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Tag: U.S. government shutdown

  • Air Canada and pilots union reach a tentative agreement to avoid a shutdown

    Air Canada and pilots union reach a tentative agreement to avoid a shutdown

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    OTTAWA, Ontario (AP) — Air Canada and the union representing its pilots have come to terms on a labor agreement that is likely to prevent a shutdown of Canada’s largest airline.

    Talks betwen the company and the Air Line Pilots Association produced a tentative, four-year collective agreement, the airline announced in a statement early Sunday.

    The prospective deal recognizes the contributions of the pilots flying for Air Canada and Air Canada Rouge while setting a new framework for company growth. The terms will remain confidential until ratification by union members and approval by the airline’s board of directors over the next month, the airline said.

    The pilots association said its Air Canada Master Executive Council voted to approve the tentative agreement on behalf of more than 5,400 Air Canada pilots. After review and ratification by a majority of members, the deal is expected to generate an additional $1.9 billion for the pilots over the period of the agreement, the union said in a statement.

    “While it has been an exceptionally long road to this agreement, the consistent engagement and unified determination of our pilots have been the catalyst for achieving this contract,” Charlene Hudy, the executive council’s chair, said in the statement. “After several consecutive weeks of intense round-the-clock negotiations, progress was made on several key issues including compensation, retirement, and work rules.”

    Federal Labor Minister Steven MacKinnon confirmed the agreement on Sunday and lauded the company and the union.

    “Thanks to the hard work of the parties and federal mediators, disruptions have been prevented for Canadians,” MacKinnon said in a statement. “Negotiated agreements are always the best way forward and yield positive results for companies and workers.”

    The airline and its pilots have been in contract talks for more than a year. The pilots have sought wages competitive with their U.S. counterparts, but Air Canada continues to post record profits while expecting pilots to accept below-market compensation, the union said

    The two sides could have issued a 72-hour notice of a strike or lockout beginning Sunday. The airline said the notice would have triggered its three-day wind down plan and started the clock on a full work stoppage as soon as Sept. 18.

    Air Canada spokesman Christophe Hennebelle previously said the airline was committed to negotiations, but faced union wage demands that the company could not meet.

    The airline was not seeking federal intervention, but cautioned the government should be prepared to help avoid major disruptions from the possible shutdown of an airline carrying more than 110,000 passengers daily, Hennebelle said.

    Business leaders had urged the federal government to intervene in the talks earlier in the week, but MacKinnon said there was no reason the sides should not have been able to reach a collective agreement.

    In August, the Canadian government asked the country’s industrial relations board to issue a back-to-work order to end a railway shutdown.

    Leaders of numerous business groups including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce and the Business Council of Canada convened in Ottawa on Thursday to call for action, including binding arbitration, to avoid the widespread economic disruptions of an airline shutdown.

    NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said Thursday his party would not support efforts to force pilots back to work.

    “If there’s any bills being proposed on back to work legislation, we’re going to oppose that,” he said.

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  • Biden is summoning congressional leaders to the White House to talk Ukraine and government funding

    Biden is summoning congressional leaders to the White House to talk Ukraine and government funding

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    WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden will convene the top four congressional leaders at the White House on Tuesday to press lawmakers on passing an emergency aid package for Ukraine and Israel, as well as averting a looming government shutdown next month, according to a White House official.

    The top four leaders include House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

    During the meeting, the president will discuss the “urgency” of passing the aid package, which has bipartisan support, as well as legislation to keep the federal government operating through the end of September, said the White House official, who was granted anonymity to discuss a meeting not yet publicly confirmed.

    The Republican-led House is under pressure to pass the $95 billion national security package that bolsters aid for Ukraine, Israel as well as the Indo-Pacific. That legislation cleared the Senate on a 70-29 vote earlier this month, but Johnson has been resistant to putting up the aid bill for a vote in the House.

    “This is one of those instances where one person can bend the course of history. Speaker Johnson, if he put this bill on the floor, would produce a strong, bipartisan majority vote in favor of the aid to Ukraine,” Jake Sullivan, the White House national security adviser, said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.”

    Sullivan stressed that Ukrainians need weapons and ammunition to fend off Russian forces, and that in his personal conversations with the speaker, he “has indicated that he would like to get the funding for Ukraine.”

    Separate from the national security package, the first tranche of government funding is due to expire Friday. The rest of the federal government, including agencies such as the Pentagon, Department of Homeland Security and the State Department, expires on March 8.

    In a letter to his colleagues sent Sunday, Schumer said there was not yet an agreement to avoid a partial shutdown of the agencies whose funding expires this week. That includes the departments of Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, Agriculture and Veterans Affairs.

    “While we had hoped to have legislation ready this weekend that would give ample time for members to review the text, it is clear now that House Republicans need more time to sort themselves out,” Schumer wrote in the letter. The Senate majority leader called on Johnson to “step up to once again buck the extremists in his caucus and do the right thing” by greenlighting funding to keep the government open.

    Johnson said Schumer’s letter was “counterproductive” and said Democrats were pushing their own unrealistic policy demands.

    “This is not a time for petty politics,” Johnson said in a statement. “House Republicans will continue to work in good faith and hope to reach an outcome as soon as possible, even as we continue to insist that our own border security must be addressed immediately.”

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  • New study says about half of Nicaragua’s population wants to emigrate

    New study says about half of Nicaragua’s population wants to emigrate

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    MEXICO CITY — Lawyer Isabel Lazo’s jobs are being systematically canceled by Nicaragua’s increasingly repressive government.

    Lazo worked at a university before the government of President Daniel Ortega closed it. She now is employed at a nongovernmental organization that she fears will soon be shuttered too.

    Nicaragua’s poisonous mix of economic decline and repression has led to about half of the country’s population of 6.2 million saying they want to leave their homeland, according to a new study, and 23% saying they had contemplated the possibility deeply enough to consider themselves “very prepared” to emigrate.

    “A large proportion of them have already taken concrete steps to try to get out,” said Elizabeth Zechmeister, the director of the AmericasBarometer study “The Pulse of Democracy in the Americas.”

    The study, which was released on Wednesday, shows that the number of Nicaraguans wanting to leave rose from 35% five years ago to almost half today, and that about 32% of people in 26 Latin American countries surveyed say they want to migrate.

    Lazo, 42, and her husband Guillermo Lazo, 52, a systems engineer, both taught at the University of Northern Nicaragua until the Ortega government shut it down in April. It was one of 26 universities that closed because Ortega accused them of being centers of revolt, or failing to register or pay special taxes to the government, which has feuded with the Roman Catholic church, as well.

    The couple lives in the northern city of Somoto, where Isabel Lazo now works for a European-backed NGO. Ortega’s government has outlawed or closed more than 3,000 civic groups and NGOs.

    In May, the government ordered the Nicaraguan Red Cross shut down, accusing it of “attacks on peace and stability” during anti-government demonstrations in 2018. The local Red Cross says it just helped treat injured protesters.

    Lazo said Thursday she is worried that it’s only a matter of time for the group where she now works.

    “This will be ending soon,” she said dispiritedly, The couple is now awaiting a decision on a U.S. application for “humanitarian parole,” a program under which up to 30,000 people are being allowed each month to enter the U.S. from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela.

    Until then, there are few prospects for them, even though they are among Nicaragua’s educated elite.

    “We were left without jobs from one day to the next,” Lazo said. “And even though we have graduate degrees and master’s degrees, we haven’t found decent jobs. You can kill yourself studying here and it’s worth nothing.”

    Thousands have already fled into exile since Nicaraguan security forces violently put down mass anti-government protests in 2018. Ortega says the protests were an attempted coup with foreign backing, aiming for his overthrow.

