House Republicans fail to pass spending, voting bill as shutdown approaches

House Republicans fail to pass spending, voting bill as shutdown approaches
US Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) walks to his office at the US Capitol on September 17, 2024 in Washington, DC. (Getty Images/AFP)
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Updated 19 September 2024
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House Republicans fail to pass spending, voting bill as shutdown approaches

House Republicans fail to pass spending, voting bill as shutdown approaches
  • 14 Republicans break party ranks to join all but three Democrats in defeating the bill
  • The Republican party bill sought to mandate that states require proof of citizenship when people register to vote
  • House Democrats urged Speaker Johnson to work with them on a measure that can pass both chambers

WASHINGTON: Republicans in the US House of Representatives failed on Wednesday to pass a funding bill that included a controversial voting measure backed by Donald Trump, complicating efforts to avert a possible government shutdown at the end of the month.
Despite the urging of Trump, the Republican candidate in the Nov. 5 presidential election, House Republicans were unable to muster enough votes to pass the package and send it on the Democratic-controlled Senate. With Democrats mostly united in opposition, the bill failed by a vote of 202-220, with 14 Republicans voting against and three Democrats in favor.
House Speaker Mike Johnson said afterward that he would craft a new temporary spending bill that would keep the government running beyond Oct. 1, when current funding is due to expire. He did not provide details.
“Now we go back to the playbook, draw up another play and we’ll come up with another solution,” Johnson said. “I’m already talking to colleagues.”
Democrats in the House and the Senate say they are eager to pass a stopgap spending bill to avert a disruptive shutdown that would furlough hundreds of thousands of federal workers.

Congress faces an even more critical deadline on Jan. 1, by which time lawmakers will have to raise the nation’s debt ceiling or risk defaulting on more than $35 trillion in federal government debt.

However, they opposed the version that Johnson brought to a vote on Wednesday, because it was paired with an unrelated voting bill that would require Americans to provide proof of citizenship when they register to vote and require states to purge non-citizens from their registration lists.
Johnson also has to contend with a contingent of Republicans who typically vote against stopgap funding bills.
Trump has made illegal immigration a central issue in his re-election bid and has falsely claimed that Democrats are registering illegal immigrants to vote, the latest in a long line of lies about election fraud.

House Republicans say their bill is needed to ensure that only American citizens vote.
“It’s already illegal for a minor to purchase alcohol, yet we still card them. We still enforce the law,” said Republican Representative Aaron Bean.
Trump weighed in again just hours before the vote. seemingly encouraging House Republicans to let a partial government shutdown begin at the end of the month unless they get the proof of citizenship mandate, referred to in the House as the SAVE Act.
“If Republicans don’t get the SAVE Act, and every ounce of it, they should not agree to a Continuing Resolution in any way, shape, or form,” Trump said on the social media platform Truth Social.
House Democrats said the proof of citizenship mandate should not be part of a bill to keep the government funded and urged Johnson to work with them on a measure that can pass both chambers.
“This is not going to become law,” said Rep. Pete Aguilar, D-Calif. “This is Republican theatrics that are meant to appease the most extreme members of their conference, to show them that they are working on something and that they’re continuing to support the former president of the United States in his bid to demonize immigrants.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has predicted Johnson’s effort was doomed to fail.
“The only thing that will accomplish is make clear that he’s running into a dead end,” Schumer said. “We must have a bipartisan plan instead.”
The legislation would fund agencies generally at current levels through March 28 while lawmakers work out their differences on a full-year spending agreement.
Democrats, and some Republicans, are pushing for a shorter extension. A temporary fix would allow the current Congress to hammer out a final bill after the election and get it to Democratic President Joe Biden’s desk for his signature.
But Johnson and some of the more conservative members of his conference are pushing for a six-month extension in the hopes Trump will win and give them more leverage when crafting the full-year bill.
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky declined to weigh in on how long to extend funding. He said Schumer and Johnson, ultimately, will have to work out a final agreement that can pass both chambers.
“The one thing you cannot have is a government shutdown. It would be politically beyond stupid for us to do that right before the election because certainly we would get the blame,” McConnell said.
Regardless of the vote outcome, Republican lawmakers sought to allay any concerns there would be a shutdown. Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., said if the bill failed, then another stopgap bill should be voted on that would allow lawmakers to come back to Washington after the election and finish the appropriations work.
“The bottom line is we’re not shutting the government down,” Lawler said.
But Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries accused Republicans of engaging in a “shutdown effort.”
“That’s not hyperbole,” Jeffries said. “It’s history. Because in the DNA of extreme MAGA Republicans has consistently been an effort to make extreme ransom demands of the American people, and if those extreme ransom demands are not met, shut down the government.”
The House approved a bill with the proof of citizenship mandate back in July. Some Republicans who view the issue as popular with their constituents have been pushing for another chance to show their support.
Rep. Robert Aderholt, R-Alabama, noted that his state’s secretary of state announced last month that 3,251 people who had been previously issued noncitizen identification numbers will have their voter registration status made inactive and flagged for possible removal from the voter rolls. Voting rights groups have since filed a lawsuit saying the policy illegally targeted naturalized citizens for removal from voting rolls.
“These people should never have been allowed to register in the first place and this is exactly what the SAVE Act will prevent,” Aderholt said.


