WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A group of Republican and Democratic U.S. senators introduced legislation on Wednesday that would provide an additional 2,500 visas for Afghans who have assisted U.S. forces by working as interpreters or in other support functions, often risking their lives. The U.S. State Department said last week it would soon run out of visas for the Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) program, designed to help bring to the United States those who have worked for the government during the decade and a half that U.S. forces have been engaged in the country. The U.S. embassy in Kabul has stopped scheduling interviews for applicants seeking a visa through the program. The bill was introduced by Republican Senators John McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Thom Tillis, and Democrats Jack Reed, the committee’s top Democrat, and Jeanne Shaheen. Tillis and Shaheen are also members of the panel. The four senators led efforts in the Senate to extend the Afghan SIV program last year. “This legislation would ensure the continuation of this vital Special Immigrant Visa program, and send a clear message that America will not turn its back on those — who at great personal risk — stand with us in the fight against terror,” McCain said in a statement. The National Defense Authorization Act passed late last year added 1,500 visas to the program, while tightening requirements for eligibility. Shaheen’s office said more than 10,000 applicants are still in the process of obtaining visas. The Afghan visa announcement came as U.S. officials prepared to implement President Donald Trump’s executive order, effective this week, that temporarily bans the admission of refugees and some travelers from six Muslim-majority countries. Afghanistan is not one of the six but some members of Congress have resisted expanding the SIV program out of concern that militants could use it to enter the United States. Supporters of the program dismiss the concerns, noting that  applicants are subjected to intense screening.

Summary: अमेरिकी सांसदों ने अमेरिकी बलों की मदद करने वाले अफगानों के लिए और वीजा की मांग की


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump will express support for Palestinian “self-determination” during a Middle East trip this month, a senior aide said on Friday, suggesting Trump is open to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict despite not having publicly embraced the idea so far. The comment by U.S. national security adviser H.R. McMaster came just nine days after a White House visit by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in which Trump vowed to seek a historic peace deal but stopped short of explicitly recommitting to the eventual goal of Palestinian statehood, a longtime bedrock of U.S. policy. Previewing Trump’s first foreign trip, McMaster also said he would use a visit to Saudi Arabia, his first stop, to encourage Arab and Muslim partners to take “bold new steps” to confront those from Iran, Islamic State, al Qaeda and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government “who perpetuate chaos and violence.” Trump’s travels, which begin late next week and will also  include stops in Israel and Rome, are intended to “broadcast a message of unity” by visiting holy sites of Christianity, Judaism and Islam, McMaster told reporters. Trump’s meetings with Israeli and Palestinian leaders, currently due to be held separately, will be closely watched for whether he begins to articulate a cohesive strategy to revive long-stalled negotiations. Most experts are skeptical of Trump’s chances of brokering a peace accord that eluded his predecessors. Trump plans, in talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to “reaffirm America’s unshakeable bond to the Jewish state” and in a meeting with Abbas to “express his desire for dignity and self-determination for the Palestinians,” said McMaster, a decorated Army general with extensive Middle East experience. Trump is expected to meet Abbas, the Western-backed head of the Palestinian Authority, in Bethlehem in the West Bank, Palestinian sources say. Palestinians were disappointed when Trump failed to mention a two-state solution in a joint appearance with Abbas on May 3. Trump sparked international criticism in February when, during a news conference with Netanyahu, he appeared to back away from a longstanding U.S. commitment to Palestinian statehood, saying he would leave it up to the parties to decide. An independent state is not only the aspiration of the vast majority of Palestinians but has been the objective of successive U.S. administrations and the international community. Asked whether Trump would bring Netanyahu and Abbas together in the same room during the visit scheduled for May 22-23, McMaster said that would be up to the president and the other leaders. “The final plans aren’t set yet,” he said.