    Rosemary Miranda is another educated Nicaraguan who wants to leave. A psychologist, she graduated from the Jesuit-run University of Central America, also closed and confiscated by the government.

    Miranda, 24, works for a microfinancing firm at an office in Managua, the capital, but the $402 per month she earns there doesn’t even cover the cost of commuting, meals and clothing.

    “In this country, the majority of people work just to eat. They can’t buy clothing or shoes without waiting a month between purchases,” Miranda said.

    She has wanted to emigrate for some time, but she helps her family by giving them some of what little money she earns. With the purchasing power of wages falling, she is now rethinking her decision to stay.

    “The situation here is very difficult. Every month the price of food, electricity, water and transportation rises,” she said. “What have I gotten in return for studying so much and graduating?”

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  • Senate looks to speed ahead on temporary funding to avert government shutdown through the holidays

    Senate looks to speed ahead on temporary funding to avert government shutdown through the holidays

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    WASHINGTON — The Senate was pushing toward a vote Wednesday night on a temporary government funding package as lawmakers sought to keep the holiday season free from any suspense over a government shutdown.

    Senators were trying to speed forward on the funding package one day after it passed the House on an overwhelming bipartisan vote. Passage would push a final confrontation on the government budget into the new year, when the House and Senate will be forced to confront — and somehow overcome — their considerable differences over what funding levels should be.

    In the meantime, both top Republicans and Democrats in the Senate appeared ready to avert a shutdown and pass the temporary funding patch well before government funding expires Saturday.

    “No drama, no delay, no government shutdown. That’s our goal,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a floor speech Wednesday morning.

    Negotiations on advancing the bill to a final vote in the chamber were held up for hours over a disagreement on how to proceed on a separate defense authorization bill, but senators reached an agreement to vote on the funding bill Wednesday night.

    “Everybody is really kind of ready to vote and fight another day,” Republican Whip John Thune, the No. 2 Republican, said earlier Wednesday.

    The spending package would keep government funding at current levels for roughly two more months while a long-term package is negotiated. It splits the deadlines for passing full-year appropriations bills into two dates: Jan. 19 for some federal agencies and Feb. 2 for others, creating two deadlines where there will be a risk of a partial government shutdown.

    The spending bill does not include the White House’s nearly $106 billion request for wartime aid for Israel and Ukraine, as well as humanitarian funding for Palestinians and other supplemental requests. Lawmakers are likely to turn their attention more fully to that request after the Thanksgiving holiday in hopes of negotiating a deal.

    Schumer called the stopgap funding plan “far from perfect,” but said he would support it because it averts a shutdown and “will do so without any of the cruel cuts or poison pills” that hardline conservatives wanted.

    House Speaker Mike Johnson, who crafted the plan, has vowed that he will not support any further stopgap funding measures, known as continuing resolutions. He portrayed the temporary funding bill as setting the ground for a spending “fight” with the Senate next year.

    The new speaker, who told reporters this week that he counted himself among the “arch-conservatives” of the House, is pushing for deeper spending cuts. He wanted to avoid lawmakers being forced to consider a massive government funding package before the December holidays — a tactic that incenses conservatives in particular.

    But Johnson is also facing pushback from other hardline conservatives who wanted to leverage the prospect of a government shutdown to extract steep cuts and policy demands.

    Many of those conservatives were among a group of 19 Republicans who defied Johnson Wednesday to prevent floor consideration of an appropriations bill to fund several government agencies.

    GOP leaders called off the week’s work after the vote, sending lawmakers home early for Thanksgiving. It capped a period of intense bickering among lawmakers.

    “This place is a pressure cooker,” Johnson said Tuesday, noting that the House had been in Washington for 10 weeks straight.

    The House GOP’s inability to present a united front on funding legislation could undercut the Louisiana congressman’s ability to negotiate spending bills with the Senate.

    Republicans are demanding that Congress work out government funding through 12 separate bills, as the budgetary process requires, but House leadership has so far been forced to pull two of those bills from the floor, seen another rejected on a procedural vote and struggled to win support for others.

    When it returns in two weeks, Congress is expected to focus on the Biden administration’s requests for Ukraine and Israel funding. Republican senators have demanded that Congress pass immigration and border legislation alongside additional Ukraine aid, but a bipartisan Senate group working on a possible compromise has struggled to find consensus.

    Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell in a floor speech pledged that Republicans would continue to push for policy changes on the U.S. border with Mexico, saying it is “impossible to ignore the crisis at our southern border that’s erupted on Washington Democrats’ watch.”

    One idea floating among Republicans is directly tying Ukraine funding levels with decreases in the number of illegal border crossings. It showed how even longtime supporters of Ukraine’s defense against Russia are willing to hold up the funding to force Congress to tackle an issue that has flummoxed generations of lawmakers: U.S. border policy.

    Most Senate Republicans support the Ukraine funding, said Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., but he added, “It is secondary to securing our own border.”

    But the U.S. is already trimming some of the wartime aid packages it is sending Ukraine as funds run low, National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said from San Francisco, where he accompanied President Joe Biden for a summit of Asia-Pacific leaders.

    He said the pot of money available for Ukraine is “withering away, and with it will be a deleterious effect on Ukraine’s ability to continue to defend itself.”

    Schumer said the Senate would try to move forward on both the funding and border legislation in the coming weeks, but warned it would require a compromise.

    “Both sides will have to give,” he said.

    ___

    Associated Press writers Mary Clare Jalonick and Darlene Superville contributed to this report.

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  • The last government shutdown deadline ousted the House speaker. This week’s showdown could be easier

    The last government shutdown deadline ousted the House speaker. This week’s showdown could be easier

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    WASHINGTON — The last time Congress tried to fund the government to prevent a federal shutdown, it cost House Speaker Kevin McCarthy his job.

    This time, new Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., appears on track for a better outcome Tuesday as the House prepares to vote on a stopgap package to keep the government running into the new year. If approved, the Senate would act next, ahead of Friday’s shutdown deadline.

    The new Republican leader faces the same political problem that led to McCarthy’s ouster, and is unlikely to win enough support from his Republican majority to pass the bill on its own. Instead, Johnson will be forced to rely on Democrats to ensure passage to keep the federal government running.

    Johnson has called it a “necessary bill” that he hoped would put House Republicans “in the best position to fight” for their conservative priorities in the new year.

    Under his proposal, Johnson is putting forward a unique — critics say bizarre — two-part process that temporarily funds some federal agencies to Jan. 19 and others to Feb. 2. It’s a continuing resolution, or CR, that comes without any of the deep cuts conservatives are demanding. It also fails to include President Joe Biden’s request for nearly $106 billion for Ukraine, Israel, border security and other supplemental funds.

    “I think it’s a very big mistake,” said Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, a member of the hard-right Freedom Caucus.

    Roy said there’s “a whole lot of opposition” among House Republicans to partnering with Democrats to pass the bill.

    The Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries said his party is “carefully evaluating” the proposal from the Republican leadership before giving approval.

    “We remain concerned,” he said about the two-part approach. Veteran lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have called it cumbersome, unusual and unworkable.

    But Jeffries in a letter to Democratic colleagues noted that the GOP package met the Democratic demands to keep funding at current levels without steep reductions or divisive Republican policy priorities.

    “We have articulated that we will not accept any extreme right-wing policy provisions in connection with funding the government,” Jeffries wrote.

    With the House narrowly divided, Johnson cannot afford many defections from Republicans, which is forcing him into the arms of Democrats.

    Winning bipartisan approval of a continuing resolution is the same move that led McCarthy’s hard-right flank to oust him in October, days after the Sept. 30 vote to avert a federal shutdown. For now, Johnson appears to be benefiting from a political honeymoon in one of his first big tests on the job.

