U.S. Congress negotiators on Thursday moved to put off until after the Nov. 6 elections decisions on future funding for President Donald Trump’s multibillion-dollar southwest border wall, as lawmakers advanced legislation funding many other government programs.
Racing against a Sept. 30 deadline when the current fiscal year ends, Republicans and Democrats were showing unusual cooperation in trying to fund most federal agency functions and avoid an embarrassing government shutdown about a month before congressional elections.
A trio of massive spending bills were making their way through Congress to fund military, energy and a range of other programs that otherwise would run out of money on Oct. 1.
But House Appropriations Committee Chairman Rodney Frelinghuysen said that some decisions will have to be put off until Dec. 7, after congressional elections.
That means that Congress would continue to fund agencies such as the Department of Homeland Security at current year levels on a temporary basis.
In recent weeks, Trump has threatened a government shutdown unless he got the money he wanted to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border to keep illegal immigrants and illegal drugs out of the United States.
A White House spokeswoman would not say whether Trump would go along with Congress’ plans if lawmakers did not immediately meet his demand for more border wall funding.
“We look forward to reviewing the bill when it’s released,” said White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters.
Trump campaigned for president in 2016 vowing to build a wall that he said Mexico would finance.
But Mexico has balked and Trump instead has had to turn to Congress for construction funds. Lawmakers provided $1.57 billion this year for physical barriers and related technology along the southwest border.
Some have estimated the total cost of the edifice at more than $24 billion.
Reporting By Richard Cowan; editing by Grant McCool
A Republican-led panel in the U.S. House of Representatives voted on Thursday to make permanent individual tax cuts from President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax overhaul, a move widely seen as a partisan ploy to help Republican candidates in the Nov. 6 congressional elections.
Members of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee voted 21-15 along party lines to send the measure to the House floor for a full chamber vote expected by Oct 1. But the tax cuts are likely to be dead on arrival in the Senate, where they would need Democratic support to pass.
The tax overhaul that Trump signed into law last December, known as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, gave permanent tax relief to corporations but set individual cuts that will expire after 2025.
The measure to make the individual cuts permanent are part of a three-pronged legislative package dubbed “Tax Reform 2.0,” which Republicans introduced three days ago. The panel was due to address two other prongs, involving retirement savings and tax incentives for start-up businesses, later on Thursday.
Republicans are in danger of losing control of the House to Democrats in November. Voters favor Democratic candidates over Republicans 52 percent to 38 percent, according to a Quinnipiac University National Poll released this week. Democrats need a net gain of at least 23 seats to win a majority in the House.
Republicans insist that Trump’s tax overhaul has helped boost the economy. But their message has been undercut by worries about Trump’s policy on trade tariffs and a lack of evidence that tax cuts have delivered promised pay increases to workers.
House Republicans said the legislation on the tax cuts would add to economic momentum and create 1.5 million new jobs in the long run, citing numbers from the nonpartisan Tax Foundation.
But the legislation also carries risks for Republican fiscal conservatives.
Making individual tax cuts permanent would add another $630 billion to the deficit by 2019, according to the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation. That would bring the total cost of tax cuts under Trump to well over $2 trillion in lost government revenue.
Democrats decried the legislation, saying it would mainly benefit the wealthy, expand the deficit and lead to cuts in the Social Security and Medicare programs for the elderly.
Committee Republicans rejected several Democratic amendments that would have directed Congress to obtain Trump’s tax returns; provided tax relief to disaster victims and the sick; protected benefits for the elderly; raised taxes on the highest incomes; and eliminated a cap on the federal deduction for state and local tax payments.
Reporting by David Morgan; editing by Grant McCool and Leslie Adler
U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Thursday vowed to fight back against federal courts that issue injunctions barring the federal government from implementing regulations nationwide, and accused federal judges of engaging in “judicial activism.”
In a speech in Missouri, Sessions revealed he was issuing new litigation guidance that he said would “assist our Department attorneys in fighting unconstitutional orders” all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Nationwide injunctions have become a favored tool by states and other groups who have staunchly opposed many of the Trump administration’s more controversial policy initiatives.
They allow a single judge in one federal district to block the implementation of new rules across the entire United States.
The new guidelines call on Justice Department litigators to fight back against cases that involve nationwide injunctions.