Summary: मध्य पूर्व की यात्रा पर फलस्तीनी 'आत्मनिर्णय' का समर्थन करेंगे ट्रम्पः सहयोगी


UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump’s bid to slash funding for the United Nations would make it “impossible” for it to continue its essential work, a U.N. spokesman said on Wednesday, adding that the organization was ready to discuss reform with Washington. The Trump proposal cuts about a third from U.S. diplomacy and aid budgets, or nearly $19 billion. This includes cutting some $1 billion from a U.N. peacekeeping funding and a steep cut to funding for international organizations. The United States is the biggest U.N. contributor, paying 22 percent of the $5.4 billion core budget and 28.5 percent of the $7.9 billion peacekeeping budget. These assessed contributions are agreed by the 193-member U.N. General Assembly. “The figures presented would simply make it impossible for the U.N. to continue all of its essential work advancing peace, development, human rights and humanitarian assistance,” Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, said in a statement. Congress sets the federal government budget, and Republicans who control both houses and Democrats have said they do not support such drastic cuts. Trump has said the U.S. share of the U.N. budgets was “unfair.” The General Assembly is currently negotiating the peacekeeping budget from July 1, 2017 to June 30, 2018 and will later this year negotiate the next U.N. regular budget. Trump wants to cap the U.S. peacekeeping contribution at 25 percent. The United States is reviewing each of the 16 U.N. peacekeeping missions as the annual mandates come up for renewal by the Security Council in a bid to cut costs. During a lunch with U.N. Security Council ambassadors at the White House last month, Trump described the U.S. contributions to the United Nations as “peanuts compared to the important work” as he pushed the world body to reform. “The Secretary-General is totally committed to reforming the United Nations,” Dujarric said. “We stand ready to discuss with the United States and any other member state how best we can create a more cost-effective organization to pursue our shared goals and values.” Trump’s budget proposal included a 44 percent cut to funding for international organizations, but does not specify the cuts, other than “funding for organizations that work against U.S. foreign policy interests.” The State Department said last month it was ending funding for the U.N. Population Fund, an agency focused on family planning and maternal and child health in more than 150 countries. Guterres warned the cut could have “devastating effects.” U.N. agencies such as the U.N. Development Program (UNDP), the children’s agency UNICEF, and the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA), are funded by governments voluntarily. In 2016, the United States was the top contributor to the UNDP’s core budget, with an $83 million donation; the leading donor to UNICEF’s core budget in 2015 with $132 million; and the fourth-largest donor to the UNFPA, giving $75 million.

Summary: ट्रम्प की बजट कटौती बोली संयुक्त राष्ट्र के लिए इसे 'असंभव' बना देगीः प्रवक्ता


BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi reiterated to his South Korean counterpart Beijing s demand for the removal of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile system, state news agency Xinhua said on Thursday. Wang made the comments during a meeting with Kang Kyung-wha on the sidelines of a United Nations gathering in New York on Wednesday, it added. South Korea and the United States say THAAD is needed to defend against the threat of North Korea, but China says it will do nothing to reduce tension and its powerful radar system threatens the country s security.

