President Biden on Friday announced a scaled back $1.75 trillion social spending and climate change package that still failed to win over the support of moderate Sens. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., and Joe Manchin, D-W.V., stalling further negotiations until next week.
“We’re back to the days where you have to pass the legislation to know what’s in [the bill],” Scott argued during an interview with Fox News’ Neil Cavuto Thursday. “That’s bad news for every single American, and it feels like the great American shakedown.”
The senator added that the “lack of confidence and transparency in this process” of passing the bills should concern “every American.”
U.S. Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) poses before a meeting with Seventh Circuit Court Judge Amy Coney Barrett (Photo by Bonnie Cash-Pool/Getty Images)
“I do think there’s a loss of trust between the Biden administration and the bipartisan coalition that supported the infrastructure package,” Scott explained, noting that Democrats have gone back and forth about voting on the two bills together or separately.
House Democrats are working on a plan to vote on both Biden’s $1.75 trillion social spending plan and his $1.2 trillion infrastructure package on Tuesday because many progressive Democrats do not have faith that their more moderate colleagues like Sinema and Manchin will pass the reconciliation plan before passing the infrastructure bill, a source told Fox News’ Chad Pergram on Saturday.
Democrats initially planned that the reconciliation package would contain $3.5 trillion worth of spending and tax initiatives over 10 years. But demands by moderates led by Manchin and Sinema to contain costs mean its final price tag could well be less than $2 trillion.
President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the debt ceiling during an event in the State Dining Room of the White House, Monday, Oct. 4, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was forced to abandon plans to pass the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure plan that has become tangled in the deliberations.
Progressives have been refusing to vote for that public works package of roads, bridges and broadband, withholding their support as leverage for assurances that Manchin and Sinema are on board with Biden’s big bill.
Fox News’ Chad Pergram and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
A boarded-up Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. The Grove, one of the city’s premier dining and retail centers, staggering with several stores looted. National Guard troops deployed in the streets, and an entire police department mobilized for the first time in 25 years.
That’s what Los Angeles woke up to this morning, as an overnight curfew attempted to quell the mob rule that dominated most of Saturday. The protests marked the fourth straight day of activity, and there is little to indicate that passions and violence will cool over the next few days.
For a fragile city that is still in an economic recovery from the two-month shutdown of business by the pandemic, Friday and Saturday’s arson, looting, and general chaos is a blow that will make it that much tougher for Los Angeles to revive.
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti held a press conference at 4 PM on Saturday offering a velvet hand out to protesters, expressing hopes that everyone would simply stop any violent actions. He pooh-poohed the idea of bringing in the National Guard, saying that’s not what the city is about. He also limited the curfew he instituted to the downtown area, despite a massive gathering already brewing in midtown, where a police car had been burned and other police vehicles were damaged.
Hours later, Garcetti was begging Governor Gavin Newsom to send troops and declaring a state of emergency.
AP Images
Garcetti’s misread of the city’s street situation and the mood as the protests devolved was just one step along the way toward Saturday night’s chaos. Police were stretched, having to cover looting activities across the span of the city. More than 550 people were arrested on Friday in downtown’s protest activities, and although no officials totals for Saturday have been released, it’s likely at least several hundred people were detained on Saturday.
Los Angeles Police Chief Michel Moore, who earlier in the week issued a YouTube video saying he welcomed protests, spoke to the Los Angeles Times from the ransacked Nordstrom’s store at the Grove.
“This is not the solution,” he said. “We haven’t given up on L.A., and L.A. shouldn’t give up on itself. We can pull around this…Policing doesn’t fix these kinds of societal problems. I need all of L.A. to step up right now and be part of the solution.”
¿Sabes cuánta gente veÃa La Comay en Puerto Rico? ¿Tienes alguna idea realmente del nivel al que llega nuestro gusto por lo “cafreâ€�? Bueno… esta columna puede ofenderte.
Mientras que la noticia positiva solo tenÃa un “reachâ€� de 12 mil a 15 mil personas, si hacÃa en el mismo horario comentarios polÃticos de crÃtica, señalamiento y denuncia estos podÃan llegar a sobrepasar el “reachâ€� de 120 mil fácilmente. Incluso, he publicado en los mismos horarios noticias sobre Maripily e igualmente llegó a sobrepasar el “reachâ€� de 120 mil.
Brigham Young University alumna Sidney Draughon (center) flew in from New York to join a protest against the Honor Code Office.