    “Look, we’re going to trust the speaker’s move here,” said Rep. Drew Ferguson, R-Ga.

    The Senate, where Democrats have a slim majority, has also signaled its willingness to accept Johnson’s package ahead of Friday’s deadline to fund the government.

    Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said the House GOP package “will keep the lights on,” and he will support it.

    But McConnell, R-Ky., noted that Congress still has work to do toward Biden’s request to provide U.S. military aid for Ukraine, Israel and other needs. Senators are trying to devise a separate package to fund U.S. supplies for the overseas wars and bolster border security, but it remains a work in progress.

    If approved, passage of another continuing resolution would be a stunning capstone to the House GOP’s first year in the majority. The Republicans have worked tirelessly to cut federal government spending only to find their own GOP colleagues are unwilling to go along with the most conservative priorities. Two of the Republican bills collapsed last week as moderates revolted.

    Instead, the Republicans are left funding the government essentially on autopilot at the levels that were set in bipartisan fashion at the end of 2022, when Democrats had control of Congress but two parties came together to agree on budget terms.

    All that could change in the new year when 1% cuts across the board to all departments would be triggered if Congress fails to agree to new budget terms and pass the traditional appropriation bills to fund the government by springtime.

    The 1% automatic cuts, which would take hold in April, are despised by all sides — Republicans say they are not enough, Democrats say they are too steep and many lawmakers prefer to boost defense funds. But they are part of the debt deal McCarthy and Biden struck earlier this year. The idea was to push Congress to do better.

    ___

    Associated Press writers Kevin Freking, Stephen Groves and Mary Clare Jalonick contributed to this report.

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  • House Republicans look to pass two-step package to avoid partial government shutdown

    House Republicans look to pass two-step package to avoid partial government shutdown

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    WASHINGTON — House Speaker Mike Johnson unveiled his proposal on Saturday to avoid a partial government shutdown by extending government funding for some agencies and programs until Jan. 19 and continuing funding for others until Feb. 2.

    The approach is unusual for a stopgap spending bill. Usually, lawmakers extend funding until a certain date for all programs. Johnson decided to go with the combination approach, addressing concerns from GOP lawmakers seeking to avoid being presented with a massive spending bill just before the holidays.

    “This two-step continuing resolution is a necessary bill to place House Republicans in the best position to fight for conservative victories,” Johnson said in a statement after speaking with GOP lawmakers in an afternoon conference call. “The bill will stop the absurd holiday-season omnibus tradition of massive, loaded up spending bills introduced right before the Christmas recess.”

    The bill excludes funding requested by President Joe Biden for Israel, Ukraine and the U.S. border with Mexico. Johnson said separating Biden’s request for an emergency supplemental bill from the temporary, stopgap measure “places our conference in the best position to fight for fiscal responsibility, oversight over Ukraine aid, and meaningful policy changes at our Southern border.”

    Hardline conservatives, usually loathe to support temporary spending measures of any sort, had indicated they would give Johnson some leeway to pass legislation, known as a continuing resolution, or CR, to give Congress more time to negotiate a long-term agreement.

    But some were critical in their reactions following the conference call.

    “My opposition to the clean CR just announced by the Speaker to the @HouseGOP cannot be overstated,” Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, tweeted on X. “Funding Pelosi level spending & policies for 75 days – for future ‘promises.’”

    The White House, meanwhile, panned the plan as “unserious,” unworkable and a threat to national security and domestic programs.

    “This proposal is just a recipe for more Republican chaos and more shutdowns—full stop,” said press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, pointing to opposition from members of both parties. “House Republicans need to stop wasting time on their own political divisions, do their jobs, and work in a bipartisan way to prevent a shutdown.”

    The federal government is operating under funding levels approved last year by a Democratic-led House and Senate. Facing a government shutdown when the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, Congress passed a 47-day continuing resolution, but the fallout was severe. Kevin McCarthy was booted from the speakership days later, and the House was effectively paralyzed for most of the month while Republicans tried to elect a replacement.

    Republicans eventually were unanimous in electing Johnson speaker, but his elevation has hardly eased the dynamic that led to McCarthy’s removal — a conference torn on policy as well as how much to spend on federal programs. This past week, Republicans had to pull two spending bills from the floor — one to fund transportation and housing programs and the other to fund the Treasury Department, Small Business Administration and other agencies — because they didn’t have the votes in their own party to push them through the House.

    A document explaining Johnson’s proposal to House Republicans, obtained by The Associated Press, said funding for four spending bills would be extended until Jan. 19. Veterans programs, and bills dealing with transportation, housing, agriculture and energy, would be part of that extension.

    Funding for the eight other spending bills, which include defense, the State Department, Homeland Security and other government agencies would be extended until Feb. 2.

    The document sent to GOP lawmakers and key staff states that Johnson inherited a budget mess. He took office less than three weeks ago and immediately began considering appropriations bills through regular order. Still, with just days remaining before a shutdown, a continuing resolution is now required.

    Underscoring the concerns about the possibility of a shutdown, the credit rating agency Moody’s Investors Service lowered its outlook on the U.S. government’s debt on Friday to “negative” from “stable,” citing the cost of rising interest rates and political polarization in Congress.

    House Republicans pointed to the national debt, now exceeding $33 trillion, for Moody’s decision. Analysts have warned that with interest rates heading higher, interest costs on the national debt will eat up a rising share of tax revenue.

    Johnson said in reaction to the Moody’s announcement that House Republicans are committed to working in a bipartisan fashion for fiscal restraint, beginning with the introduction of a debt commission.

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  • Moody’s lowers US credit outlook, though keeps triple-A rating

    Moody’s lowers US credit outlook, though keeps triple-A rating

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    WASHINGTON — The credit rating agency Moody’s Investors Service lowered its outlook on the U.S. government’s debt on Friday to “negative” from “stable,” citing the cost of rising interest rates and political polarization in Congress.

    Moody’s retained its top triple-A credit rating on U.S. government debt, though it is the last of the three major credit rating agencies to do so. Fitch Ratings lowered its rating to AA+ from AAA in August, and Standard & Poor’s downgraded the U.S. in 2011. A reduced outlook, however, raises the risk that Moody’s could eventually strip its triple-A rating from the U.S. as well.

    A lower rating on U.S. debt could cost taxpayers if it leads borrowers to demand higher interest rates on Treasury bills and notes. The yield on the 10-year Treasury has risen significantly since July, from about 3.9% to 4.6% Friday, an unusually sharp rise.

    Some market analysts have said the August Fitch downgrade may have contributed to that increase, though most point to other factors as bigger drivers, such as the Federal Reserve’s commitment to keeping its benchmark rate at a 22-year high to battle inflation.

    “In the context of higher interest rates, without effective fiscal policy measures to reduce government spending or increase revenues, Moody’s expects that the U.S.’s fiscal deficits will remain very large, significantly weakening debt affordability,” the agency said in a statement.

    The Biden administration criticized Moody’s decision.

    “While the statement by Moody’s maintains the United States’ Aaa rating, we disagree with the shift to a negative outlook,” Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo said. “The American economy remains strong, and Treasury securities are the world’s preeminent safe and liquid asset.”

    The federal government’s budget deficit jumped to $1.7 trillion in the budget year that ended Sept. 30, up from $1.38 trillion the previous year. Analysts have warned that with interest rates heading higher, interest costs on the national debt will eat up a rising share of tax revenue.

    Separately, congressional lawmakers left Washington for the weekend without a plan to avoid a potential government shutdown that could occur by Nov. 17. Moody’s cited congressional dysfunction as one reason it lowered its outlook on U.S. debt.

