Senate GOP pushes ahead with budget bill that funds Trump’s mass deportations and border wall

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Sen. John Thune (R-SD) speaks to members of the press as he walks through a hallway prior to a vote at the U.S. Capitol on February 18, 2025 in Washington, DC.  (AFP)
U.S. Senate Majority Leader Sen. John Thune (R-SD) speaks to members of the press as he walks through a hallway prior to a vote at the U.S. Capitol on February 18, 2025 in Washington, DC. (AFP)
Short Url
Updated 19 February 2025
Follow

Senate GOP pushes ahead with budget bill that funds Trump’s mass deportations and border wall

Senate GOP pushes ahead with budget bill that funds Trump’s mass deportations and border wall
  • This is the first step in unlocking Trump’s campaign promises — tax cuts, energy production and border controls — and dominating the agenda in Congress

WASHINGTON: Senate Republicans pushed ahead late Tuesday on a scaled-back budget bill, a $340 billion package to give the Trump administration money for mass deportations and other priorities, as Democrats prepare a counter-campaign against the onslaught of actions coming from the White House.
On a party-line vote, 50-47, Republicans launched the process, skipping ahead of the House Republicans who prefer President Donald Trump’s approach for a “big, beautiful bill” that includes $4.5 trillion in tax cuts that are tops on the party agenda. Senate Republicans plan to deal with tax cuts later, in a second package.
“It’s time to act,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., on social media, announcing the plan ahead as the House is on recess week. “Let’s get it done.”
This is the first step in unlocking Trump’s campaign promises — tax cuts, energy production and border controls — and dominating the agenda in Congress. While Republicans have majority control of both the House and Senate, giving a rare sweep of Washington power, they face big hurdles trying to put the president’s agenda into law over steep Democratic objections.
It’s coming as the administration’s Department of Government Efficiency effort is slashing costs across government departments, leaving a trail of fired federal workers and dismantling programs on which many Americans depend. Democrats, having floundered amid the initial chaos coming from the White House, emerged galvanized as they try to warn Americans what’s at stake.
“These bills that they have have one purpose — and that is they’re trying to give a tax break to their billionaire buddies and have you, the average American person, pay for it,” Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer told AP. “It is outrageous.”
Schumer convened a private weekend call with Democratic senators and emerged with a strategy to challenge Republicans for prioritizing tax cuts that primarily flow to the wealthy at the expense of program and service cuts to US health care, scientific research, veterans services and other programs.
As the Senate begins the cumbersome budget process this week — which entails an initial 50 hours of debate followed by an expected all-night session with dozens if not 100 or more efforts to amend the package in what’s called a vote-a-rama — Democrats are preparing to drill down on those issues.
The Senate GOP package would allow $175 billion to be spent on border security, including funding for mass deportation operations and to build the wall along the US-Mexico border; a $150 billion boost to the Pentagon for defense spending; and $20 billion for the Coast Guard.
Republicans are determined to push ahead after Trump’s border czar Tom Homan and top aide Stephen Miller told senators privately last week they are running short of cash to accomplish the president’s mass deportations and other border priorities.
The Senate Budget Committee said the package would cost about $85.5 billion a year, for four years of Trump’s presidency, paid for with new reductions and revenues elsewhere that other committees will draw up.
Eyeing ways to pay for the package, Senate Republicans are considering a rollback of the Biden administration’s methane emissions fee, which was approved by Democrats as part of climate change strategies in the Inflation Reduction Act, and hoping to draw new revenue from energy leases as they aim to spur domestic energy production.
While the House and Senate budget resolutions are often considered simply statements of policy priorities, these could actually become law.
The budget resolutions are being considered under what’s called the reconciliation process, which allows passage on a simple majority vote without many of the procedural hurdles that stall bills. Once rare, reconciliation is increasingly being used in the House and Senate to pass big packages on party-line votes when one party controls the White House and Congress.
During Trump’s first term, Republicans used the reconciliation process to pass the GOP tax cuts in 2017. Democrats used reconciliation during the Biden presidency era to approve COVID relief and also the Inflation Reduction Act.
 