During the Obama administration, Republican-led state attorneys general and business groups often sought nationwide injunctions, a strategy that has since been more often deployed by Democratic state attorneys general and civil rights groups who seek to block many of President Donald Trump’s policies.
By Sessions’ count, courts have issued nationwide injunctions 25 times since Trump took office.
Among some of the most well-known examples include an injunction from a federal judge in Hawaii to block Trump’s order banning people from certain Muslim countries from traveling to the United States.
Sessions later verbally attacked the judge, Derrick Watson, saying on conservative talk radio “The Mark Levin Show”: “I really am amazed that a judge sitting on an island in the Pacific can issue an order that stops the president of the United States from what appears to be clearly his statutory and constitutional power.”
Another well-known example involved three different federal district court judges who each separately blocked the Trump administration from rescinding Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), a program that protects from deportation some young immigrants who were brought to the United States illegally as children.
“Increasingly, we are seeing individual federal district judges go beyond the parties before the court to give injunctions or orders that block the entire federal government from enforcing a law or policy throughout the country,” Sessions said in a statement that accompanied the new guidelines.
“This trend must stop. We have a government to run. The Constitution does not grant to a single district judge the power to veto executive branch actions.”
Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Susan Thomas
Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans on Thursday thwarted a Democratic bid for more documents on President Donald Trump’s U.S. Supreme Court pick Brett Kavanaugh that could have delayed his confirmation and set a vote on the nomination for next week.
In party-line votes, the Republicans rejected motions by Democratic senators seeking access to documents yet to be made public relating to Kavanaugh’s service in the White House under Republican President George W. Bush more than a decade ago.
The Republican-led committee agreed to vote on the nomination on Sept. 20, with a final Senate confirmation vote likely by the end of the month.
“I don’t understand the rush to judgment. I really do not,” said Senator Dianne Feinstein, the panel’s senior Democrat.
Kavanaugh, a conservative federal appeals court judge nominated by Trump to the lifetime position on the high court, made no major missteps in two days of questioning by senators during his confirmation hearing last week.
Democrats have said they want to learn more about whether Kavanaugh played a significant role in controversial policy debates in the Bush White House, including those relating to the treatment of detainees held after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Kavanaugh worked in the White House from 2001 to 2006.
Trump’s fellow Republicans control the Senate by a narrow margin. With no sign yet of any Republicans planning to vote against Kavanaugh, he seems poised to win confirmation despite Democratic opposition.
Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Will Dunham
The U.S. agency that enforces federal labor law on Thursday took the first steps toward loosening an Obama-era standard that made it easier to hold companies liable for illegal labor practices by their contractors and franchisees.
The five-member National Labor Relations Board, whose majority was appointed by President Donald Trump, proposed a rule that would restore an earlier standard. Under it companies were considered to be so-called joint employers with their contractors or franchisees only when they exercised direct control over labor issues such as hiring and firing workers and setting wages.
In a 2015 decision, the NLRB had said a company could be a joint employer when it has indirect influence over the working conditions of a contractor’s employees. Joint employers can be held liable for labor law violations and required to bargain with unions representing contract workers.
Overturning that standard has been a top priority of business groups, which say the Obama-era ruling could upend supply chains and the franchise model.
Unions, worker advocates and many Democrats have said the standard the board created in 2015 was necessary because of a steady increase in the outsourcing of labor in many industries over the last few decades.
The board said its proposal would be formally published on Friday, kicking off a 60-day public comment period.
The NLRB had overturned the Obama-era joint employment standard in a December ruling. But it wiped out that decision two months later because a board member appointed by President Donald Trump had a conflict of interest.
In June, NLRB Chairman John Ring, a Trump appointee, said that adopting a rule would provide a higher level of certainty to employers and unions than issuing a new decision.
Reporting by Daniel Wiessner in Albany, New York, Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi and Steve Orlofsky
President Donald Trump has made many vile and offensive statements. Ask anyone in America what they think is the worst thing he's said and there's probably a good chance they'll be able to come up with one.
But denying the hurricane-related deaths of 2975 Americans may be the most inhuman remark President Trump has ever uttered. And the fact he did it the morning before a major deadly hurricane is about to hit the Eastern United States makes it all the worse.
Earlier Thursday morning President Trump took to Twitter to say, "3000 people did not die in the two hurricanes that hit Puerto Rico."
Except, they did.