    “Recently, multiple events have illustrated the depth of political divisions in the U.S.: Renewed debt limit brinkmanship, the first ouster of a House Speaker in U.S. history, prolonged inability of Congress to select a new House Speaker, and increased threats of another partial government shutdown,” Moody’s said.

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  • Speaker Johnson led House passage of Israel aid. But the hard part comes next in confronting Biden

    Speaker Johnson led House passage of Israel aid. But the hard part comes next in confronting Biden

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    WASHINGTON — As new Speaker Mike Johnson grabbed hold of the House gavel, he made a plea for Americans to “give me a chance” before making up their minds about the newcomer’s ability to lead the far-right House Republican majority that elected him to power.

    What Johnson has shown in his first big test as the House passed a nearly $14.5 billion military aid package to Israel is that the easy-going social conservative is more than eager to lift up the priorities of his right flank rather than reach toward the political center in the name of compromise.

    By seeking to force the Israel-Hamas war package to be paid for with government spending cuts, something rarely required in emergencies of war or natural disasters, Johnson turned what’s normally an overwhelming bipartisan issue, support for Israel, into one that bitterly split Democrats from Republicans. President Joe Biden threatened a veto.

    It’s a stark example of what may come — or not. The looming government shutdown deadline, Biden’s nearly $106 billion request for aid to Israel, Ukraine, Taiwan and U.S. border security policy and the presidential impeachment inquiry are all demanding attention from the untested new leader.

    “That’s his very first opening move?” asked an incredulous Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., a close Biden ally, echoing the sentiment of many Democrats on Capitol Hill.

    “Congress is all about what caucus and which members are driving you and setting your priorities,” he said. “And part of the challenge the House seems to be having is the House Republican caucus has deep divisions between their Main Street and their MAGA Republicans.”

    Johnson, of Louisiana, is trying to accomplish the seemingly impossible — uniting a fractured House Republican majority where the past GOP leaders before him have very publicly and dramatically fallen short.

    The new speaker, who is closely aligned with Donald Trump, the Republican frontrunner in the 2024 election, has positioned himself as someone who can unite the GOP’s flanks. A low-key, lower-rung leader, he surprisingly rose to the top spot after more tested or fiery contenders — Steve Scalise, Jim Jordan and Tom Emmer — were brushed aside to replace the ousted former speaker, Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif..

    In Johnson, House Republicans ultimately found the leader it now seems they always wanted since taking control in January — a Trump defender who challenged the 2020 election results, voted against certifying the election for Biden and reflects the deeply conservative and growing Christian nationalist wing of the GOP.

    “A lot of these people don’t know me,” Johnson told Fox News host Sean Hannity in the first of multiple interviews on the cable show. “Give me a chance. Let me have a chance to lead here, and you will see what I’m really about.”

    While Johnson found quick political success in his first week on the job with House passage of the Israel aid package, he is keenly aware it is a short-lived victory. The package, with its plan to pay for the aid with cuts to the IRS, would actually end up costing the government billions in lost revenue from tax dodgers, according to budget scorekeepers. and is headed toward a dismal defeat. The Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer has already rejected it.

    The speaker took the risk, ceding to the far-right’s demands to reduce the size of government, and calculating that doing so will position House Republicans with the strongest hand as they fight Biden and the Senate.

    Jordan, a firebrand former rival allied with Johnson, said the new speaker is doing a “good job.”

    But the chairman of the Democratic caucus, Rep. Pete Aguilar, said Johnson took a flat out “wrong” move.

    Democrats argue that Johnson could have launched his speakership on a consensus note and won a full vote of support on the Israel aid package, with hundreds of Democrats and Republicans coming together to support the top U.S. ally in the Middle East. But instead he chose a divisive, starkly partisan path.

    “We’re learning a lot about the new speaker,” Aguilar of California said at a press conference at the Capitol.

    “These are the things that Speaker Johnson has to advocate to appease the most extreme members,” he said. “They are his base. They are who gave him the gavel.”

    After so much turmoil in the House this year, there is little time left for Republicans in the majority to accomplish the big goals they promised voters they would set out to do.

    The year-end calendar is pressing down on Johnson in disadvantageous ways, starting with this month’s deadline to fund the government by Nov. 17 or risk another federal shutdown. A lapse in government funding is what McCarthy successfully avoided in a compromise with Democrats, but it resulted in Republicans kicking him out of the speaker’s office.

    Johnson also has signaled the Biden impeachment inquiry may soon come to actual impeachment proceedings. “I do believe that very soon, we are coming to a point of decision,” he told reporters.

    Johnson has promised he would turn next to Ukraine as Congress tries to broker a compromise package that would provide money to help Kyiv fight Russia as part of a broader deal to beef up security at the U.S. Mexico border as well.

    During the Hannity interview Johnson signaled a break from the GOP’s rising non-interventionist wing, and vowed the Congress would not “abandon” Ukraine.

    “We can’t allow Vladimir Putin to prevail in Ukraine,” he said about the Russian president.

    But Johnson said the U.S. has stewardship over “the precious treasure of the American people.” And he said House Republicans want to know the administration’s strategy: “What is the endgame in Ukraine?”

    It’s a high-stakes trial for the new speaker, who met with Biden his first day on the job in what he first said was a very good meeting, before questioning the president’s “age and acumen” later on Fox.

    The White House and its allies have allowed little of a honeymoon for the new speaker. In the administration’s stark veto message it said the Israel package’s “new and damaging precedent would have devastating implications for our safety and alliances in the years ahead.”

    Still, the White House has begun reaching out to allies over the border security demands Johnson is making in return for the aid to Ukraine.

    A former House Republican, Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, said Washington is underestimating Johnson.

    “You’ll see consistency, consistency out of Mike,” said Mullin. “Mike will not be a guy that’s going to get rattled, he’s not going to get excited.”

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  • Speaker Mike Johnson signals that Ukraine aid, coupled with border security, is next on GOP agenda

    Speaker Mike Johnson signals that Ukraine aid, coupled with border security, is next on GOP agenda

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    WASHINGTON — New Speaker Mike Johnson told Republican senators Wednesday that a fresh Ukraine aid package linked to U.S. border security will come up quickly in the House, as soon as lawmakers wrap up the $14.5 billion Israel aid package that is heading for passage this week.

    Johnson, who has been on the job a week, made the trip across the Capitol to speak privately with GOP senators to outline the agenda ahead. He also said the House plans to pass a stopgap bill to fund the government into next year to avoid a federal shutdown on Nov. 17 when current funding runs out.

    Later, discussing the Israel aid during a Fox News event at the Capitol, Johnson said, “We’re going to get it done.”

    Johnson was greeted with applause at the start of the lunch meeting, a get-to-know-you session for a new GOP speaker that many senators had never met — or even heard of — until he won a longshot race to replace the ousted Kevin McCarthy.

    “Look, we all like the new speaker, we want him to be successful,” Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, who opposes more aid to Ukraine, said afterward. “And that was the tenor of the conversation.”

    The new speaker told the senators Ukraine needs U.S. aid as it battles Russia, but there was no way President Joe Biden’s nearly $106 billion supplemental funding request, which includes aid for Israel, could be passed through the House.

    “’We want to take up Ukraine,’” was his message, said Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., who opposes more funding for the overseas war.

    Hawley said Johnson told the Republican senators the “next order of business” after the Israel package would be the Ukraine-U.S. border package.

    Senate Democratic Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Wednesday that the House’s Israel-only approach was dead on arrival in the Senate.