Kelsie Moore/KUER
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Kelsie Moore/KUER
Brigham Young University alumna Sidney Draughon (center) flew in from New York to join a protest against the Honor Code Office.
Kelsie Moore/KUER
Sponsored by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Brigham Young University is known for its adherence to church teachings and for its strict Honor Code, which regulates everything from beards to premarital sex. Student protest is uncommon.
But last Friday, 300 gathered at the school’s flagship campus to question its Honor Code Office, chanting, “God forgives me, why can’t you?”
Students allege that the university is mistreating victims of sexual assault and harassment, especiallyy women and LGBTQ students.
They say the administration has used the code against victims, and some say they have been punished for reporting their own sexual assaults.
As a result of earlier student concerns in 2016, the university separated the Honor Code Office from the Title IX Office, which ensures women’s equal treatment on campus. In addition, BYU added an amnesty policy under which anyone who reports an incident of sexual misconduct, including a victim, will not be disciplined by the university for any related honor code violation occurring at or near the time of the report. But students claim there are still problems.
Students also allege administrators have created a climate of snitching and tattling. They say officials hand out severe consequences for minor infractions, leaving students who need support to improve their lives feeling dejected and alone.
Among those leading the recent protest was freshman Grant Frazier, who says he wants less punishment and more compassion. “The Honor Code, as many of you may know, was made by students for students. So it needs to be reformed by students,” Frazier shouted as he revved up demonstrators.
Sidney Draughon, a BYU alumna who started the widely read Instagram account Honor Code Stories after her own experiences with the code, flew in from New York for the event.
Draughon, a 2018 graduate who now works in finance, says she was called into the Honor Code Office at the end of her freshman year for an old photo and a tweet from high school. She was called in a second time during her senior year over another allegation, which delayed her diploma.
Standing on a table between the law library and the student center, she told students their concerns matter.
“It’s about all of you sharing your stories of hurt and feeling like you’re rejected and feeling like you don’t fit in at BYU. But I’m here to tell you that you do. I don’t care who you are!” she said.
But not everyone is so sympathetic.
During a moment of silence for LGBTQ students who have been mistreated by the Honor Code Office, 22-year-old Dayson Damuni interrupted, shouting: “If you don’t like the Honor Code, go to a different school!”
Other students share those sentiments, like 25-year-old Mack Huntsman.
“The majority of students are in favor of the Honor Code,” he said. “I mean, they chose to come to this university … and then [to] say that they’re oppressing you does not make a lot of sense.”
The director of the Honor Code Office declined to be interviewed. But he said in a statement that the office has met with more than 200 concerned students. He added that only about a dozen of the school’s 33,000 students are expelled each year for Honor Code violations.
But protest leader Frazier says the school should be open to change, especially because of its affiliation with the church and what it teaches.
“We here at the university believe in the atonement,” Frazier said. “We believe in the Gospel and we think the Honor Code Office has forgotten that. And it’s our job to remind them.”
The three snow leopards at the Lincoln Children’s Zoo in Nebraska died from COVID-19 complications.
In October, the leopards and two Sumatran tigers tested positive for the virus and were treated with steroids and antibiotics. While tigers Axl and Kumar recovered, leopards Ranney, Everest and Makalu succumbed.
The Lincoln Children’s Zoo announced that leopards, Ranney, Everest, and Makalu, died from COVID-19 complications.Lincoln Children’s Zoo
“It is very tough to lose any animal unexpectedly, especially one as rare and loved as the snow leopard,” a zoo spokesperson told local 1011 News.
The FBI on Tuesday announced that it had concluded its investigation into the 2017 Las Vegas shooting, in which 58 people were killed. But the conclusion left a big mystery open: Investigators could not figure out the shooter’s motive, meaning we may never know why he carried out the attack.
It’s certainly unsatisfying and upsetting that we’ll never know why this happened. For the families and friends of the victims, it may rob them of closure. And for policymakers and law enforcement, not knowing the motive may make it harder to implement steps to prevent similar attacks in the future.
But just because we don’t know the motive does not mean that we don’t know why the shooting happened. We don’t know what drove the shooter to kill 58 people. But we know why he was able to: He lived in a country where he could get nearly 50 guns — comprising everything from handguns to assault rifles, sometimes modified with bump stocks that can make these weapons more lethal.
