge-Executive Scott Alexander said he’s looking for ways to make his county more flood-resilient, such as raising bridges or expanding reservoirs. He said a future discussion might include raising homes in flood-prone areas.
“We’ve got to start looking at preventive flooding measures,” he said. But he cautioned that “when you get to 12 inches of rain, especially in Appalachia, there’s not a whole lot of anything that can handle that.”
Federal Emergency Management Agency buyouts have been an option, but they take time and can be fraught with potential harm, Sebastian said. The Central Appalachian population is one of the poorest in the country and moving that population out of a region with a generally low cost of living could bring further economic hardship.
And the properties in the most flood-prone areas tend to be the most affordable, further endangering the very poorest Appalachians, said Colette Easter, president of Kentucky’s section of the American Society of Civil Engineers.
“That involves gut-wrenching questions about moving away from a place that you’ve lived for a very long time, maybe generations, and you’re very connected to,” Eric Dixon, a researcher at the Ohio River Valley Institute, said with a deep sigh. “But maybe you don’t have another choice. Maybe that’s literally what you have to do. That’s the real heartbreaking part of this, I think.”
Flooded residents, difficult choices
For 15 years, Angie Rosser has lived along the Elk River in Clay County, West Virginia.
In 2016, a powerful flood hit the state, killing 23 people and causing more than $1 billion in damage.
Six years later, Rosser said her community still doesn’t have a grocery store. She hasn’t replaced much of the furniture she lost. In Rosser’s house today, you’ll find a bed, but no couch and no dining table.
“My house is pretty empty, because I am expecting another flood to happen – which is not a great way to live,” said Rosser, the executive director of the West Virginia Rivers Coalition.
Rosser understands the commitment to stay and rebuild shared by many of her neighbors, but “I’m not one of those people,” she said. “If it floods again, I’m out. I can’t do it again. It was just too exhausting.”
That same weary uncertainty has spread across hard-hit counties in Kentucky this week, where the next disaster lurks behind each heavy rainfall to come.
Dee Davis was a Hazard, Kentucky, kindergartener when a flood devastated the area in 1957. It is seared into his memory. He recalls his grandmother and great-uncle taking a canoe to buy groceries.
“We lost everything,” he said.
That flood 65 years ago set a record water level for the North Fork Kentucky River, at 14.7 feet in Whitesburg. Locals never forgot the damage it wrought.
The most recent flooding put that same river at about 21 feet. The water rushed in with enough force to destroy the U.S. Geological Survey sensor designed to monitor the water level.
On Whitesburg’s Main Street this week, the stuffy odor of mud lingered everywhere. The sidewalks were littered with growing piles of discarded furniture, rubble and children’s toys.
For now, the path ahead starts by reckoning with what was lost.
“You mourn the dead,” Davis said, “and you find a way to go forward.”
James Bruggers is a reporter for Inside Climate News.
Contact USA TODAY national reporter Chris Kenning at ckenning@usatoday.com
“I’m not sure we’re making any progress that’s significant,” said Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), adding that, after hours of amendment votes, “it would be nice to call it.”
Other than the blow to the insulin proposal, the $700 billion-plus party-line legislation remained largely unscathed during the Senate’s infamous “vote-a-rama,” the amendment marathon that allows any senator to force a vote on proposed tweaks to the measure. Senate Democrats banded together to fend off more than 20 attempts to change the bill, often voting as a bloc even on portions they support.
Seven Republican senators backed keeping the insulin cap for private markets: Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Susan Collins of Maine, Josh Hawley of Missouri, Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi, John Kennedy of Louisiana, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Dan Sullivan of Alaska. The provision needed 60 votes to remain in the bill.
The unlimited amendment series is the final episode of a lengthy drama that began more than a year ago with a Democratic budget designed to set the stage for a $3.5 trillion social spending package that could sidestep a filibuster. That vision whittled down over the course of many months to the bill that the Senate is still set to pass later Sunday — though it’s still far larger than the health care-only package Democrats thought they’d get from Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) just two weeks ago.
Democrats ultimately preserved the core pieces of their proposal, surviving Republican arguments that parts of the bill did not meet Senate rules that would allow the package to pass under a simple majority vote. The legislation still includes lowering some prescription drug prices, providing more than $300 billion into climate change and clean energy and imposing a 15 percent minimum tax on large corporations, plus a new 1 percent excise tax on stock buybacks. The bill also increases IRS enforcement and extends Obamacare subsidies through the 2024 election.
The final bill was carefully negotiated to be able to win support from all 50 members of the Senate Democratic caucus. And for most Democrats, that means no more changes — even changes they support.