    The House’s approach to emergency funds for Israel requires that the $14.5 billion be offset with spending cuts elsewhere — namely, gutting the beefed-up Internal Revenue Service funds Biden and congressional Democrats secured last year to go after tax cheats. The Congressional Budget Office said Wednesday the House’s bill would actually end up costing the federal government $12.5 billion because of the reduction in tax revenues.

    Johnson’s position puts him politically sideways with Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, who is working to approve Israel and Ukraine aid together, aid to Taiwan and funding for U.S. border security.

    But McConnell had also made it clear earlier this week that Democrats “will have to accept” a serious U.S.-Mexico border security measure as part of any package with Ukraine funding.

    During Wednesday’s private lunch, Johnson echoed comments he made last week, saying Congress would not abandon Ukraine even as it first works to shore up aid for Israel.

    Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla. said his impression was Johnson wants to fund government responsibly. “We want to make sure that we want Ukraine to win, but we’ve got to do all these things in a responsible manner and in the right process,” he said.

    The lunchtime session opened, as it often does, with a prayer, as the speaker, a staunch conservative evangelical Christian, presented himself to his colleagues.

    Conservatives, in particular, liked what they heard.

    “A good person,” said Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisc., who said there’s “not a rough edge” on the new speaker, even when he is being blunt. “He just sounds nice.”

    Said Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, “The No. 1 thing I recommend to newly elected senators, newly elected House members, is do what you said you would do, and I think the speaker is showing an admirable commitment to doing exactly that.”

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  • Rep. Bowman of New York charged with misdemeanor, to pay fine after triggering House fire alarm

    Rep. Bowman of New York charged with misdemeanor, to pay fine after triggering House fire alarm

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    WASHINGTON — Democratic Rep. Jamaal Bowman was charged Wednesday with a misdemeanor for triggering a fire alarm as lawmakers scrambled to pass a funding bill before a government shutdown deadline in September.

    He is expected to plead guilty, formally apologize and pay a $1,000 fine. The false fire alarm charge would then be dropped if he successfully completes 3 months of probation.

    The alarm forced the evacuation of a House office building for over an hour. The New York lawmaker has acknowledged pulling the alarm and said it was a mistake. He was in a rush to go to vote, tried to go through a door that was unexpectedly closed and wrongly thought pulling the fire alarm lever would help him open it, he said.

    At the time of the evacuation, House Democrats were working to delay a vote on a funding bill to keep federal agencies open. They had said they needed time to review a bill that Republicans abruptly released to avoid a shutdown. The funding package was ultimately approved with most Republicans and almost all Democrats, including Bowman, supporting the bill.

    Republicans criticized Bowman after the alarm, and on Wednesday introduced a motion to censure him. Rep. Bryan Steil, the chairman of the Committee on House Administration, referred the case to Capitol police. He called Bowman’s explanation an “excuse.”

    He pointed out that Bowman passed several police officers after pulling the alarm without alerting them about it. Bowman, for his part, has said he was urgently trying to get to the vote and said Republicans would “attempt to distract everyone” with the case.

    Prosecutors said Bowman was “treated like anyone else who violates the law” and has agreed to pay the maximum fine, according to a spokesperson for the District of Columbia attorney general’s office.

    Bowman told police at the time he didn’t mean to disrupt any congressional proceeding, according to court documents. He said he didn’t immediately tell anyone about the alarm going off because he was in a hurry to vote.

    Under an agreement with the D.C. attorney general, the charge will be withdrawn in three months if the congressman provides a formal apology to Capitol police and pays a $1,000 fine.

    Bowman said he was grateful for the quick resolution in the case, and looking forward to putting it behind him. “I am responsible for activating a fire alarm, I will be paying the fine issued, and look forward to these charges being ultimately dropped,” he said.

    ___

    Associated Press writer Farnoush Amiri contributed to this report.

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  • Republicans are divided on far-right move to remove McCarthy as House speaker, an AP-NORC poll shows

    Republicans are divided on far-right move to remove McCarthy as House speaker, an AP-NORC poll shows

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    WASHINGTON — The unprecedented ouster of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has left no consensus among Republicans about whether his removal was the right move as the party struggles to coalesce around a new leader, according to a new poll.

    Only one-quarter of Republicans say they approve of the stunning decision by a small group of House Republicans to remove the California lawmaker from his post during a vote last week. Three in 10 Republicans believe it was a mistake for a small faction of the party, and all Democrats, to support a motion ejecting McCarthy from the speakership.

    “It’s just chaos,” Betsy Young, a Republican from Oregon, told The Associated Press. “And I don’t think it’s helpful.”

    About 4 in 10 Republicans (43%) say they neither approve nor disapprove. That is according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research conducted after McCarthy became the first speaker in history to be voted out of the role.

    The political upheaval in Congress has left Americans as a whole split on the issue — if they have an opinion at all — with some saying McCarthy had it coming and others warning of the precedent such action could set for future speakers. Overall, a quarter of Americans said they approve, a quarter disapprove and about half say neither.

    Thomas Adkins, a Republican from North Carolina, told the AP that the former speaker “relinquished his leadership” when he made a deal with congressional Democrats to fund the government last month while facing a looming shutdown deadline.

    “That’s sort of going over to the enemy in my thinking, so in that respect, I thoroughly disapprove of the speaker’s actions,” the 84-year-old said.

    Kevin Fry, a Republican from Indiana, echoed those sentiments, saying McCarthy “didn’t keep his word” to the party when he said he would not negotiate on cutting spending and other conservative priorities. “When you give your word and everybody relies on that, then you know, you need to be held accountable,” the 64-year-old added.

    It is the same argument the eight far-right members who voted for McCarthy’s removal made on the floor of the House last week. That decision and Democrats’ willingness to join along has since thrown the House and its Republican leadership into disarray as the majority is now rushing to vote in a new speaker this week to lead them during this divisive moment.

    But Young, who considers herself a moderate Republican, calls the reasoning for McCarthy’s removal “stupid,” resulting in a stain on the GOP moving forward.

    “(Democrats and Republicans) are supposed to work together, and they forget that,” she said. “They’re in their own bubble and they forget that the rest of the country is not Washington, or it’s not the state capitals.”

    The poll shows that conservative Republicans are more likely than those who describe themselves as moderate or liberal to approve of the move to remove McCarthy, 31% to 16%. Even among conservatives, though, 33% said they disapprove.

    A quarter of Democrats also disapprove of McCarthy being removed, despite all their representatives voting in favor of the motion. Thirty percent of Democrats approve.

    Deedee Gunderson, a Democrat from New Mexico, said that while she’s not a fan of McCarthy and how he has governed, she’s worried that his ouster has given more power to the extremes of the Republican Party.

    “I think they are trying to destroy this government,” she said.

    Following McCarthy’s removal, 39% of Republicans say they have an unfavorable view of the former speaker. That’s up slightly from 25% in an AP-NORC poll conducted in January.

    The fight over congressional leadership also comes after the chamber narrowly avoided a government shutdown by passing a short-term funding bill that delays its fiscal deadline until mid-November. That conflict over government spending and financial priorities is expected to resume in the coming weeks, with U.S. aid to Ukraine against Russia’s invasion one of the major issues at play. The poll shows 69% of Republicans — but just 37% of Democrats — think the U.S. government is spending too much on Ukraine aid.

    Overall, a majority of Americans continue to say U.S. spending is too high, but have little appetite for cuts to major programs. And Americans are split on which party would do a better job handling the federal budget, with 27% saying Democrats and 26% Republicans. A third of Americans say they trust neither party.

    “Our spending is so out of control that I can’t believe how much debt we’ve incurred on both sides,” Fry said. “I don’t think that’s necessarily a Democratic or Republican issue.”