Summary: चीन ने दक्षिण कोरिया से थाड को हटाने का आह्वान दोहराया


ORLANDO (Reuters) - Ask John Mica why he sticks by Donald Trump, amid the defections of many fellow Republicans, and the U.S. congressman from central Florida instead touts his own work on easing traffic congestion in this tourism Mecca. Ask again about his support for Trump and the mild-mannered Mica shows subtle signs of becoming annoyed. Mica has become adept at tiptoeing around Trump questions as his support for the controversial presidential candidate complicates his effort to extend a 24-year reign in Congress. The race between Mica and his Democratic challenger, newcomer Stephanie Murphy, 38, could be a bellwether for Republicans who seek to support the party’s presidential nominee while maintaining a safe distance from some of Trump’s more controversial positions and alleged bad behavior.  The course of the campaign could provide clues on whether Republicans maintain control of the House of Representatives in a year in which Trump has shaken his party and the political world with his bombast.  Voters in his Orlando district “don’t care about all this garbage that’s going on” in the presidential race, says Mica, as he steers the conversation to improving healthcare for military veterans, creating jobs and expanding local airports. Mica’s re-election bid is also made unusually tough because of a newly-drawn congressional district that gives Democrats hope of a win.  Murphy has sought to use Mica’s support for Trump against him by saying that just as Mica has stuck with Trump too long, he follows Republican leaders in Congress all too often. She ticks off Mica’s support for gun positions pushed by the powerful National Rifle Association, especially after June’s massacre in Orlando of 49 people at a gay nightclub. Murphy has said Mica is out of step with the reconfigured district, which she said is “evenly split” and not especially partisan.  As Mica campaigns on his ability to deliver goods to his district in the form of job creation and infrastructure investment, Democrats are making sure to remind voters that he is aligned with the man who arguably is one of the most controversial major party presidential candidates in history. Democrats punctuate that with a photo of Trump and Mica side-by-side at a 2014 ceremony celebrating the start of construction of a Trump hotel in Washington. Early trends of mail-in ballots in the 7th congressional district point to a competitive race. In Orange County, 10,975 Democrats have cast early votes compared to only 6,732 Republicans and 3,525 independents. Orlando may be famous as the home of the fantasy land that is Disney World. But Mica’s district is a real-life mirror of America. Its residents are politically divided, in this case about evenly split between Republicans and Democrats and with a strong dose of independent voters. Furthermore, as in other parts of the country, Latino voters in central Florida are building political muscle. As Mica, 73, wages a ground-war that has him knocking on constituents’ doors in Orlando’s heat and humidity, he walks a fine line. He is a grandson of immigrants who boasts of being “hard nosed” against “amnesty” for the 11 million immigrants in the United States illegally. But he suggests there could be exceptions to Trump’s promise to deport them all. Building a wall on the southern border with Mexico, a linchpin of Trump’s campaign, should be done “where it makes sense,” Mica said during an interview with Reuters amid a lunchtime crowd of mainly Hispanic customers at the Lechonera El Barrio restaurant. Still, as prominent Republicans offended by the tenor of Trump’s campaign, including House Speaker Paul Ryan, distance themselves from Trump, Mica stands firm, saying, “I’m pretty much a party loyalist.” Such loyalty can come with a price, though, and Mica acknowledges, “I’m stuck with the Republican (presidential) nominee” whom he said made “vulgar, reprehensible” remarks about sexual advances on women captured in a 2005 videotape that recently became public. But there is an upside to supporting Trump as well. Mica said some supporters want to know that he is sticking with the nominee. “These people are very passionate. They’re going to be voting,” he said. Miriam Ramirez, a former Republican legislator in Puerto Rico who lives part-time in Florida and has been stumping for Mica, worries Trump could complicate Mica’s re-election.  Asked whether Mica’s appeal to the district’s booming Puerto Rican population could suffer because of his association with Trump,  Ramirez said, “Yes, especially in lower-income families.” Murphy, who came to the United States as a child after she and her family escaped Vietnam and were adrift in the South China Sea before being rescued by the U.S. Navy, said Trump’s “hateful and divisive rhetoric” has voters worried that he “will act on the prejudices he has laid out” if elected. “Voters choose political leaders they believe will do the best for them but also represent the best in them,” Murphy said, challenging Mica’s support of Trump. One thing seems certain in the closing weeks of the campaign: Mica is staying on message as he tiptoes around Trump, instead talking about the “interstate (highway) massive rebuild” and the airport in Seminole County that “had weeds growing up...out of the runway” and now supports thousands of jobs.     (Changes to ‘grandson’ from ‘son’ in 19th paragraph)

Summary: फ्लोरिडा में अमेरिकी हाउस की कड़ी दौड़ में ट्रम्प


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump said on Thursday that he hopes he will not have to bring in an outside adviser to review the structure of U.S. intelligence agencies. “I hope that we’ll be able to straighten that out without using anybody else,” Trump said at a press conference. Trump said Stephen Feinberg, the chief executive of private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management [CBS.UL], had offered his services, but he did not think he would be needed.