After mass shootings, politicians and other officials try to point to all sorts of explanations for why an attack happened. It’s mental illness. It’s misogyny. It’s anti-Semitism. It’s some other form of extremism or hate.
In individual shootings, these all of course can play a role. But when you want to explain why America sees so many of these mass shootings in general — 27 so far in 2019 alone, by one estimate — and why America suffers more gun violence than other developed nations, none of these factors in individual shootings give a satisfying answer. Only guns are the common factor.
To put it another way: America does not have a monopoly on mental health issues, bigots, or extremists. What is unique about the US is that it makes it so easy for people with these issues to obtain a gun.
America’s gun problem, briefly explained
It comes down to two basic problems.
First, America has uniquely weak gun laws. Other developed nations at the very least require one or more background checks and almost always something more rigorous beyond that to get a gun, from specific training courses to rules for locking up firearms to more arduous licensing requirements to specific justifications, besides self-defense, for owning a gun.
In the US, even a background check isn’t a total requirement; the current federal law is riddled with loopholes and snared by poor enforcement, so there are many ways around even a basic background check. And if a state enacts stricter measures than federal laws, someone can simply cross state lines to buy guns in a jurisdiction with looser rules. There are simply very few barriers, if any, to getting a gun in the US.
Second, the US has a ton of guns. It has far more than not just other developed nations, but any other country period. Estimated for 2017, the number of civilian-owned firearms in the US was 120.5 guns per 100 residents, meaning there were more firearms than people. The world’s second-ranked country was Yemen, a quasi-failed state torn by civil war, where there were 52.8 guns per 100 residents, according to an analysis from the Small Arms Survey.
Both of these factors come together to make it uniquely easy for someone with any violent intent to find a firearm, allowing them to carry out a horrific shooting.
This is borne out in the statistics. The US has nearly six times the gun homicide rate of Canada, more than seven times that of Sweden, and nearly 16 times that of Germany, according to United Nations data for 2012 compiled by the Guardian. (These gun deaths are a big reason America has a much higher overall homicide rate, which includes non-gun deaths, than other developed nations.)
As a breakthrough analysis by UC Berkeley’s Franklin Zimring and Gordon Hawkins in the 1990s found, it’s not even that the US has more crime than other developed countries. This chart, based on data from Jeffrey Swanson at Duke University, shows that the US is not an outlier when it comes to overall crime:
Instead, the US appears to have more lethal violence — and that’s driven in large part by the prevalence of guns.
“A series of specific comparisons of the death rates from property crime and assault in New York City and London show how enormous differences in death risk can be explained even while general patterns are similar,” Zimring and Hawkins wrote. “A preference for crimes of personal force and the willingness and ability to use guns in robbery make similar levels of property crime 54 times as deadly in New York City as in London.”
This is in many ways intuitive: People of every country get into arguments and fights with friends, family, and peers. But in the US, it’s much more likely that someone will get angry at an argument and be able to pull out a gun and kill someone.
Researchers have found that stricter gun laws could help. A 2016 review of 130 studies in 10 countries, published in Epidemiologic Reviews,found that new legal restrictions on owning and purchasing guns tended to be followed by a drop in gun violence — a strong indicator that restricting access to guns can save lives. A review of the US evidence by RAND also linked some gun control measures, including background checks, to reduced injuries and deaths. A growing body of evidence, from Johns Hopkins researchers, also supports laws that require a license to buy and own guns.
That doesn’t mean that bigots and extremists will never be able to carry out a shooting in places with strict gun laws. Even the strictest gun laws can’t prevent every shooting.
And guns are not the only contributor to violence. Other factors include, for example, poverty, urbanization, alcohol consumption, and the strength of criminal justice systems. But when researchers control for other confounding variables, they have found time and time again that America’s loose access to guns is a major reason the US is so much worse in terms of gun violence than its developed peers.
So America, with its lax laws and abundance of firearms, makes it uniquely easy for people to commit massacres. Until the US confronts that issue, it will continue to see more gun deaths than the rest of the developed world.
Corea del Norte anunció el domingo que llevó a cabo una prueba de una bomba de hidrógeno que puede ser transportada en un misil balístico de largo alcance.
El hermético país asiático indicó que ésta, su sexta prueba nuclear, fue “un éxito perfecto” y ocurrió después de que sismólogos detectaron fuertes temblores en la región.
La bomba de hidrógeno que Pyongyang dice haber probado es mucho más potente que una bomba atómica.