Germany confirms Biden visit and Ukraine allies meeting

Germany confirms Biden visit and Ukraine allies meeting
Updated 2 sec ago
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Germany confirms Biden visit and Ukraine allies meeting

Germany confirms Biden visit and Ukraine allies meeting
  • Germany was “happy” to host Biden for what has been billed as a goodbye visit ahead of the US presidential election in November
Berlin: Germany said Friday that US President Joe Biden will travel to the country October 10-12, and would host an international meeting to discuss military support for Ukraine.
Germany was “happy” to host Biden for what has been billed as a goodbye visit ahead of the US presidential election in November, Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s spokesman Steffen Hebestreit told a press conference.
“I can confirm that as part of the visit a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group... will be convened,” Hebestreit said.
The military meeting is expected on October 12 at the US air base in Ramstein near Frankfurt and is expected to bring together more than 50 of Ukraine’s allies.
The last meeting, also at Ramstein, was attended by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who appealed for additional weapons to repel advancing Russian forces.
Hebestreit did not confirm whether Zelensky would attend again in October.
The gathering will come at a crucial juncture for Ukraine ahead of the US election, which could upend the support that Kyiv receives from its biggest backer.
Republican candidate Donald Trump has long been critical of the billions of dollars the United States has given to Ukraine and has echoed Russian talking points about the conflict.
Hebestreit said that as well as talks with Scholz, Biden’s trip would also include a meeting with President Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

Arrest made after Islamophobic cyberattack on UK railway Wi-Fi networks

Arrest made after Islamophobic cyberattack on UK railway Wi-Fi networks
Updated 51 min 10 sec ago
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Arrest made after Islamophobic cyberattack on UK railway Wi-Fi networks

Arrest made after Islamophobic cyberattack on UK railway Wi-Fi networks
  • Unnamed man detained after post claiming ‘Islamisation of Europe already underway’
  • Stations across London, as well as major hubs in Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool, Birmingham, Edinburgh affected

LONDON: A man has been arrested in the UK for posting an Islamophobic message on 19 railway station Wi-Fi networks across the country.

Manchester Piccadilly, Birmingham New Street, Edinburgh Waverley, Glasgow Central, Liverpool Lime Street, Leeds and Bristol Temple Meads were caught up in the cyberattack on Wednesday, alongside London Bridge, Cannon Street, Charing Cross, Clapham Junction, Euston, King’s Cross, Liverpool Street, Paddington, Victoria and Waterloo in the capital.

Users at the stations were met with a page after logging in to free station Wi-Fi networks with the words “we love you, Europe,” accompanied by the claim that “the Islamisation of Europe is already underway.”

The message added that “this is just a small taste of what’s coming,” detailing the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing followed by images of the 22 victims.