A Harvard study found "4645 excess deaths" due to the hurricanes that hit Puerto Rico. In fact, the study's authors say "this number is likely to be an underestimate because of survivor bias."
But the official study by George Washington University’s Milken Institute School of Public Health finds 2975 people died because of the hurricanes.
That independent study's results have now become the official death toll, according to the government of Puerto Rico.
By comparison, there were 2977 victims who died on 9/11.
1833 people died during Katrina.
Meanwhile, President Trump's tweets, his sheer denial of the deaths of "3000" people, have caused tremendous outrage and hurt.
Some shared personal stories of the family members they lost in Puerto Rico as a result of the Trump administration's failures.
The Republican chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee said on Thursday the United States should be doing more to hold Russia accountable for “aggressive acts.”
“We cannot expect (Russian President) Vladimir Putin and his corrupt associates to change their behavior in Syria, Ukraine or anywhere else until we prove we will hold them to account,” Representative Ed Royce said in his prepared opening statement for a committee hearing on U.S. sanctions policy.
President Donald Trump has been under pressure, including from his fellow Republicans, to push back harder against Russian meddling in U.S. elections, aggression in Ukraine and involvement in the civil war in Syria.
Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday to strengthen election security, just eight weeks before the Nov. 6 congressional election, by slapping sanctions on foreign countries or people who try to interfere in U.S. votes.
Royce said he was also concerned that the U.S. “maximum pressure” policy over North Korea’s nuclear program was faltering.
North Korean leader “Kim (Jong Un) appears to be using talks, as he has time and again, to probe for weaknesses and buy time,” said Royce. “When our messages are confusing or contradictory, we shouldn’t be surprised when others, like Beijing, reportedly resume importing North Korean coal.”
Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Bernadette Baum
Turkey has fined a television channel for showing a music video by Pink that featured “erotic dance figures of a homosexual nature”, a ruling made by its television watchdog showed.
Broadcaster AS TV was fined by the Turkish Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTUK) over the video for “Secrets”, which it said “featured erotic dance figures of a homosexual nature” and was shown during hours when children and young people could watch and be negatively influenced.
The video features some same sex couples dancing, sometimes suggestively, against a graffiti wall. Grammy-award winning singer Pink has scored hits like “What About Us” and “Raise Your Glass” over a 20-year career.
The television channel was fined 17,000 Turkish liras for the clip. AS TV is a local television channel broadcasting in the industrial western city of Bursa.
The watchdog has in the past fined broadcasters over an array of issues, including kissing scenes and adult language in television shows, and in March was granted the authority to also supervise and manage online content in the country.
In January, RTUK fined a TV station nearly 1 million lira ($155,000) over footage of young girls, aged from seven to 11, dancing in shorts in a talent competition after viewers complained of “child abuse”.
It has also previously fined several television channels for showing a music video featuring intimate scenes between the singer and her male co-star, saying the video was “one tick below an erotic film”.
Reporting by Ece Toksabay and Tuvan Gumrukcu; Editing by Alison Williams
U.S. President Donald Trump had a sharp rejoinder for Jamie Dimon on Thursday, saying the JPMorgan chief executive lacked the “smarts” to be president but was otherwise wonderful.
The Republican president, known for his acerbic insults on Twitter, was hitting back at Dimon for saying on Wednesday that he was smarter than Trump and could beat him in a White House race. Dimon quickly walked back those comments in a statement.
“The problem with banker Jamie Dimon running for President is that he doesn’t have the aptitude or “smarts” & is a poor public speaker & nervous mess - otherwise he is wonderful,” Trump wrote on Twitter.
Dimon, at an event promoting a $500 million JPMorgan investment in cities, had earlier said: “I think I could beat Trump ... because I’m as tough as he is, I’m smarter than he is,” according to CNBC. “I can’t beat the liberal side of the Democratic Party.”
“And by the way this wealthy New Yorker actually earned his money,” Dimon added. “It wasn’t a gift from Daddy.”
Trump has often referred to a $1 million loan he received from his father, a real estate magnate, to start his own business.
Dimon, 62, has said in the past he would not run for president and does not have the temperament for the job. He said in January he expects to be chief executive officer of JPMorgan Chase & Co for about five years.
JPMorgan is the biggest bank in the United States by assets.