Los analistas, sin embargo, afirman que las afirmaciones de Corea del Norte deben tomarse con cautela, aunque es claro que sus capacidades nucleares están avanzando.
Japón condenó la prueba y Corea del Sur llamó a una reunión de emergencia de su Consejo de Seguridad.
“Firme condena”
El presidente surcoreano, Moon Jae-in declaró que la sexta prueba nuclear debe ser recibida con la “respuesta más fuerte posible”, incluidas nuevas sanciones de la ONU para “asilar completamente” al país.
Por su parte China, el único aliado importante de Corea del Norte, también condenó la prueba.
Declaró que Corea del Norte “ha ignorado la extensa oposición de la comunidad internacional al realizar, una vez más, una prueba nuclear”.
“El gobierno de China expresa una resuelta oposición y firme condena hacia esto”, declaró en un comunicado la Cancillería china.
Y el secretario general del gabinete japonés, Yoshihide Suga, también condenó la prueba y dijo que las sanciones contra el Norte deben incluir restricciones en el comercio de productos petroleros.
Derechos de autor de la imagen Reuters
Image caption
El anuncio surgió horas después de que los medios estatales mostraron al líder norcoreano inspeccionando lo que dijo era una bomba de hidrógeno.
Poco antes Japón había confirmado que dos fuertes temblores de tierra reportados en Corea del Norte obedecieron a que Pyongyang realizó una nueva prueba nuclear.
“Después de examinar los datos, concluimos que se trataba de pruebas nucleares”, dijo el canciller japonés Taro Kono en una conferencia informativa por la emisora pública NHK tras una reunión del Consejo de Seguridad Nacional.
Se dijo que los temblores se originaron en un lugar donde el hermético país asiático ha realizado pruebas nucleares de este tipo en otras ocasiones, en el Condado de Kilju, donde está situado el sitio de pruebas de Punggye-ri.
El Ejército de Corea del Sur aseguró que el movimiento telúrico fue provocado por “causas no naturales”.
El Servicio Geológico de los Estados Unidos estimó inicialmente que el sismo, registrado a 10 kilómetros de profundidad, tuvo una magnitud 5,6 aunque luego la subió a 6,3.
Pocos minutos después, la Administración de Terremotos de China registró un segundo temblor con una magnitud superior a 4 y los describió como resultado de una “sospecha de explosión”.
Corea del Sur convocó también a una reunión de emergencia de su Consejo de Seguridad, mientras el primer ministro de Japón, Shinzo Abe aseguró que una prueba nuclear sería “absolutamente inaceptable”.
Derechos de autor de la imagen AFP
Image caption
“No sabemos si esta cosa está llena de espuma de poliestireno”, dijo sobre las imágenes una experta en defensa de EE.UU.
Corea del Norte realizó con anterioridad cinco pruebas de este tipo, la última de ellas en septiembre del año pasado.
El temblor se produjo pocas horas después de que el líder norcoreano Kim Jong-un fuera retratado junto a lo que los medios estatales calificaron como una “bomba de hidrógeno”.
Aunque no existe confirmación independiente sobre la veracidad de su existencia, la agencia de noticias estatal norcoreana KCNA indicó que se trataba de “un arma termonuclear multifuncional con gran poder destructivo que puede detonarse incluso en grandes altitudes”.
Corea del Norte ya ha declarado anteriormente que logró miniaturizar un arma nuclear pero los expertos expresan dudas al respecto.
Derechos de autor de la imagen EPA/USGS
Image caption
El Servicio Geológico de los Estados Unidos ubicó el temblor en las inmediaciones de Punggye-ri, el sitio donde Corea del Norte ha realizado otras pruebas nucleares.
También hay escepticismo sobre las afirmaciones de Pyongyang de que desarrolló una bomba de hidrógeno, que es más poderosa que una bomba atómica.
Las de hidrógeno utilizan fusión de átomos para liberar enormes cantidades de energía, mientras que las bombas atómicas utilizan fisión nuclear, que es la división de los átomos.
El Ministerio de Defensa de Japón informó que envió tres aviones militares para probar los niveles de radiación en el lugar donde tuvo lugar la prueba.
Análisis: ¿Cómo puede responder el mundo?
Jonathan Marcus, corresponsal de asuntos de defensa de la BBC
La sexta prueba nuclear de Corea del Norte -y quizás la más poderosa hasta ahora- envía una clara señal política.