    ___

    The poll of 1,163 adults was conducted Oct. 5-9, 2023, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, designed to represent the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 3.9 percentage points.

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  • Having ousted Kevin McCarthy, House Republicans are hitting trouble trying to nominate a new speaker

    Having ousted Kevin McCarthy, House Republicans are hitting trouble trying to nominate a new speaker

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    WASHINGTON — Stalemated over a new House speaker, the Republican majority is scheduled to convene behind closed doors to launch internal party voting but lawmakers warn it could take hours, if not days, to unite behind a nominee after Kevin McCarthy’s ouster.

    The two leading contenders Wednesday for the gavel, Majority Leader Steve Scalise and Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, appear to be splitting the vote among their Republican colleagues. They outlined their visions at a lengthy candidate forum ahead of the private balloting.

    McCarthy, meanwhile, who had openly positioned himself to reclaim the job he just lost, told his colleagues not to nominate him this time. Instead, at Tuesday’s late evening candidate forum, he read a poem from Mother Teresa and delivered a unity prayer.

    “I don’t know how the hell you get to 218,” Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Texas, said afterward, referring to the majority vote typically needed to seize the gavel. “It could be a long week.”

    House Republicans took the majority aspiring to operate as a team, and run government more like a business, but have drifted far from that goal. Just 10 months in power, the historic ouster of their House speaker — a first in the U.S. — and prolonged infighting has brought the House to a standstill at a time of crisis at home and abroad.

    Now, as House Republicans push ahead toward snap elections Wednesday aimed at finding a new nominee for speaker, the hard-right coalition of lawmakers that ousted McCarthy has shown what an oversized role a few lawmakers can have in choosing the successor.

    “I am not thrilled with either choice right now,” said Rep. Ken Buck, a Colorado Republican who voted to oust McCarthy.

    Both Scalise and Jordan are working furiously to shore up support. Both are easily winning over dozens of supporters and could win a majority of the 221 Republicans.

    But it’s unclear if either Scalise or Jordan can amass the votes that would be needed from almost all Republicans to overcome opposition from Democrats during a floor vote in the narrowly split House. Usually, the majority needed would be 218 votes in the 435-seat House, but there are currently two vacancies, dropping the threshold to 217.

    Many Republicans want to prevent the spectacle of a messy House floor fight like the grueling January brawl when McCarthy became speaker.

    “People are not comfortable going to the floor with a simple majority and then having C-SPAN and the rest of the world watch as we have this fight,” said Rep. Kat Cammack, R-Fla. “We want to have this family fight behind closed doors.”

    Some have proposed a rules change that Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., the interim speaker pro tempore, is considering to ensure a majority vote during closed balloting Wednesday before the nominee is presented for a full floor vote.

    McCarthy himself appeared to agree with a consensus approach. “They shouldn’t come out of there until they decide that they have enough votes for whoever they bring to the floor,” McCarthy said.

    But short of a rules change, Republican lawmakers would be expected to agree to a majority-wins process — whichever candidate wins the internal private vote would be given the full backing of the Republicans on the House floor.

    It’s no guarantee — with trust low among House Republicans and tensions high, those normal protocols could be challenged. Both Scalise and Jordan indicated they would support the eventual nominee, lawmakers said. But many lawmakers remained undecided.

    While both are conservatives from the right flank, neither Scalise nor Jordan is the heir apparent to McCarthy.

    Scalise as the second-ranking Republican would be next in line for the gavel and is seen as a hero among colleagues for having survived severe injuries from a mass shooting during a congressional baseball practice in 2017. Now battling blood cancer, the Louisianan is not a clear lock.

    “We’re going to go get this done,” Scalise said as he exited the candidate forum. “The House is going to get back to work.”

    Jordan is a high-profile political firebrand known for his close alliance with Donald Trump, particularly when the then-president was working to overturn the results of the 2020 election, leading to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. Trump has backed Jordan’s bid for the gavel.

    Scalise and Jordan presented similar views at the forum about cutting spending and securing the southern border with Mexico, top Republican priorities.

    Several lawmakers, including Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., who engineered McCarthy’s ouster said they would be willing to support either Scalise or Jordan.

    “I think it’s a competitive race for speaker because we’ve got two greats,” said Rep. Andy Barr, R-Ky.

    Barr said he was working to help secure votes for Scalise, but would be comfortable with either candidate.

    Others though, particularly more centrist conservative Republicans from districts that are narrowly split between the parties, are holding out for another choice.

    “Personally, I’m still with McCarthy,” said Rep. David Valadao, a Republican who represents a California district not far from the former speaker’s district.

    “We’ll see how that plays out, but I do know a large percentage of the membership wants to be there with him as well.”

    McCarthy headed into the evening forum insisting he was not, at the moment, a candidate for speaker.

    But the California Republican gave a nod to his own short track record as speaker — being ousted by the far-right flank after he led Congress to approve a stopgap spending bill to prevent a disruptive federal government shutdown.

    “I think it’s important whoever takes that job is willing to risk the job for doing what’s right for the American public,” McCarthy said.

    For now, McHenry is effectively in charge. He has shown little interest in expanding his power beyond the role he was assigned — an interim leader tasked with ensuring the election of the next speaker.

    The role was created in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to ensure the continuity of government. McHenry’s name was at the top of a list submitted by McCarthy when he became speaker in January.

    While some Republicans, and Democrats, are open to empowering McHenry the longer he holds the temporary position, that seems unlikely as the speaker’s fight drags on.

    McHenry told reporters it’s “my goal” to keep to the schedule to hold a House speaker election on Wednesday. He quickly gaveled the House in and out of a brief session Tuesday, with no business conducted.

    ___

    Associated Press writers Farnoush Amiri and Stephen Groves contributed to this report.

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  • Donald Trump may visit the Capitol to address Republicans as they pick a new speaker, AP sources say

    Donald Trump may visit the Capitol to address Republicans as they pick a new speaker, AP sources say

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    WASHINGTON — Former President Donald Trump is in talks to visit Capitol Hill next week as Republicans debate who should be the next speaker of the House following Kevin McCarthy’s stunning ouster, according to three people familiar with the discussions.

    But one ally of the former president, Texas Rep. Troy Nehls, said Thursday night that Trump would not come to the Capitol and instead would endorse Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, the pugnacious House Judiciary Committee chairman and longtime Trump defender.

    A Trump spokesperson and Jordan’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

    The proposed trip would be Trump’s first to the Capitol since leaving office and since his supporters attacked the building in a bid to halt the peaceful transition of power on Jan. 6, 2021. Trump has been indicted in both Washington and Georgia over his efforts to overturn the results of the election, which he lost to President Joe Biden.

    Trump, the current GOP presidential front-runner, has used the leadership vacuum on the Hill to further demonstrate his control over the Republican Party. House Republicans are deeply fractured and some have been asking him to lead them — a seemingly fanciful suggestion that he has also promoted after inflaming the divisions that forced out McCarthy as speaker.

    Many in the GOP continue to downplay the violence on Jan. 6 that followed Trump’s exhortations to “fight like hell.” Nehls was photographed standing next to Capitol Police trying to secure the House chamber during the riot.

    “Just had a great conversation with President Trump about the Speaker’s race. He is endorsing Jim Jordan, and I believe Congress should listen to the leader of our party,” Nehls wrote late Thursday on X, formerly known as Twitter.

    In a later interview, Nehls said of Trump, “Pretty much everything that man says is correct.”

    Two leading candidates are maneuvering for speaker: Jordan and Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana. Both are trying to lock in the 218 votes required to win the job and need the support of both the far-right and moderate factions of the party. It’s unclear whether a Trump endorsement would force Scalise, the current GOP majority leader, out of the race.