Reporting by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Bernadette Baum
Imagine you tell your 55 year-old mom you’re going to get married and she’s too disorganized to help you with the wedding preparations. Or you put your kids on the bus to elementary school and the 57 year-old driver forgets the route.
These are real scenarios, drawn from my clinical work with patients who have young-onset Alzheimer’s disease.
The path to a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s or other dementia is often long, meandering and riddled with misdiagnosis.
A correct diagnosis is essential for every patient but especially important for younger people. They are often still working and at risk of losing their jobs. They may have young children. When they tell people that something isn’t quite right, they are told they are depressed or must be going through a midlife crisis.
Personality changes involved in Alzheimer’s disease can be misinterpreted as indifference, or cause conflict in relationships.
(Shutterstock)
Many times, younger patients will notice changes in their cognition at very early stages. They may notice increased difficulty in organization or planning. They may forget how to do complex tasks or forget appointments. Cognitive impairment is more obvious when completing highly demanding tasks at work or co-ordinating family logistics.
When a young person goes to see their doctor and reports such changes in cognition, the “d” word brought up is usually depression and not dementia.
Until the correct diagnosis is made, there can be many misinterpretations of their changes in thinking — resulting in conflicts with family, friends and colleagues.
Divorce before diagnosis
Initially, a change in personality can be misinterpreted by the partner as indifference, as a midlife crisis or as something else.
There can be a changing of roles within a couple and it is not uncommon for separation or divorce to occur before a diagnosis is even made.
If young children are involved, it can be difficult for them to understand the change in their parent’s personality.
Anne Hunt looks to her husband, Bruce, to be reminded if she already added sugar or not to her dough in their home in Chicago on July 13, 2018. Diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2016, Anne, who once ran a Chicago cooking school, now has to separate the ingredients into two different sections of the kitchen to prevent errors.
(AP Photo/Annie Rice)
Getting services for young-onset Alzheiner’s can be especially challenging. There are very few programs that cater to people with dementia under the age of 65.
Support for caregivers and family members of these patients is also lacking. There is a dire need for specialized programs and long-term care facilities that can accommodate those under 65.
‘Use it or lose it’
Although we have no cure for any patients with Alzheimer’s, there are clinical trials that are targeting the abnormal proteins that build up during the disease.
There is symptomatic medication — such as acetylcholinesterase inhibitors — that can help memory.
We also promote a healthy lifestyle that includes aerobic exercise because evidence shows this can slow neurodegeneration. We want people to remain cognitively active and go on learning to help their brain reserve.
Although patients with young-onset Alzheiner’s are impaired in some activities, there are many other activities that they can participate in. “Use it or lose it” is the motto we should live by when it comes to the brain and preserving its function.
Young-onset Alzheimer’s is not the only dementia that typically affects the young. Frontotemporal dementia also strikes young people. And although there are differences in presentation in these two illnesses, many of the challenges facing patients are the same.
Ongoing research is required to better understand this disease. While we search for a cure, we need to appreciate the special needs of this population. We need to target research and services to better serve patients and their families.
Far-right news website Breitbart on Wednesday posted a leaked video showing Google executives sharing with employees how troubled they were by the election of US President Donald Trump.
The leak of the hour-long video from a TGIF (Thank God It's Friday) town hall style gathering shortly after Trump won office in November of 2016 came as the president and his allies accuse the leading search engine of bias against politically conservative viewpoints.
"I know this is probably not the most joyous TGIF we have had," Google co-founder Sergey Brin said in the video.
"As an immigrant and a refugee, I certainly find this election deeply offensive. I know many of you do, too."
Brin said most people at the meeting were upset and saddened by an election outcome that indicated many people in the US don't share the values of those at Google when it came to immigrants, minorities, women, and the world being left to children.
Google chief executive Sundar Pichai also addressed the gathering, saying that while the election was rife with rhetoric and division, people should have faith in the democratic process.
Pichai said he thought one of the reasons for the election outcome was that "people don't feel heard on either side."
"There is a lot of fear. It is important to reach out," Pichai said.
Google executives urged employees to remain true to their values, and trust that the internet can make lives better for people around the world, despite its flaws.
Google told AFP that for more than 20 years employees have been free to express personal viewpoints at all-hands get-togethers such as the one in the video.
"Nothing was said in that meeting, or any other meeting, to suggest that any political bias ever influences the way we build or operate our products," Google said in response to an AFP inquiry.