A pesar de la bravata y las amenazas de la administración de Trump en Washington, y de la condena casi universal del mundo, Pyongyang no va a detener o limitar sus actividades nucleares.
Lo que preocupa es que esto también sugiere que este es un programa que está progresando en todos los frentes a un ritmo más rápido de lo que se esperaba.
Hasta ahora todos los esfuerzos para presionar a Corea del Norte, las sanciones, el aislamiento y las amenazas militares, han fracasado.
¿Puede hacerse algo más? Ciertamente, pero una dura presión económica potencialmente podría paralizar al régimen y empujarlo hacia la catástrofe, algo que China no está dispuesta a aceptar.
La contención y la disuasión ahora pasarán a primer plano a medida que el mundo adapta su política para buscar una reducción del programa de armas de Pyongyang a una para vivir con una Corea del Norte armada nuclearmente.
“Un arma nuclear muy grande”
Bruce Bennett, un analista de la defensa de Rand Corporation, un think tank especializado en el tema, aseguró que un temblor de magnitud 6,3 significaría que Corea del Norte utilizó “una arma nuclear muy grande”.
“Todavía no es una verdadera bomba de hidrógeno, pero ciertamente está mucho más cerca de eso que cualquier cosa que hayan hecho antes“.
Indicó que China también se mostrará preocupada por el tamaño de la supuesta explosión.
“Los pobladores chinos que viven al otro lado de la frontera en esa zona, sin duda sintieron los enormes temblores”, dijo.
El servicio meteorológico de Japón estimó que la prueba realizada este domingo fue 10 veces mayor que las realizadas antes.
Corea del Norte llevó a cabo su última prueba nuclear en septiembre de 2016 desafiando las sanciones de la ONU y la presión internacional para que suspenda su programa de armas nucleares.
And on Wednesday, even as he claimed that Pakistan had had no choice but to retaliate for India’s airstrikes around Balakot the day before, he also expressed concern that the two countries must calm hostilities rather than risk nuclear war.
Behind the calm exterior, though, is the widespread belief that Pakistan is in no shape right now to wage a major war. Its economy is in deep trouble, with the country running out of hard currency. And most other nations — including China, which has traditionally taken Pakistan’s side in disputes — have pressed Pakistan to take more action against terrorist groups.
In the propaganda war of the past few days, both countries have been guilty of missteps. Pakistan maintained for a day that it had shot down two Indian fighter jets and captured two pilots, only later revising it down to one on each count.
But it is India that has suffered the more glaring contradictions. The government has yet to offer any evidence publicly for its claim that it downed a Pakistan plane, which Indian officials say crashed beyond their border. Likewise, India has offered no proof that its initial airstrike on Tuesday killed “a very large number” of “terrorists, trainers, senior commanders and groups of jihadis,” as India’s foreign secretary has claimed.
Videos of a crushed building filled with bodies that soon began circulating widely on social media in India were quickly debunked. The images were not from the airstrike but from an earthquake in Pakistan more than 10 years ago.
This is beginning to take its toll on Mr. Modi, who is up for election in about two months and who until recently seemed invincible. But in some sectors, he is now being accused of military adventurism. One family of a fallen soldier called the government a liar.
Other Indians seem frustrated.
”The government has been lax and inaccurate in the way information is being let out,’’ said Mohammad Saquib, who works at a hotel in Delhi.
The correspondence represents the Biden administration’s first known engagement with Congress on the issue of the ongoing investigation ensnaring the former president. Court documents unsealed in recent days have revealed that the Justice Department is investigating potential violations of the Presidential Records Act, the Espionage Act, and obstruction of justice.
It’s also the first known acknowledgment by the intelligence community of the potential harm caused by the missing documents, which prosecutors said Friday included human-source intelligence and information gathered from foreign intercepts. Top lawmakers have been clamoring for details about the substance of the documents since the Aug. 8 search of Mar-a-Lago, but so far neither the intelligence committees nor congressional leaders part of the so-called Gang of Eight have been briefed.
Haines’ response came on the same day that a federal judge unsealed a redacted version of the affidavit that laid out the Justice Department’s justification for obtaining a search warrant for Mar-a-Lago. The affidavit revealed that prosecutors believed Trump was holding a range of top-secret documents at his private residence, including some of the former president’s handwritten notes.