    Nehls, said that if no current candidate succeeds in earning the support needed to win, he would once again turn to Trump. “Our conference is divided. Our country is broken. I don’t know who can get to 218,” he said in an interview.

    Earlier, Trump had told Fox News Digital that he was heading to Washington on Tuesday to meet with Republicans. Three people familiar with the matter disclosed the talks about visiting the Capitol to The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity ahead of an official announcement.

    Trump would most likely have attended a closed-door candidate forum that Republicans plan to hold Tuesday evening ahead of a speakership vote that could happen as soon as Wednesday, according to one of the people familiar with the matter.

    Jordan is also one of Trump’s biggest champions on the Hill and has been leading the investigations into prosecutors who have charged the former president. He was also part of a group of Republicans who worked with Trump to overturn his defeat ahead of Jan. 6.

    Scalise has also worked closely with Trump over the years.

    One of the people familiar with the planning had cautioned earlier Thursday that, if Trump did go ahead with the visit, he would be there to talk with Republican lawmakers and not to pitch himself for the role.

    Still, Trump continued to stoke speculation, telling Fox News Digital Thursday that he would accept a short-term role as speaker — for anywhere from 30 to 90 days — if another candidate doesn’t have the votes to win.

    “I have been asked to speak as a unifier because I have so many friends in Congress,” he told the outlet. “If they don’t get the vote, they have asked me if I would consider taking the speakership until they get somebody longer-term, because I am running for president.”

    In a social media post earlier in the day, he added that he “will do whatever is necessary to help with the Speaker of the House selection process, short term, until the final selection of a GREAT REPUBLICAN SPEAKER is made – A Speaker who will help a new, but highly experienced President, ME, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

    The Republican conference is filled with members generally supportive of Trump, but whether they’d back him to serve as speaker remained to be seen. The role is a demanding position — effectively running the Capitol and dealing with hundreds of lawmakers — and requires an attention to the arcane details of legislating that Trump showed little interest in even when he was president.

    While he is dominating his GOP presidential rivals, Trump is also still traveling to early primary states to campaign and has been spending much of his time focused on the four criminal indictments and several civil cases he is facing.

    While there is no requirement that a person be elected to the House to serve as speaker, every one of the 55 speakers the House has elected has been a member of the chamber. From time to time, lawmakers have thrown their votes to those outside of Congress, often as a protest against the candidates running.

    Trump helped McCarthy win the speakership in January after 15 rounds of voting. But he exhorted Republicans to impeach Biden and to reject deals that McCarthy negotiated. Last month, he urged the right flank to support a government shutdown if Republicans did not win deep spending cuts, declaring on social media that the GOP “lost big on Debt Ceiling, got NOTHING, and now are worried that they will be BLAMED for the Budget Shutdown. Wrong!!! Whoever is President will be blamed, in this case, Crooked (as Hell!) Joe Biden!”

    McCarthy ultimately moved to keep the government open for 45 days without the cuts demanded by hard-right conservatives. Rep. Matt Gaetz, a Florida Republican and longtime Trump ally, cited that decision as reason to move to depose the speaker.

    Among those who had pushed Trump for speaker was Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a longtime Trump ally who didn’t vote to remove McCarthy. She posted on X that she believed “he would take the job.”

    Nehls, the Texas Republican who was among the first to promote Trump for the job, said before his Thursday evening conservation with Trump that he’d been contacted “by multiple Members of Congress willing to support and offer nomination speeches for Donald J. Trump to be Speaker of the House.”

    “Next week,” he wrote on X, “is going to be HUGE.”

    ___ Colvin reported from New York. Associated Press writer Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report.

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  • Environmentalists suffer another setback in fight to shutter California’s last nuclear power plant

    Environmentalists suffer another setback in fight to shutter California’s last nuclear power plant

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    Federal regulators have rejected a request from environmental groups to immediately shut down one of two reactors at California’s last nuclear power plant

    ByMICHAEL R. BLOOD Associated Press

    LOS ANGELES — Federal regulators Wednesday rejected a request from two environmental groups to immediately shut down one of two reactors at California’s last nuclear power plant.

    Friends of the Earth and Mothers for Peace said in a petition filed last month with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that long-postponed tests needed to be conducted on critical machinery at the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant, located midway between Los Angeles and San Francisco. They argued the equipment could fail and cause a catastrophe.

    In an order dated Tuesday, the NRC took no action on the request to immediately shut down the Unit 1 reactor and instead asked agency staff to review it.

    The NRC also rejected a request to convene a hearing to reconsider a 2003 decision by staff to extend the testing schedule for the Unit 1 pressure vessel until 2025. The vessels are thick steel containers that hold nuclear fuel and cooling water in the reactors.

    According to the groups, the last inspections on the vessel took place between 2003 and 2005. The utility postponed further testing in favor of using results from similar reactors to justify continued operations, they said.

    The commission found there was no justification for a hearing.

    The groups said in a statement that the decision showed “a complete lack of concern for the safety and security of the people living near” the plant, which started operating in the mid-1980s.

    Operator Pacific Gas & Electric had said the plant was in “full compliance” with industry guidance and regulatory standards for monitoring and evaluating the safety of the reactor vessels.

    The petition marked the latest development in a long fight over the operation and safety of the seaside plant, which sits on a bluff above the Pacific Ocean. In August, a state judge rejected a lawsuit filed by Friends of the Earth that sought to block PG&E from seeking to extend the operating life of the plant.

    PG&E agreed in 2016 to shutter the plant by 2025, but at the direction of the state changed course and now intends to seek a longer operating run for the twin reactors. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who once was a leading voice to close the plant, said last year that Diablo Canyon’s power is needed beyond 2025 to ward off possible blackouts as California transitions to solar and other renewable energy sources.

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  • These 8 Republicans stood apart to remove Kevin McCarthy as House speaker

    These 8 Republicans stood apart to remove Kevin McCarthy as House speaker

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    WASHINGTON — Rep. Kevin McCarthy had support from 208 members of his conference to remain as House speaker. But it took only eight dissenters in his party to boot him from the job.

    A handful of Republicans joined with Democrats to make history as McCarthy became the first speaker in U.S. history to be voted out of the position by his colleagues.

    Most of the eight have never been members of the McCarthy fan club. They chafed at the deal McCarthy made with President Joe Biden to avoid a federal default. They voted against the bill Congress passed Saturday to keep the federal government operating at current funding levels through mid-November.

    Most are also fiscal hardliners who opposed McCarthy’s candidacy for speaker early on. But, McCarthy, soon after announcing he would not seek to run again for the speaker’s job, countered that he did not view the eight as conservatives.

    “They don’t get to say they’re conservative because they’re angry and they’re chaotic,” McCarthy said. “That’s not the party I belong to. The party of Reagan was if you believed in your principles, that you could govern in a conservative way. They are not conservative and they do not have the right to have the title.”

    While each has their reasons, the eight lawmakers generally voiced frustration with how McCarthy has moved priority legislation through the chamber, namely spending bills. Some have also described him as untrustworthy and failing to living up to various agreements he made to become speaker back in January, something he hotly disputed Tuesday when he announced he would not seek the post again.

    A look at the eight Republicans who voted to remove McCarthy from office, against the overwhelming wishes of their colleagues.

    Biggs is serving his fourth term in the House representing a strongly Republican-leaning district in Arizona. He is a former chairman of the hardline House Freedom Caucus. He threw his hat into the ring in the race to become speaker back in January, but won only 10 votes in the first of 15 rounds of voting.

    Biggs serves on two of the committees leading up the impeachment inquiry of President Joe Biden and has long called for his impeachment. He also has been a staunch ally of former President Donald Trump and describes him as the leader of the Republican Party.