The message was quickly taken down and a man, who has not been identified, was detained under the 1990 Computer Misuse Act and 1998 Malicious Communications Act.

He is understood to be an employee of Global Reach Technology, which provides internet services at many stations in the UK.

A spokesperson for British Transport Police said: “We received reports … of a cyberattack displaying Islamophobic messaging on some Network Rail Wi-Fi services.”

A spokesperson for Network Rail, the group in charge of UK tracks and stations, said no data had been compromised in the incident, adding: “Once our final security checks have been completed we anticipate the service will be restored by the weekend.”

A spokesperson for Telent, the company responsible for providing Wi-Fi at UK stations, said: “We are aware of the cybersecurity incident affecting the public Wi-Fi at Network Rail’s managed stations and are investigating with Network Rail and other stakeholders.”


US returns to Iran latest batch of ancient clay tablets

US returns to Iran latest batch of ancient clay tablets
Updated 27 September 2024
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US returns to Iran latest batch of ancient clay tablets

US returns to Iran latest batch of ancient clay tablets
  • The tablets were returned with President Masoud Pezeshkian who had attended the United Nations General Assembly in New York

Tehran: The United States has returned to Iran more than 1,000 clay tablets dating from the Achaemenid-era, official media said, reporting the sixth such handover of its kind.
Iran’s official IRNA news agency said Thursday evening that the tablets, 1,100 in all, were returned with President Masoud Pezeshkian who had attended the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
Found at the ruins of Persepolis, the capital of the Persian Achaemenid Empire which ruled from the 6th to 4th centuries BC in southern Iran, the repatriated tablets reflect how the ancient society was organized and its economy managed.
The tablets constitute records of “the rituals and the way of life of our ancestors,” said Ali Darabi, vice-minister of cultural heritage, cited by IRNA.
The tablets were returned to Iran by the University of Chicago’s Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures, West Asia & North Africa, formerly known as the Oriental Institute.
A large portion of the tablets were returned in three batches between 1948 and 2004 before the rest were blocked by legal action until 2018.
More than 3,500 tablets were repatriated in September, 2023.
“The American side undertook to return the rest,” Darabi said, cited by Iran’s ISNA news agency.


Seven-year-old Indian boy killed in ritual sacrifice for school’s ‘good fortune’

Seven-year-old Indian boy killed in ritual sacrifice for school’s ‘good fortune’
Updated 27 September 2024
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Seven-year-old Indian boy killed in ritual sacrifice for school’s ‘good fortune’

Seven-year-old Indian boy killed in ritual sacrifice for school’s ‘good fortune’
  • The boy was found dead in hostel bed, school director hid the body in the trunk of his car
  • Indian officials lodged 103 cases of human sacrifice in the country between 2014 and 2021

LUCKNOW, India: Five people were arrested in India for the killing of a seven-year-old boy in an alleged ritual sacrifice aimed at bringing good fortune to a public school, police said Friday.

The victim was found dead in his bed on Sunday night at the hostel where he lived in the city of Hathras, not far from the country’s famed Taj Mahal.

Instead of alerting authorities, police said that school director Dinesh Baghel hid the body in the trunk of his car.

Police officer Himanshu Mathur told AFP that the boy was killed before a black magic ceremony conducted by Baghel’s father.

“The boy was meant to be taken to an altar as part of a ritual, but got killed before the ceremony could be completed,” he said.

Baghel and his father were arrested along with three other teachers at the school, Mathur added.

Mathur did not give further details on how the child had died and local media reports said the body was undergoing a post-mortem examination.

India’s National Crime Records Bureau lodged 103 cases of human sacrifice in the country between 2014 and 2021.

Ritual killings are usually conducted to appease deities and are more common in tribal and remote areas, where belief in witchcraft and the occult is widespread.

Last year police arrested five men for the 2019 murder of a 64-year-old woman who was killed and decapitated with a machete after visiting a temple in India’s remote northeast.

Police said the alleged ringleader had been conducting a religious rite to mark the anniversary of his brother’s death.