 


Mass Russian drone attack on Ukraine’s Kharkiv, nine injured

Mass Russian drone attack on Ukraine’s Kharkiv, nine injured
Updated 27 March 2025
Follow

Mass Russian drone attack on Ukraine’s Kharkiv, nine injured

Mass Russian drone attack on Ukraine’s Kharkiv, nine injured
  • Mayor Ihor Terekhov said there had been at least 12 drone strikes on the city, a frequent target of Russia’s military, located some 30 km from the border

Russian forces launched a mass drone attack on Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, late on Wednesday, injuring nine people and causing considerable damage, emergency services and officials said.
Emergency services, posting on the Telegram messaging app, said the attacks started four fires in the city center and posted pictures of firefighters battling flames alongside piles of rubble. The strikes, it said, caused serious damage to buildings.
Mayor Ihor Terekhov said there had been at least 12 drone strikes on the city, a frequent target of Russia’s military, located some 30 km (18 miles) from the border.
Kharkiv resisted capture in the early weeks of Russia’s February 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, but has been repeatedly hit by drones and missiles and Russian forces changed the focus of their campaign to Ukraine’s east.
A drone attack also triggered fires in the central city of Dnipro, regional governor Serhiy Lysak said on Telegram. Pictures posted online showed smoke and flames drifting skyward.
No casualties were immediately reported in the city.


South Sudan VP Machar’s party trying to locate him after arrest warrant issued

South Sudan VP Machar’s party trying to locate him after arrest warrant issued
Updated 27 March 2025
Follow

South Sudan VP Machar’s party trying to locate him after arrest warrant issued

South Sudan VP Machar’s party trying to locate him after arrest warrant issued
  • Earlier on Wednesday, the United Nations reported clashes over the past 24 hours between forces loyal to the two men outside the capital Juba

The party of South Sudan’s First Vice President Riek Machar said on Wednesday it was trying to locate him after the defense minister and chief of national security “forcefully entered” his residence and delivered an arrest warrant.
In a statement, the SPLM-IO party condemned “a blatant violation of the Constitution and the Revitalized Peace Agreement,” which ended a 2013-2018 civil war between forces loyal to Machar on one side and to President Salva Kiir on the other.
“His bodyguards were disarmed, and an arrest warrant was delivered to him under unclear charges. Attempts are currently being made to relocate him,” the statement said.
A government spokesperson could not be immediately reached for comment.
Earlier on Wednesday, the United Nations reported clashes over the past 24 hours between forces loyal to the two men outside the capital Juba.
Those clashes followed weeks of tensions that originated in fighting in the country’s northeast between government troops and a militia that has historically been close to Machar’s forces.
Kiir’s government, in turn, detained several officials from Machar’s party, including the petroleum minister and the deputy head of the army, leading the UN to warn of the risk of renewed civil war.
The civil war from 2013-2018 resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths in the world’s youngest nation, which won its independence from Sudan in 2011.


Trump announces 25 percent tariffs on foreign-built cars, light trucks

Trump announces 25 percent tariffs on foreign-built cars, light trucks
Updated 27 March 2025
Follow

Trump announces 25 percent tariffs on foreign-built cars, light trucks

Trump announces 25 percent tariffs on foreign-built cars, light trucks

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump on Wednesday announced imposition of 25 percent tariffs on all cars and light trucks not built on US soil.
“What we’re going to be doing is a 25 percent tariff on all cars that are not made in the United States. If they’re made in the United States, it is absolutely no tariff,” he announced at the White House.