Summary: सर्बेरस के सी. ई. ओ. ने सेवाओं की पेशकश की, उम्मीद है कि खुफिया समीक्षा के लिए उनकी आवश्यकता नहीं होगीः ट्रम्प


TOKYO (Reuters) - A Japanese man wielding a sword killed his sister, a Shinto priestess, on the grounds of a Tokyo shrine, then stabbed his wife to death before committing suicide, police and media said. Police declined to comment on a motive for Thursday s killings or the family feud. Shigenaga Tomioka, 56, attacked Nagako Tomioka, 58, chief priestess of the Tomioka Hachimangu shrine, as she got out of a car. Media reports said she was his sister. His 49-year-old wife, Mariko, stabbed and wounded the driver of the car with a sword, police said, before she too was killed.  Shigenaga sent a threatening letter to his sister in 2006, saying he would  send her to hell , the Sankei newspaper said. Shinto is the traditional religion of Japan and many shrines dot the country. The Tomioka Hachimangu shrine, established in 1627, has a close link with sumo and the emperor and empress visited in 2012.

Summary: जापानी व्यक्ति ने विचित्र पारिवारिक झगड़े में पत्नी और पुजारी बहन की तलवार से हत्या कर दीः मीडिया


BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian government forces will advance soon to take Raqqa city, which U.S.-backed fighters seized from Islamic State last month, a senior Iranian official said on Friday.  Ali Akbar Velayati, the top adviser to Iran s Supreme Leader, also accused the United States of seeking to divide Syria by stationing its forces east of the Euphrates river.   We will witness in the near future the advance of government and popular forces in Syria and east of the Euphrates, and the liberation of Raqqa city,  he said in televised comments on a visit to Beirut.  Since early in the Syrian war, Iran has provided critical military support to the Damascus government, helping it regain swathes of land from rebels and militants. Last month, U.S.-backed militias declared victory in Raqqa, Islamic State s former headquarters in Syria, after months of fighting with the help of the U.S.-led coalition.  The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias, is also battling Islamic State in eastern Syria with U.S.-led air strikes and special forces. The SDF assault in Deir al-Zor has focused on territory east of the river, which bisects the oil-rich province.     The Syrian army, with Russian air power and Iran-backed militias, is waging its own separate offensive against Islamic State there, mostly to the west of the river. The U.S.-led coalition and the Russian military have been holding  deconfliction  meetings - to prevent clashes between planes and troops - though the two offensives have sometimes come into conflict. The U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State has repeatedly said it does not seek to fight Syrian President Bashar al-Assad s military.  After capturing Raqqa, the SDF said the people of the majority Arab city would decide their own future  within the framework of a decentralized, federal, democratic Syria.   The Kurdish-led SDF pledged  to protect the frontiers of (Raqqa) province against all external threats  and to hand control to a civil council from the city. But last week, Damascus said it deemed Raqqa  occupied  until the Syrian army took control. With Islamic State near defeat in Syria, rivalry between Damascus and Kurdish-led forces is emerging as a fault line that could draw the United States in more deeply and complicate Russian diplomacy. Syria s main Kurdish groups hope for a new phase of negotiations to shore up their autonomous regions in the north. The Syrian government, however, has asserted in more forceful terms its claim to territory under SDF control including oil fields in the east.

Summary: ईरानी अधिकारी का कहना है कि सीरियाई सरकारी बल जल्द ही रक्का की ओर कूच करेंगे