Harris heads to the US-Mexico border to face down criticism of her record

Harris heads to the US-Mexico border to face down criticism of her record
Updated 27 September 2024
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Harris heads to the US-Mexico border to face down criticism of her record

Harris heads to the US-Mexico border to face down criticism of her record
  • Ahead of Harris’ visit, Trump predicted that the vice president would try to make her record look better but he said “it’s not possible”

PHOENIX: Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday will make her first visit to the US-Mexico border since becoming the Democratic presidential nominee to confront head-on one of her biggest vulnerabilities ahead of the November election.
She is scheduled to appear in Douglas, Arizona, as former President Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans pound Harris relentlessly over the Biden administration’s record on migration and fault the vice president for spending little time visiting the border during her time in the White House.
Immigration and border security are top issues in Arizona, the only battleground state that borders Mexico and one that contended with a record influx of asylum seekers last year. Trump has an edge with voters on migration, and Harris has gone on offense to improve her standing on the issue and defuse a key line of political attack for Trump.
In nearly every campaign speech she gives, Harris recounts how a sweeping bipartisan package aiming to overhaul the federal immigration system collapsed in Congress earlier this year after Trump urged top Republicans to oppose it.
“The American people deserve a president who cares more about border security than playing political games,” Harris plans to say, according to an excerpt of her remarks previewed by her campaign.
After the immigration legislation stalled, the Biden administration announced rules that bar migrants from being granted asylum when US officials deem that the southern border is overwhelmed. Since then, arrests for illegal border crossings have fallen.
Harris will also use her trip to remind voters about her work as attorney general of California in confronting crime along the border. During an August rally in Glendale, outside Phoenix, she talked about helping to prosecute drug- and people-smuggling gangs that operated transnationally and at the border.
“I prosecuted them in case after case, and I won,” Harris said then.
Florida Democratic Rep. Maxwell Frost, at 27 the youngest member of Congress and a leading advocate for Harris with young and Hispanic voters, said that in backing stricter enforcement, Harris is trying to “strike a chord” and “she understands that, right now, there is a crisis at the border. It’s a humanitarian crisis.”
“That’s why she’s pushing for more resources at the border so that we have an orderly process, which is really important,” Frost said. “But, the thing is, that’s where Donald Trump stops, is just at enforcement.”
The vice president’s trip to Douglas thrusts the issue of immigration into the brightest spotlight yet less than six weeks before Election Day.
Trump didn’t wait for her to arrive there before pushing back.
On Thursday, he delivered a lengthy diatribe from New York, declaring that “anything she says tomorrow, you know is a fraud because she was the worst in history at protecting our country. So she’ll try and make herself look a little bit better. But it’s not possible.”
A day earlier, at a rally in North Carolina, Trump told voters that “when Kamala speaks about the border, her credibility is less than zero.”
The Trump campaign has also countered with its own TV ads deriding the vice president as a failed “border czar.”
“Under Harris, over 10 million illegally here,” said one spot. However, estimates on how many people have entered the country illegally since the start of the Biden administration in 2021 vary widely.
Harris also never held the position of border czar. Instead, her assignment was to tackle the “root causes” of migration from three Central American nations — El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras — that were responsible for a significant share of border crossers.
The vice president took a long-term approach to an immediate problem, helping persuade multinational corporations and Latin American businesses to invest in the region. That, she argued, would create jobs and give locals more reasons to stay home rather than take the arduous trek north.
Still, Trump has continued to decry an “invasion” of border crossers.
Polls show that most American trust him to handle immigration more than they do Harris.
Douglas, where Harris will appear, is an overwhelmingly Democratic border town in GOP-dominated Cochise County, where the Republicans on the board of supervisors are facing criminal charges for refusing to certify the 2022 election results. Trump was in the area last month, using a remote stretch of border wall and a pile of steel beams to draw a contrast between himself and Harris on border security.
The town of 16,000 people has strong ties to its much larger neighbor, Agua Prieta, Mexico, and a busy port of entry that’s slated for a long-sought upgrade. Many locals are as concerned with making legal border crossings more efficient as they are with combatting illegal ones.