"To the contrary, our products are built for everyone, and we design them with extraordinary care to be a trustworthy source of information for everyone, without regard to political viewpoint."
Google and other major US internet firms are facing intense scrutiny for allowing the propagation of misinformation and hate speech, and allegations of political bias from the president and some Republican lawmakers.
In a series of recent tweets, Trump assailed Google for what he termed "rigged" results that hide news from conservative outlets and promote content from what he called "left-wing" media.
That followed similar comments from Republican lawmakers including House majority leader Kevin McCarthy, who claimed that "conservatives are too often finding their voices silenced" on online platforms.
Technology and media analysts say there is little evidence to suggest Google is skewing results for political reasons. And if they did, the president would have little recourse under the constitution's free-speech protections.
But public perception is another matter.
A Pew Research Center survey released in June found 43 percent of Americans think major technology firms support the views of liberals over conservatives, and 72 percent accepted the idea that social media platforms actively censor opposing political views.
An Australian traveler said his Bali vacation was ruined when Qantas flight attendants called police on him over his wheelchair.
Shane Hryhorec checked in Wednesday for his flight from Melbourne and was told he could take his foldable wheelchair into the cabin, where he intended to store it in an overhead compartment, reported news.com.au.
Qantas policy allows collapsable wheelchairs inside the cabin of large Airbus A380 and Boeing 787 aircraft, but they must be kept in the hold of smaller planes like the Boeing 737 -- which Hryhorec was boarding.
The flight crew told Hryhorec he had to store his wheelchair in the hold, and he asked why he was getting conflicting directions.
That's when Hryhorec and his companion were removed from the plane and taken to the terminal, where Australian Federal Police were waiting for them.
“I got in the car and cried, I was so upset," said Hryhorec, who owns the disability equipment company Push Mobility. "Sadly, this is not uncommon for people with disabilities. I just really wonder when things like this will stop happening to us.”
Hryhorec said he hadn't had an issue storing his wheelchair in the cabin before, and he said it was designed to fit in overhead compartments.
“I can’t afford having my chair to be damaged," he said. "I run a company that replaces wheelchairs that have been damaged in flights. I understand what happens when people fly with their chair in the hold. I was going from Bali to Europe for work and if something happened to my chair, that would affect my travel for work.”
Qantas said the incident was the result of a miscommunication, but didn't explain why the flight crew called police.
“We apologise that due to a miscommunication, one of our customers boarded our Boeing 737 aircraft intending to store their wheelchair in the overhead compartment when they are not able to be stored in the cabin," the airline said in a statement.
“On smaller aircraft, wheelchairs are carried in the hold and returned back to their owner on arrival," the airline added. "It is never our intention to inconvenience our customers but safety for all customers is our No. 1 priority.”
Apple's polished iPhone line-up comes with tools to help users dial back their smartphone obsessions, amid growing concerns over "addiction" and harmful effects on children.
An iOS 12 mobile operating system that will power new iPhones unveiled on Wednesday, and be pushed out as an update to prior models, has new features to reduce how much they distract people from the real world.
Apple senior vice president of software engineering Craig Federighi said of iOS 12 at a developers conference earlier this year the new system offers "detailed information and tools" to help users and parents keep tabs on device use.
A new "Screen Time" tool generates activity reports showing how often people pick up their iPhones or iPads, how long they spend in apps or at websites, and numbers of notifications received.
Users will be able to set limits on time spent in apps. Parents will be able to get activity reports from their children's iPhones or iPads, and impose time limits on apps from games and news to social media and messaging.
The operating system will also allow people to designate "down time" when iPhones or iPads can't be used -- perhaps a child's bedtime or a grown-up's meditation hour.
Activist investor Jana Partners and the California State Teachers' Retirement System (CalSTRS), which both have stakes in Apple, early this year called on the company to give parents more tools to ensure children are using its devices in ways that aren't hurting them.
The investors reasoned that doing so would pose no threat to Apple, because the company makes the bulk of its money selling devices, not from how much people use them.
Apple has been working to ramp up revenue from services and digital content such as music and movies, but most of the cash it takes in comes from iPhone sales.
The letter cited a growing body of evidence that excessive smartphone use may be having negative consequences on young people.
A study of teachers found the vast majority felt smartphones were a growing distraction at schools, eroding the ability of students to focus in class and a seeming cause of social and emotional difficulties.