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - As valedictorian of his high school class, Merrick Garland let his audience know precisely how he felt when parents unplugged the sound system that day in protest at a classmate’s speech against the Vietnam War. He may not necessarily have agreed with the topic or tone but, stirred by the sight of a student’s voice being silenced, Garland abandoned his prepared remarks to deliver instead an impassioned defense of free speech. U.S. President Barack Obama told that story on Wednesday when he nominated Garland, now a 63-year-old judge, on what is often called the second highest court in the land, to a seat on the Supreme Court, the country’s highest court. Obama praised what he called Garland’s “track record of building consensus as a thoughtful, fair-minded judge who follows the law.” Although Garland faces an uphill fight from a Republican-led U.S Senate opposed to anyone the Democratic president nominates, the judge is praised by politicians left and right, even after 19 years on the federal bench. The showdown promises to figure in the campaign for the Nov. 8 U.S. presidential election with Republicans demanding that Obama leave the seat vacant and let his successor, to be sworn in next January, make the selection. Garland, picked to replace conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, who died on Feb. 13, has been a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit since 1997. His appointment to that court, by Democratic President Bill Clinton, was confirmed by the Senate, 76-23. The bipartisan support is one reason Obama might have for nominating him. In 2010, Republican Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah, a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, described Garland as a “consensus nominee” who would “get a lot of votes.” The court has served as a launching pad to the nine-member Supreme Court for several justices including Scalia. Chief judge since 2013, Garland is viewed as a moderate whose legal approach was shaped by a lengthy career as a federal prosecutor. As a senior Justice Department official, Garland oversaw the prosecution in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing case in which 168 people, many of them children, were killed. He secured the death penalty for the lead defendant, anti-government militant Timothy McVeigh.  Jamie Gorelick, the No. 2 Justice Department official at the time, said in an interview that Garland immediately asked to go to Oklahoma to oversee the case. “When the bomb went off in Oklahoma and we started to see the children being pulled out of the wreckage, Merrick, who had young children at the time, was so moved by this and so angered by it he asked if we could send him out to Oklahoma to help,” she said. His background as a prosecutor has shaped his views as a judge, lawyers who practice before the appeals court said. Garland is viewed as less defendant-friendly than other Democratic appointees. But Garland is not afraid to rule against the federal government. In a 2013 case, he was part of a three-judge panel that ruled against the Central Intelligence Agency in its bid to keep documents secret concerning the use of armed drones. In 2008, he wrote on behalf of a three-judge panel when the court ruled in favor of a detainee held at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Garland wrote that a U.S. tribunal was wrong to find that detainee Huzaifa Parhat, an ethnic Uighur from China, was an “enemy combatant.” Garland grew up in Chicago. His mother was a community volunteer and his father ran a small business. Obama said at the White House that Garland had to sell his comic book collection to help fund his college education. Garland would become the fourth Jewish member of the nine-member court. The other five are Roman Catholics. His education also mirrors those of the other justices. If confirmed, all of the justices would have studied at either Yale or Harvard law school. Garland attended Harvard.

Summary: ओबामा ने सुप्रीम कोर्ट के फैसले को निष्पक्षता का प्रतीक बताया


CARACAS (Reuters) - President Nicolas Maduro has predicted a new foreign-led effort to mediate Venezuela s political crisis would produce a deal soon, but the opposition said on Saturday it would not accept another time-wasting  show .  Following months of anti-Maduro protests earlier this year that led to at least 125 deaths, both sides sent delegations to meet the Dominican Republic s president this week for a possible start to a negotiated solution.   After weeks of conversations, we are close to an agreement, of political co-existence, of peace and sovereignty,  Maduro said in a speech late on Friday.  We re very near.  But the opposition, which accuses Maduro of creating a dictatorship and ruining a once-prosperous oil economy, insisted the talks in Santo Domingo were only  exploratory  and would not proceed without firm guarantees of democratic change.  They want a date for the next presidential election, due by the end of 2018, with guarantees it will be free and fair, plus freedom for hundreds of jailed activists, a foreign humanitarian aid corridor, and respect for the opposition-led congress.   IRON-CLAD GUARANTEES   They can t mess us around like last year, when they promised heaven and earth, but nothing happened,  said Julio Borges, the leader of congress which has been overridden by a pro-Maduro legislative superbody called a Constituent Assembly.   If we don t have iron-clad guarantees ... that everything is leading to democratic change ... we won t take a step more,  he told reporters on Saturday, recalling failed 2016 Vatican-led talks.  We want to avoid a repeat of last year s show.  Maduro says the Constituent Assembly has brought peace to the South American nation of 30 million. But many major foreign powers do not recognize the body given its origins in a controversial election that the opposition boycotted.  After more than four months of often violent protests, which also led to thousands of injuries and arrests, Maduro says a U.S.-fanned coup attempt has been defeated. But the strife has seen international opinion harden against him.  Dominican leader Danilo Medina said Mexico, Chile, Bolivia and Nicaragua would join a new round of talks on Sept. 27, with two other countries to be defined. The Democratic Unity coalition said on Saturday one of those was Paraguay. While the government is eager to show the world it is entering a dialogue, opposition leaders face skepticism from their supporters, many of whom view a potential negotiation as a betrayal of dead protesters and legitimization of an autocrat.