One awkward example: Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) argued against an attempt by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to change child tax credit and corporate tax language in the bill, which they actually back, with Brown saying it would “bring down the bill” if they approved it. Sanders was unbowed — even as he lost, 1-97.
“They’re great amendments. I’m very happy and I think it says something that every Democrat and Republican voted against them. It says I’m doing something right,” Sanders said around 8 a.m. on Sunday. “I’m fighting for you. I think that should be the message — not to come up with a convoluted reason you can’t vote for it.”
Sanders said he would support the bill on final passage. His vow to back the bill in the end, combined with near-complete unity among Democrats in defeating amendments, steered the legislation to passage under rules that allow them to avoid a filibuster. The House plans to consider the legislation on Friday.
Manchin surprised his colleagues late last month when he reached a deal with Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on tax and climate provisions as part of the agreement. Then Schumer made a handful of major changes to appease Sinema, eliminating language that would have tightened a loophole allowing certain investors to pay less in taxes and would have raised $14 billion in revenue.
Democrats agreed to add a 1 percent excise tax on stock buybacks, which is expected to raise $73 billion, while tweaking the corporate minimum tax to appease anxious manufacturers. The bill once contained $300 billion in deficit reduction, though the Congressional Budget Office has not yet provided a full score of the revised bill’s provisions.
During the vote-a-rama, Democrats offered alternative amendments to buy some cover for their own vulnerable members on several GOP proposals. That included a side-by-side debate on Title 42, a polarizing Trump-era policy that placed limits on migration during the pandemic.
Sanders tried to insert provisions that would bolster prescription drug reforms, expand Medicare and create a Civilian Climate Corps, but he failed to attract support from the vast majority of his colleagues. Only Georgia Sens. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff joined Sanders in his effort to expand Medicare; Warnock’s own attempt to allow the bill to expand Medicaid to states that have blocked Obamacare’s more generous Medicaid language also failed, 5-94.
On Saturday, the party-line proposal survived Senate vetting of the Medicare portions of its prescription drug reform plan, while Democrats lost ground on a separate pillar that penalizes drug companies for raising prices on individuals with private health insurance. The legislation’s tax, clean energy and environmental provisions also advanced unscathed.
GAZA/JERUSALEM, Aug 7 (Reuters) – Israel and Palestinian militants have agreed to a truce in Gaza from Sunday evening as mediated by Cairo, sources said, after a weekend-long pounding of Palestinian targets by Israel triggered longer-range rocket attacks against its cities.
An Egyptian security source said Israel had agreed to the proposal, while a Palestinian official familiar with Egyptian efforts said the ceasefire would go into effect at 20:00 (1700 GMT).
Spokespeople for Israel and Islamic Jihad, the faction it has been fighting in Gaza since clashes erupted on Friday, did not confirm this, saying only that they were in contact with Cairo.
The flare-up, recalling preludes to previous Gaza wars, has worried world powers. However, it has been relatively contained as Hamas, the governing Islamist group in the Gaza Strip and more powerful force than Iranian-backed Islamic Jihad, has so far stayed out.
Gaza officials said 31 Palestinians, at least a third of them civilians, had so far been killed. The rockets have paralysed much of southern Israel and sent residents in cities including Tel Aviv and Ashkelon to shelters.
The Egyptian security source said earlier that the proposed truce was to take effect at 2100 GMT.
On Sunday morning, Islamic Jihad extended its range to fire toward Jerusalem in what it described as retaliation for the overnight killing of its southern Gaza commander by Israel – the second such senior officer it has lost in the fighting.
“The blood of the martyrs will not be wasted,” Islamic Jihad said in a statement.
The salvo came as religious Jews were fasting in an annual commemoration of two Jerusalem temples destroyed in antiquity. Israel said its Iron Dome interceptor, whose success rate the army put at 97%, shot down the rockets just west of the city.
1/13
An Iron Dome anti-missile system fires an interceptor missile as a rocket is launched from the Gaza Strip towards Israel, at the sky near the Israel-Gaza border August 7, 2022. REUTERS/Amir Cohen
Palestinians dazed by another surge of bloodshed – after outbreaks of war in 2008-09, 2012, 2014 and last year – picked through the ruins of houses to salvage furniture or documents.
“Who wants a war? No one. But we also don’t like to keep silent when women, children and leaders are killed,” said a Gaza taxi driver who identified himself only as Abu Mohammad.
“An eye for an eye.”
Israel put the onus was on Islamic Jihad to stop shooting. “Quiet will be answered with quiet,” an army spokesman said.
In another potential flashpoint, Jews marking the Tisha Be’av fast visited the site where their ancient temples once stood – the Al Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem’s Old City.