Kosovo says Kenya joined countries recognizing it

Kosovo says Kenya joined countries recognizing it
Updated 27 March 2025
Follow

Kosovo says Kenya joined countries recognizing it

Kosovo says Kenya joined countries recognizing it

PRISTINA: Kosovo’s President Vjosa Osmani on Wednesday said that Kenya had become the latest nation to recognize Kosovo as an independent country and has pledged to open diplomatic ties.
“Kosovo continues to move forward on its path of integration and strengthening its international position,” Osmani said on her Facebook account.
In her post, she published a proclamation she said was from Kenyan President William Ruto that spoke of Kosovo’s right to self-determination and included a statement that said “this recognition will extend to the establishment of diplomatic relations.”
Serbia’s ministry of foreign affairs “strongly condemned” Kenya’s decision to recognize “the unilaterally declared independence of so-called ‘Kosovo’.”
“Such a move constitutes a gross violation of international law and a direct violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244,” the ministry said in a statement.
Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008 after a war in the late 1990s between Serb forces and ethnic Albanian insurgents in what was then a breakaway Serbian province.
While the United States, many European nations and other countries recognize Kosovo as independent, Serbia and two of its most powerful allies — Russia and China — do not.
Serbia says it has persuaded some countries to withdraw recognition, but Kosovo denies this and insists that more than 100 countries do.


‘Shocking’ mass bleaching drains life from Australian reef

‘Shocking’ mass bleaching drains life from Australian reef
Updated 26 March 2025
Follow

‘Shocking’ mass bleaching drains life from Australian reef

‘Shocking’ mass bleaching drains life from Australian reef
  • Warm oceans have just cooked the orals this year. It wouldn’t be amiss to throw in the word ‘unprecedented’

SYDNEY: Alarming levels of coral bleaching have been recorded off Australia’s western coast, scientists said Wednesday, turning huge chunks of a celebrated reef system a sickly dull white.

A months-long marine heatwave had “cooked” the sprawling Ningaloo Reef, ocean scientist Kate Quigley said, part of a world heritage-listed marine park renowned for vibrant corals and migrating whale sharks.

Although environment officials were still verifying the scale of damage, Quigley said it was on track to be the region’s worst mass-bleaching event in years.

“Warm oceans have just cooked the corals this year,” Quigley said.

“It wouldn’t be amiss to throw in the word ‘unprecedented.’

“It has gone deep, it’s not just the top of the reef that is bleaching. Many different species of coral are bleaching.”

Branching through shallow waters along Australia’s western coast, the 300-km Ningaloo Reef is one of the largest “fringing reefs” in the world.

The unfolding mass bleaching looked to be the worst since 2011, Quigley said.

Ocean waters lapping Western Australia have been as much as 3 degrees warmer than average over recent summer months, according to the government weather bureau.

Rising temperatures shot past the “bleaching threshold” sometime in mid-January, according to monitoring by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Bleaching occurs when warm waters trigger a biological response forcing coral to expel the colorful algae embedded in their tissues.

“Bleaching is a sickness, but it does not mean outright death,” said Quigley, a research scientist with environmental charity the Minderoo Foundation.

“But if it is bad enough, the corals will die.”

Government data showed smaller patches of coral bleaching had also been spotted at the northern tip of the more famous Great Barrier Reef on Australia’s east coast.

Quigley said the Ningaloo Reef and the Great Barrier Reef were shaped by different weather patterns — and it was rare to see bleaching on both at the same time.

“What we’re seeing is the level of ocean warming is so great, it’s overriding the local conditions in some places. “It’s just shocking. When we take a national snapshot it’s extremely concerning.”

The Great Barrier Reef, a popular tourist drawcard, has suffered five mass bleachings over the past eight years.

Quigley said the extent of damage on the Great Barrier Reef was not currently widespread enough to be considered “mass bleaching.”

Global average temperatures were the hottest on record in 2024, with prolonged heat waves in many of the planet’s oceans causing particular alarm.

Australia sits on bulging deposits of coal, gas, metals and minerals, with mining and fossil fuels stoking decades of near-unbroken economic growth.

But it is increasingly suffering from more intense heat waves, bushfires and drought, which scientists have linked to climate change.