Summary: वेनेजुएला के मादुरो वार्ता को लेकर उत्साहित, विपक्ष को 'दिखाने' का डर


MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - The first man in modern Mexican history to win a gubernatorial election as an independent said on Wednesday he aimed to run in the 2018 presidential election, putting pressure on the leading anti-establishment contender, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. Jaime Rodriguez ruptured the political status quo by capturing the wealthy northern state of Nuevo Leon by a landslide in 2015 after he broke with President Enrique Pena Nieto s Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI. Rodriguez adds to a fragmented landscape of contenders led by twice presidential runner-up Lopez Obrador, a former Mexico City mayor who has spent years pitching himself as the only solution to ongoing political corruption and chronic inequality.  I want to give it a try, and I want to show that the people are tired of political parties and the politicians themselves,  Rodriguez, 59, told Mexican broadcaster Radio Formula. Known as  El Bronco  due to his blunt style, Rodriguez has trailed far behind Lopez Obrador in early opinion polls. However, his entry into the race could eat away at anti-establishment support for Lopez Obrador, a leftist with nationalist leanings. That, in turn, could help the PRI. The avid horseman said he planned to register on Saturday and will have four months to gather 866,593 signatures - or one percent of the electorate - in at least 17 regions of Mexico to qualify as an independent ahead of the July 2018 vote. Voter surveys show all presidential hopefuls struggling to win the backing of as much as one third of the electorate. In June, the PRI was able to exploit those divisions, winning a tight gubernatorial race in the State of Mexico, the country s most populous region, with barely a third of the vote. Leading PRI officials say privately the party hopes to take advantage of that fragmentation again to eke out victory in 2018. However, it is still unclear who will be the party s candidate. Pena Nieto is barred by law from seeking re-election. Further crowding the pool of anti-systemic candidates, Senator Armando Rios Piter, an independent former member of the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), also registered a run for the presidency on Wednesday. The PRD was once led by Lopez Obrador, but he turned his back on it to found a new leftist movement in 2014, frequently accusing his former allies as being lackeys of the PRI. The PRD meanwhile, has decided to forge a  broad front  with the main center-right opposition party, the National Action Party (PAN), to defeat the PRI. Officials from both parties say they could back an independent candidate to lead their bid. All told, ten independents have so far registered, according to the National Electoral Institute (INE). Three of those contenders failed to meet initial requirements, the INE said. Lopez Obrador has attacked Rodriguez s independent credentials, describing him as a tool of the PRI, and helping to fuel an increasingly bitter rivalry between the two.  According to him (Lopez Obrador), he s the only good guy in the country,  Rodriguez told Radio Formula.  We re all devils in the rest of the country, he s the only saint.

Summary: मावेरिक राज्य के गवर्नर ने मैक्सिकन राष्ट्रपति पद पर निशाना साधा


PARIS (Reuters) - President Emmanuel Macron told U.S. President Donald Trump that the Paris climate deal could not be renegotiated and that while France would continue to work with Washington, it would no longer discuss climate issues with the United States, a French source said.  “The president spoke with President Trump in a five-minute phone call. The exchange was direct,” a source close to Macron said. “The president said that they could continue to talk, but indicated that nothing was renegotiable with regard to the Paris accords. The United States and France will continue to work together, but not on the subject of climate,” the source added.

Summary: फ्रांस के मैक्रों ने ट्रम्प से कहा कि पेरिस समझौते पर फिर से बातचीत नहीं की जा सकती-स्रोत


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Senate on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved legislation that would boost domestic travel security in the wake of the Brussels attacks and authorize the programs of the Federal Aviation Administration through September 2017. The 95-3 vote sends the measure to the House of Representatives, where lawmakers have been unable to make headway on their own FAA bill because of differences over a provision to privatize the U.S. air traffic control system.   The bipartisan Senate measure, which sidesteps the privatization issue, contains a series of travel security provisions that Senate Republicans have promoted as the most comprehensive increase in airport security in nearly a decade.  The measures include doubling the number of transportation security teams with bomb-sniffing dogs at domestic airports, as well as stronger vetting of airport employees and increased security at check-in and baggage claim areas. The bill also authorizes spending for FAA operations, airport improvements, aviation research and development, and requires airlines to compensate passengers for lost bags and refund charges for undelivered services.  Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee Chairman John Thune said the legislation would “make travel safe and secure and more passenger-friendly.” The Senate measure also contains a lengthy section on unmanned aircraft that would require new policy standards for commercial drones involving safety, privacy, design and identification and the use of data gathered by the aircraft.

