News You Ought to Know
By Associated Press
House Republicans offering proposals for health care changes
WASHINGTON — House Republicans are unveiling new proposals to repeal and replace President Barack Obama’s health care law, as Speaker Paul Ryan sought to showcase a GOP governing agenda amid the tumult of the presidential campaign.
The plan, revealed Wednesday, relies on individual tax credits to allow people to buy coverage from private insurers, and includes other largely familiar GOP ideas such as medical liability reform and expanding access to health savings accounts. It proposes putting $25 billion behind high-risk pools for people with pre-existing conditions and for others, and transforming the federal-state Medicaid program for the poor by turning it into state block grants or individual per-capita allotments to hold down spending.
But the 37-page white paper falls short of a full-scale replacement proposal for “Obamacare” and leaves key questions unanswered, including the cost of the tax credits, the overall price tag of the plan, and how many people would be covered. Republican aides said it’s intended as an overall roadmap showing how the GOP would approach undoing and replacing Obama’s health law with a Republican in the White House, and specific legislative details would be answered as the actual bills are written next year.
As such it is an aspirational document like the rest of Ryan’s “Better Way” agenda, a six-topic blueprint that the speaker has been rolling out this month at carefully choreographed events that have been getting largely overshadowed by the latest Donald Trump campaign controversy. Ryan was to present his health care proposals alongside several House chairmen Wednesday afternoon at the American Enterprise Institute, and a tax plan was coming Friday.
“Obamacare set America on a path that leads to a larger government having a greater role in how health care decisions are made. Today we are proposing a new approach,” the report’s authors wrote. “This report is the beginning of the conversation, not the end.”
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In speech, Trump to ramp up critique of Clinton as failure
NEW YORK — Seeking to refocus his presidential campaign, Donald Trump will lambaste Democratic rival Hillary Clinton as a failed secretary of state who is out of step with Americans on trade and immigration.
Trump’s address Wednesday morning at his hotel in New York’s SoHo neighborhood marks his official opening salvo against Clinton, the prospective Democratic presidential nominee, in the general election. It comes as Trump faces growing questions about his readiness not just for the presidency, but for the campaign he will need to run to get there.
The Trump campaign is hoping the speech can quiet those concerns and rally Republicans around their shared opposition to Clinton. The billionaire businessman plans to focus in particular on Clinton’s tenure at the State Department, arguing that her foreign policy is in part responsible for the creation of the Islamic State militant group.
“Hillary Clinton had a four-year tryout for the presidency as secretary of state,” said Stephen Miller, a Trump policy adviser. “She ran the State Department and the world went up in flames. Everything took a nosedive, except for Hillary Clinton’s bank account — which swelled to new highs.”
Trump is also expected to cite Clinton’s past support for trade deals and her willingness, along with her husband, former President Bill Clinton, to accept speaking fees and contributions to their foundation from countries with poor human rights records. However, Trump is not expected to target the former president’s personal infidelities, as he did earlier in the campaign.
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Dump Trump movement preparing fight at GOP convention
WASHINGTON — The “dump Trump” movement is gaining followers among delegates to next month’s Republican National Convention, an effort that could tarnish Donald Trump’s coronation even if it ultimately fails.
Several hundred Republican delegates are organizing to oppose Trump at the convention. That’s not enough delegates to topple Trump. But it’s more than enough to create turmoil at an event that is typically used to bring a political party together in support of a presidential candidate.
“If Trump is the nominee, we truly believe it’s the end of our party,” said Kendal Unruh, a Colorado delegate who is leading the effort to dump Trump. “We’re trying to save the party.”
There could be floor fights over convention rules and the party’s platform. And instead of a coronation, the roll call to nominate Trump could be an opportunity for delegates to voice their displeasure on national television.
“What’s worse for the Republican Party — this is the calculation — one week of absolute chaos and all sorts of recriminations or four and a half months of this looming, rolling catastrophe?” conservative Milwaukee radio host Charlie Sykes said on his Tuesday show.
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Pro-EU or no EU? Diverse London contains extremes of opinion
LONDON — When Britain decides on Thursday whether to leave the European Union, London’s voice may prove decisive. But for which side?
Britain’s capital, home to almost 9 million people, encompasses some of the most pro-EU places in the country — and the least.
In the cosmopolitan City financial district, where almost half a million people from around the globe work in Europe’s biggest financial center, pro-EU sentiment predominates. But just a few miles away the borough of Havering, stronghold of working-class East Enders, topped a national survey of the most anti-EU places in Britain.
The two districts represent the opposing views at the heart of Britain’s EU debate. One sees the bloc’s free flow of people and money as a benefit. The other sees it as a threat.
Fishmonger David Crosbie, working on a drizzly morning in Havering’s outdoor Romford Market, is an emphatic “leave” supporter. For Crosbie, the decision has a lot to do with borders, on land and sea. He says he is tired of European fishermen trawling waters around Britain under the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy.
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North Korea makes apparent progress with midrange missile
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea took a significant step Wednesday in the development of a powerful ballistic missile intended to reach U.S. bases in the Pacific, launching one of the weapons about 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) high after five failed attempts in recent months.
The North’s suspected Musudan tests worry Washington and its allies, Tokyo and Seoul, because the missile’s potential 3,500-kilometer (2,180-mile) range puts much of Asia and the Pacific, including U.S. military bases there, within reach.
Japanese Defense Minister Gen Nakatani said the most recent launch demonstrated a “certain level of capability,” and could lead to a further strengthening of North Korea’s ballistic missile capabilities that can cover Japanese territory.