“We are pleased that in response to our inquiry, Director Haines has confirmed that the Intelligence Community and Department of Justice are assessing the damage caused by the improper storage of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago,” Schiff and Maloney said in a joint statement to POLITICO. “The DOJ affidavit, partially unsealed yesterday, affirms our grave concern that among the documents stored at Mar-a-Lago were those that could endanger human sources. It is critical that the IC move swiftly to assess and, if necessary, to mitigate the damage done — a process that should proceed in parallel with DOJ’s criminal investigation.”
The intelligence community’s review is likely to encompass whether any unauthorized individuals had access to the highly sensitive documents. The Justice Department previously raised alarms about the lax security of the records within Trump’s estate. That question could also bear on the criminal probe, as Justice Department counterintelligence investigators determine whether the highly classified records were compromised in any way.
The Senate Intelligence Committee has also asked the intelligence community to conduct a damage assessment related to Trump’s handling of the documents, but the inquiry was bipartisan. The panel’s chair, Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), and vice chair, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), both signed onto the request.
The duo also asked the Justice Department to give the committee access to the specific documents that were seized from Mar-a-Lago. A wider group of congressional leaders asked to see the documents, too.
In a statement earlier Saturday, Rubio noted that the Justice Department hasn’t yet responded to the committee’s letter, but made no reference to Haines.
“The Senate Intelligence Committee is still waiting for information from the Department of Justice about the specific intelligence documents seized from Mar-a-Lago and what necessitated an unprecedented search warrant on President Trump’s residence,” Rubio said.
The Ambassador Bridge is open again after a vaccine mandate protest prompted a blockade, pausing traffic on a key international land port and costing millions of dollars in lost production.
The Detroit International Bridge Co. announced Sunday night that the Ambassador Bridge is fully open allowing free flow of commerce between Canada and the United States.
The weeklong protest was started by truckers in opposition to COVID-19 vaccine mandates and other quarantine requirements, but early Sunday police said it ended after negotiations and multiple arrests. Despite the supposed peace talks, about a dozen protesters remained at an intersection close to the bridge into Sunday evening, waving flags and occasionally cheering.
On Monday, a few protesters returned but heavy police presence is limiting access to the bridge. Intersections near the main road to the bridge are essentially all cut off by police cruisers.
According to Windsor Police, there have been 42 arrests and 37 seized vehicles since the protest began. The large majority of persons arrested have since been released with a future court date and are facing a charge of mischief, police said. Some are also facing a charge of disobeying a court order.
The Post and Courier noted that Harris and Sanders’ support has remained steady in the state since February. Biden, on the other hand, has experienced a surge in support since officially launching his presidential campaign in late April.
“He’s always been popular in South Carolina and always maintained good relationships here, so people were really excited about him getting in,” Kenneth Glover, chairman of the Orangeburg County Democratic Party, told The Post and Courier.
The support for O’Rourke represented a seven-point slide from the previous month, according to the newspaper.
Polls have increasingly shown that Biden and Sanders are the early favorites among the field of candidates vying for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination and recent surveys have shown Biden with a substantial lead over Sanders.
A Morning Consult poll released last week found Biden had a 21-point lead over Sanders nationwide.
The Post and Courier-Change Research Poll was conducted between May 6 and May 9 among a population of 595 likely South Carolina primary voters. The margin of error is four percent.
Brasília – Financial institutions polled by the Central Bank are expecting higher inflation, benchmark rates and economic shrinkage this year. According to the Central Bank’s weekly poll of financial market analysts, inflation gauged by the Extended Consumer Price Index (IPCA, in the Portuguese acronym) has climbed for the tenth straight week. This time, the estimate went from 8.79% to 8.97%. The estimate for 2016 remains at 5.50% for five weeks now. This year’s inflation rate is poised to surpass the top end of the target range, which is 6.5%. The midpoint of the range is 4.5%.
In a bid to curb hiking prices, the Central Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee (Copom) is raising the benchmark interest rate, aka Selic. On the 3rd of this month, Copom notched up the Selic rate for the sixth consecutive time to 13.75% per annum.
The forecast of financial analysts for economic shrinkage this year went from 1.35% to 1.45%. It is the fifth consecutive turn for the worse in the estimate for Brazil’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), i.e. the sum of all goods and services produced in the country. The growth forecast for next year went from 0.9% to 0.7%.
For a second time in five days, an individual Republican in the U.S. House prevented final approval of a long-delayed $19.1 billion package of disaster relief, again slowing the delivery of the bill to President Trump’s desk for his signature, sparking a new round of finger pointing on Capitol Hill over emergency aid.