    Biggs complained Tuesday that lawmakers were promised the House would pass 12 annual funding bills in a timely manner, but that wasn’t accomplished before the end of the fiscal year, requiring a stopgap spending bill to avoid a shutdown. He said the annual spending bills are critical to cutting spending and getting rid of duplicative programs.

    “Why didn’t we get this stuff done?” he asked at one point in Tuesday’s debate.

    “Yes, I think it’s time to make a change,” Biggs said.

    Buck is serving his fifth term representing a Colorado district that includes much of the eastern part of the state and some Denver suburbs. He’s got a penchant for being a wildcard as a fiscal conservative, but also someone willing to push back against party leaders when he feels like it.

    Most recently, Buck has spoken out against McCarthy’s launch of an impeachment inquiry into Biden, saying that House Republicans itching for impeachment are relying on flimsy evidence.

    He also has pointed to concerns about the process for approving spending and complained about stopgap spending bills like the one McCarthy came up with Saturday to keep the government running.

    “We are $33 trillion in debt and on track to hit $50 trillion by 2030,” he tweeted after the vote. “We cannot continue to fund the government by continuing resolutions and omnibus spending bills. That’s why I voted to oust @SpeakerMcCarthy. We must change course to sensible budgeting and save our country.”

    Burchett is serving his third term representing a district in east Tennessee. Burchett served 16 years in Tennessee’s legislature as well as eight years as a mayor before entering Congress.

    He said while explaining his vote to oust McCarthy that the House took off the whole month of August despite knowing they needed to get the spending bills done before the fiscal year ended Sept. 30.

    “At some point, we’ve just got to say enough is enough, folks,” he said in a Twitter video. “I hate losing Kevin as a friend, but I worry about losing our country.”

    Crane represents an Arizona district. He is also a former Navy SEAL who served in the military for 13 years. In November, he defeated a Democratic incumbent, Tom O’Halleran, who had held the seat since 2017. He was the lone Republican freshman back in January to come out against McCarthy’s bid to become speaker.

    “Each time our majority has had the chance to fight for bold, lasting change for the American people, leadership folded and passed measures with more Democrat support than Republican,” Crane tweeted Tuesday.

    Gaetz is serving his fourth term representing a Florida district. He is a close Trump ally who filed the motion to vacate the chair, the procedure used to oust McCarthy, and he led the debate on the House floor for those seeking to pass the motion.

    He was also a holdout in January when McCarthy ran to become speaker. The defining moment during that showdown came when Alabama Rep. Mike Rogers, a Republican ally of McCarthy, angrily confronted Gaetz on the House floor before being pulled back by a colleague.

    Gaetz could face political repercussions for his actions, as many Republican lawmakers blame him for this week’s chaos and view him as looking out for himself rather than for the good of the party.

    “Look, you all know Matt Gaetz. You know it was personal. It had nothing to do about spending,” McCarthy said. “It all was about getting attention from you. I mean we were getting e-mail fundraisers as he’s doing it.”

    Gaetz said McCarthy didn’t follow through on many of the commitments he made to win the speaker’s job, and that’s what drove him.

    “Kevin McCarthy is a feature of the swamp. He has risen to power by collecting special interest money and redistributing that money in exchange for favors,” Gaetz said. “We are breaking the fever now, and we should elect a speaker who’s better.”

    Good of Virginia won office in 2020 after GOP voters ousted the Republican incumbent, Denver Riggleman, who had angered social conservatives by officiating a gay marriage.

    Good said Tuesday that back in January he helped persuade a handful of colleagues to switch their votes to present so that McCarthy could become speaker.

    But Good has been harshly critical of the deal to avoid a default and voiced alarm as Republicans prepared to ensure a partial government shutdown did not occur last weekend.

    He said that if you’re not willing to endure any kind of shutdown to get the changes you seek, “it’s a recipe to lose, it’s a recipe for surrender.”

    “We need a speaker who will fight for something, anything, besides just staying or becoming speaker,” Good said on the House floor Tuesday.

    Mace is serving her second term representing a South Carolina district. She graduated from The Citadel, where she was the first female to graduate from its Corps of Cadets. She served as a state representative before coming to Congress.

    Mace tweeted her vote to oust McCarthy wasn’t about ideology. “This is about trust and keeping your word. This is about making Congress do its job,” she said.

    McCarthy said he called Mace’s chief of staff on Monday saying he didn’t understand how he had not kept his word. He noted that he had helped get Mace elected to Congress.

    Rosendale is serving his second term in the House representing a Montana district. He’s a hardliner on fiscal issues who also has voted against U.S. support for Ukraine in repelling Russia’s invasion, citing what he said are more pressing security needs along the southern U.S. border.

    “Our country is facing $33 trillion of debt. Our border is facing an unprecedented invasion. And instead of being energy dominant, we are now energy reliant. The House of Representatives and the American people deserve a leader who can challenge the status quo and put an end to this ruin,” Rosendale said following Tuesday’s vote.

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  • A government shutdown in Nigeria has been averted after unions suspended a labor strike

    A government shutdown in Nigeria has been averted after unions suspended a labor strike

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    Nigerian government workers are continuing their work after last-minute efforts by authorities averted a nationwide strike to protest growing hardship which could have shut down government services in Africa’s most populous country

    ByCHINEDU ASADU Associated Press

    Pedestrians cross a busy streets in Lagos, Nigeria, Tuesday Sept. 5, 2023. Made up of hundreds of thousands of members, the Nigeria Labor Congress workers association began Tuesday a two-day “warning strike,” in protest of the growing cost of living due to the removal of gas subsidies, threatening to “shut down” Africa’s largest economy if their demands for improved welfare are not met. their second in over a month. (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba)

    The Associated Press

    ABUJA, Nigeria — Nigerian government workers on Tuesday continued working after last-minute efforts by authorities averted a nationwide strike to protest growing hardship that could have shut down government services in Africa’s most populous country.

    The indefinite strike by Nigerian labor unions scheduled to start Tuesday is being suspended for 30 days, while meetings and talks with the government will be held over the coming days, said Joe Ajaero, president of the Nigeria Labour Congress, or NLC, which is the umbrella body of the unions.

    A joint statement issued late Monday by senior government officials and the leadership of the labor unions noted several resolutions including a monthly wage increase of 35,000 naira ($46) for all workers, payment of 25,000 naira ($33) for three months to 15 million vulnerable households as well as the provision of 100 billion naira (nearly $130 million) for gas-powered buses to be rolled out for mass transit in Nigeria starting from November.

    In office since May 29, President Bola Tinubu’s policies aimed at fixing Nigeria’s ailing economy and attracting investors have more than doubled the cost of living for more than 210 million people who already were grappling with surging inflation. It hit an 18-year high of 25.8% in August.

    The end to decadeslong expensive subsidies for gas and the government’s devaluation of the currency more than doubled the price of gasoline and other commodities. Talks with the labor unions have stalled and a slow start to several intervention efforts resulted in last week’s announcement of the strike.

    Though lauded by some analysts, the policies of the new government have been criticized by many because of their poor implementation.

    One major source of concern has been intervention efforts, which the labor unions said have been slow. Many of their workers now trek to work, because they are unable to afford high transport costs while many businesses have shut down under the weight of surging operational costs.

    “The policies are meant to correct the distortions and misgovernance of the past for a nation that was already on the brink,” said Muda Yusuf, a former director-general of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry who now leads the Centre for the Promotion of Private Enterprise.

    “The response has not been as fast as it should be,” he said. “But the adverse outcomes of the measures, the hardship, were much higher than what many of us expected.”

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