Each new test — apparently linked to a command from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un — likely provides valuable insights to the North’s scientists and military officials as they push toward their goal of a nuclear and missile program that can threaten the U.S. mainland. Pyongyang earlier this year conducted a nuclear test, its fourth, and launched a long-range rocket that outsiders say was a cover for a test of banned missile technology.
A statement from South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said a suspected first Musudan launch from the east coast city of Wonsan failed. It didn’t elaborate, but Japan’s Defense Ministry said the missile fragmented and pieces fell into waters off the KoreanPeninsula’s east coast.
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Plane lands at South Pole in daring winter medical rescue
WASHINGTON — After flying through dangerous dark and cold, a rescue plane landed Tuesday at the South Pole to evacuate a sick worker from a remote U.S. science station, federal officials said.
The plane arrived at the South Pole after a daring 1,500-mile, nine-hour trip from a British base on the Antarctic peninsula, according to the National Science Foundation , which runs the polar outpost.
The plane’s crew — a pilot, co-pilot, flight engineer and medical worker — will rest and wait for at least 10 hours. Then if weather conditions are favorable, the plane will refuel and return to Rothera, said agency spokesman Peter West. After that the sick worker will be taken out of Antarctica for treatment.
“It went all according to plan,” West said from Arlington, Va.
A second worker is also ill, but officials have yet to decide whether that patient will also fly out, West said. The science foundation will not identify the workers, who are employees of Lockheed Martin which handles logistics at the station, nor their medical conditions.
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Lebanese army slowly crushing extremists near Syria border
ARSAL, Lebanon — In a remote corner of Lebanon near the border with Syria, Lebanese troops have been quietly making steady progress, fighting against Islamic extremists holed up in the rugged mountains.
It is a fight less visible than the U.S.-led war against the Islamic State group in Syria, Iraq and Libya. But hardly a day passes without army artillery stationed on the edge of this restive eastern Lebanese town pounding nearby militant positions.
Aided directly by the United States and Britain — and indirectly by the Syrian army and its Lebanese militant Hezbollah allies working on the other side of the border — the under-equipped Lebanese military has registered steady successes against the militants.
In recent months, Lebanese armed forces have clawed back significant territory once held by IS and al-Qaida’s branch in Syria, known as the Nusra Front, and have killed and detained hundreds of extremists, forcing many others to flee. According to the army, the militants still hold about 50 square kilometers (19 square miles) of land in the border area, compared with 20 times this size in the months after Syria’s conflict began.
On a tour of the area with the army this week, an Associated Press team saw army positions set up every few hundred meters (yards). Tanks and armored personnel carriers with heavy machine guns could be seen pointing toward the extremists’ positions.
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Wildfires rage across Western US, but homes mostly spared
LOS ANGELES — For days, wildfires have raged amid spiking heat across Southern California and much of the West, driving hundreds of people from their homes.
Yet homes have overwhelmingly remained safe so far, after aggressive and strategic firefighting and a dose of luck.
In the foothill suburbs northeast of Los Angeles, a major wildfire gave a major scare to homeowners when it broke out within feet of residential streets.
But a day later, firefighters had stopped its progress with bombardment from helicopters and crews hiking into the hills to douse it and cut fire lines.
“They are working so hard, it’s excruciating with the heat, and up and down these hills, they’re steep,” LA County fire Capt. Mike McCormick said.
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Backstage pass to making of Led Zeppelin’s epic ‘Stairway’
LOS ANGELES — It’s time for the encores at a trial that’s been a deep dive in to rock ‘n’ roll history, with musical luminaries taking the stand and straining their memories for details from their glory days.
Closing arguments are scheduled Wednesday in the federal copyright infringement lawsuit that claims Led Zeppelin stole its biggest hit “Stairway to Heaven” from the late Randy Wolfe, also known as Randy California, founder of the band Spirit.
Singer Robert Plant on Tuesday told a packed courtroom he did not remember hanging out with Spirit, as the band’s bass player testified, after a 1970 show at a club Plant frequented in Birmingham, England. Plant said he and his wife were in a bad car wreck and he has no memory of the evening.
“I don’t have a recollection of mostly anyone I’ve hung out with,” Plant said as the courtroom roared with laughter. “In the chaos and hubbub, how are you going to remember one guy when you haven’t seen him for 40 years?”
Plant had a much sharper memory of Headley Grange, a country house south of London where he said he was sitting by the fire in the spring of 1970 when guitarist Jimmy Page played the intro on acoustic guitar and Plant offered the start of a couplet he had been working on: “There’s a lady who’s sure all that glitters is gold/and she’s buying a stairway to heaven.”
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American Kennel Club’s newest breed: Meet the lively pumi
NEW YORK — A high-energy Hungarian herding dog is the latest new breed headed to the Westminster Kennel Club and many other U.S. dog shows.
The American Kennel Club is announcing Wednesday that it is recognizing the pumi, the 190th breed to join the roster of the nation’s oldest purebred dog registry. That means the pumi can vie for best of breed at Westminster for the first time next February.
With coats of corkscrew curls and ears that flop at the tips, the pumi (pronounced POOM’-ee) has a whimsical expression that belies its strong work ethic, fanciers say. The 20-to-30-pound breed goes back centuries in Hungary, where it herded cattle, sheep, and swine. It’s related to the puli, a breed already recognized by the AKC and known for its coat of long cords.
Like many herding dogs, pumis — the proper plural is actually “pumik” — are alert and active.
“They’re not for somebody who’s going to sit and watch TV all day long,” said Chris Levy, president of the Hungarian Pumi Club of America. But if provided with enough exercise and stimulation, “the pumi can chill out.”