“This delay is unconscionable,” said Rep. Sanford Bishop (D-GA), whose district suffered severe damage last year from Hurricane Michael. “It’s a shame, it’s cruel, it’s inhumane.”
“I was just here to stop legislative malpractice,” said Rep. Tom Massie (R-KY), one of two House Republicans back during this break week to make sure the disaster bill was not approved by unanimous consent on the floor of the House.
“Passing a $19 billion bill with no recorded vote is legislative malpractice,” Massie told reporters after blocking the disaster aid bill, which was approved last Thursday by the Senate on a vote of 85-8.
Massie said if Democrats think it’s so important to pass the bill, then they should summon all lawmakers back from this week off from votes.
Massie also objected to a bill temporarily extending the National Flood Insurance Program, which technically expires on Friday.
There was also language in the disaster bill to extend that authorization; it wasn’t immediately clear if the flood program would be fixed in time, or if it would lapse at the end of the week.
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Last Friday, it was Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX), who objected to House approval of changes made by the Senate to the disaster measure; Roy said a full roll call vote should be held, but with members gone this week back in their districts, that can’t happen until early June.
Like last week, the objection drew scorn from some on the GOP side, whose states need disaster relief.
“This is yet another example of politicians putting their own self-interest ahead of the national interest,” tweeted Sen. David Perdue (R-GA), who had interceded with President Trump on Thursday in order to salvage the disaster aid measure.
“Unfortunately, more clowns showed up today to once again delay disaster relief for the states and farmers devastated by the storms of 2018,” tweeted Rep. Austin Scott (R-GA).
Democrats also expressed frustration at the latest objection.
“Again, this was a bipartisan bill passed overwhelmingly by the Senate,” said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD).
“The heartlessness of House Republicans knows no bounds,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
“Frankly, I cannot understand why any member would object to giving relief to so many millions of our citizens who have been badly damaged by natural disasters,” Hoyer told reporters.
“We need action,” said Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (D-FL).
But Republicans said this is about following regular order in the Congress.
House Republican leaders were not behind the objections, as they had signed off on the effort by Democrats to obtain quick approval of the disaster aid bill.
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I think I know the answer. I think most people do, except Trump. The president seems to have drunk his own Kool-Aid about being some sort of genius deal-maker. Asked Monday about his erratic and disruptive method, if you can call it that, Trump told reporters with a shrug, “Sorry, it’s the way I negotiate.” I’m sorry, too. The whole world should be.
Two staffers for the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) resigned after expressing frustrations about a hold on military assistance to Ukraine that is now at the center of the impeachment inquiry, a witness has testified.
Mark Sandy, an OMB staffer, testified this month that the two staffers, one of whom was in the legal division, had resigned partially due to frustrations with the unexplained aid freeze, according to a transcript of his testimony released Tuesday.
Sandy recalled that one individual who resigned had “expressed some frustrations about not understanding the reason for the hold,” according to the transcript, but he noted that he was “reluctant to speak to someone else’s motivations.”
He was also asked whether the OMB legal division employee said they were leaving “at least in part because of their concerns on frustrations about the hold on Ukraine security assistance.”
“Yes, in terms of that process, in part,” Sandy responded.
The officials were not named in the transcript.
A senior administration official categorized the assertion that the two officials resigned in part over the aid freeze as false in an email to The Hill.
His testimony was part of the House’s impeachment inquiry into Trump’s dealings with Ukraine, including the freeze on security assistance.
The transcript of Sandy’s closed-door interview was one of the latest released by House Democrats. They also released testimony from a closed-door session with Philip Reeker, the acting assistant secretary of State in charge of European and Eurasian Affairs.
“The testimonies from Ambassador Reeker and Mr. Sandy continue to paint a portrait of hand-picked political appointees corrupting the official levers of U.S. government power, including by withholding taxpayer funded military assistance to Ukraine, to further the President’s own personal political agenda,” they said.
Hours after Democrats released the transcripts, Trump appeared at a campaign rally in Florida, where he blasted the ongoing impeachment inquiry, with supporters breaking into a chant of “bullshit” when he insisted that the inquiry was falling flat with voters.
The transcripts’ release comes as Schiff’s panel works to put together a report for the Judiciary Committee that will be used to determine whether to draft articles of impeachment against Trump.
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