The scheduled visits affront Palestinians for whom Al Aqsa is a national as well as a religious symbol. Video circulated online showed some Jews trying to pray in defiance of Israeli regulations, as police moved in to stop them and Muslim worshippers shouted in protest. read more
Israel launched what it called pre-emptive strikes on Friday against what it anticipated would be an Islamic Jihad attack meant to avenge the arrest of a leader of the group in the occupied West Bank. Arrest sweeps against the group have continued in that territory.
The hundreds of rockets fired by Islamic Jihad in response are the reason for the continuing operation, according to Israeli security cabinet minister Gideon Saar.
“To the extent that Islamic Jihad wants to protract this operation, it will regret it,” he told Israel’s Army Radio.
A senior correspondent with nearly 25 years’ experience covering the Palestinian-Israeli conflict including several wars and the signing of the first historic peace accord between the two sides.
WASHINGTON—The Senate continued to plow through a series of amendments on Democrats’ climate and tax package, closing in Sunday on passing elements of President Biden’s agenda that have languished on Capitol Hill for more than a year.
Late Saturday, the Senate voted 51-50 to overcome an initial procedural hurdle, thanks to a tiebreaking vote by Vice President Kamala Harris. Then, lawmakers began an overnight series of votes on amendments that tested lawmakers’ endurance but isn’t likely to change the bill’s contents.
Hamas has largely remained on the sidelines in the fighting in Gaza on Saturday, raising the chances that the current round of cross-border violence could be contained in both scope and duration.
The leader of Hamas’s political bureau, Ismail Haniyeh, has made noncommittal statements, saying that Israel bears full responsibility for the latest escalation without elaborating on Hamas’s own intentions.
One reason may be jobs. Since the last major Gaza conflict in May of last year, Israel has shifted its policy toward Gaza in what officials have described as an effort to keep the peace, offering economic incentives to the 2 million civilians in the coastal enclave and raising the stakes for Hamas should it decide to join the hostilities.
Israeli security officials have issued thousands of permits to Gaza residents allowing them to enter Israel daily to work in agriculture and construction. About 14,000 Palestinian laborers from Gaza have been working in Israel over the past few months, the largest number since Hamas gained control of the Gaza Strip in 2007, and Israel has promised to raise the number to 20,000.
Beyond that economic incentive, the Israeli military also has been warning of the dire consequences of another major round of fighting in Gaza. Military officials have publicized what they describe as intelligence reports showing Hamas tunnels and other military infrastructure constructed in the heart of Gaza’s residential areas, suggesting civilian casualties would be almost unavoidable in a military campaign.
In addition to the job permits, Israel also has allowed improvements in recent months that have enlarged the water and electricity supply in Gaza and expanded the capacity for imports and exports.
More medical equipment has been imported, and exports of agricultural produce from Gaza and its fisheries, textile and furniture industries have nearly doubled in the first half of this year compared to the same period last year, military officials said.
But in recent days, as Islamic Jihad threatened to retaliate from Gaza for Israel’s arrest of one of the group’s senior commanders in the West Bank, Israel closed the border crossings, preventing the movement of people and goods in and out of Gaza. Israeli residents living close to the border were effectively placed under a curfew, with all roads closed in the areas close to Gaza.
Maj. Gen. Ghasan Alyan, the head of the military agency responsible for liaising on civilian matters in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, conveyed a stark message to Hamas on Friday, outlining the choice it faces regarding supporting Islamic Jihad or staying out of this round of fighting.
“The responsibility rests with Hamas,” he said, in a video released on the agency’s Arabic Facebook page. “Is it more concerned with helping the residents of Gaza, or with helping dissident organizations?”
Hamas’s decision to remain on the sidelines so far was reminiscent of a short round of cross-border fighting in 2019. That cycle, too, opened with an Israeli airstrike that killed a senior Islamic Jihad commander, Baha Abu al-Ata, along with his wife, Asmaa Abu al-Ata, and prompted Islamic Jihad to fire hundreds of rockets into Israel.
Over the next two days, Israel killed 34 people in Gaza, including about two dozen militants and several children. But Hamas chose not to join in, containing the scope of the hostilities.
By contrast, it was Hamas that initiated the last major Gaza conflagration in May 2021, when it fired a barrage of rockets toward Jerusalem after weeks of rising Israeli-Palestinian tensions and clashes in the contested city.
China’s Ministry of Defense did not announce the purpose of the expanded exercises, which come as the visit frayed U.S.-China relations, but they come as Beijing is putting on its greatest show of force around Taiwan since the last cross-strait crisis of 1995 to 1996 — in what it calls a warning to “provocateurs” who challenge Beijing’s claims over Taiwan, the self-governing democracy of 23 million.
This is a widget area - If you go to "Appearance" in your WP-Admin you can change the content of this box in "Widgets", or you can remove this box completely under "Theme Options"