Summary: ब्रसेल्स के बाद सीनेट ने यात्रा सुरक्षा बढ़ाने के लिए विधेयक पारित किया


NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday withdrawing the country from the Paris climate accord would stave off an economic crisis and protect American jobs - but many American companies seemed to disagree. Criticism of his decision rolled in from blue-chip companies like Facebook Inc, Apple Inc , Ford Motor Co  and Microsoft Corp , while the response from fossil fuel groups with the most to gain from a relaxation of U.S. carbon emissions standards was muted.  Tesla Inc Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk and Walt Disney Co CEO Robert Iger said they would leave White House advisory councils over Trump’s decision. In an interview on Thursday, the president of the World Coal Association, Benjamin Sporton, told Reuters that he had mixed feelings about Trump’s announcement, adding he was eager to see a U.S. policy that actively promotes a place for coal in the global energy mix. “What we really need to see, if the president wants to re-enter the deal, is that he can change the agreement to recognize the role of all sources of energy, including coal,” Sporton said, adding his group had described to administration officials the benefits of remaining in the agreement. The American Petroleum Institute, the oil and gas industry’s biggest trade group, meanwhile, issued a statement saying it had never taken an official position on the Paris accord.  A number of its members, including Exxon Mobil Corp and ConocoPhillips, had publicly supported the deal. “For us, our position on the Paris agreement... we need a framework like that to address the risks of climate change,” Exxon Mobil CEO Darren Woods told reporters on the sidelines of the company’s annual general meeting on Wednesday. Some other groups expressed measured support for Trump’s decision, saying it provided an opportunity to fix problems with the deal. “Manufacturers support the spirit of the Paris Agreement and the effort to address climate change through a fair international agreement. But as the president has acknowledged, certain elements of this deal were not equitable for U.S. manufacturers,” said Ross Eisenberg, vice president for energy and resources policy at the National Association of Manufacturers, in a statement to Reuters.  A spokesman for Peabody Energy Corp, America’s largest publicly traded coal miner, had said on Wednesday that the company would support a decision by Trump to withdraw from the Paris deal because the “accord is flawed on a number of levels.” Trump vowed during his campaign to pull the United States out of the Paris deal, arguing the pact would cost the United States trillions of dollars, kill jobs, and stymie economic growth without providing tangible benefit. His critics have argued, however, that the risks of climate change require action, and that a shift to a low-carbon energy economy can create more jobs than it eliminates. Spokespeople for other extractive oil and mining groups, like the National Mining Association and the American Fuel & Petrochemicals Manufacturers, declined to comment on Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris accord. But a number of other business leaders derided it in forceful terms. “Today’s decision is a setback for the environment and for the U.S.’s leadership position in the world,” said Goldman Sachs Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein in his first-ever tweet.  “Disappointed with today’s decision on the Paris Agreement. Climate change is real. Industry must now lead and not depend on government,” tweeted General Electric Co’s Jeff Immelt. Apple’s CEO Tim Cook, meanwhile, posted to Twitter: “Decision to withdraw from the #ParisAgreeement was wrong for our planet” and “Apple is committed to fight climate change and we will never waver”. “Withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement is bad for the environment, bad for the economy, and it puts our children’s future at risk,” wrote Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in a Facebook post.

Summary: जलवायु समझौते से ट्रम्प की वापसी को अमेरिकी कंपनियों से मिली-जुली प्रतिक्रिया मिली


(Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Donald Trump is expected to pick Goldman Sachs executive Gary Cohn to head his White House National Economic Council, a group tasked with coordinating economic policy across federal agencies, a Trump transition official told Reuters on Friday.  The following is a list of Republican Trump’s selections for top jobs in his administration. All the posts but that of national security adviser, the White House chief of staff, White House director of the National Economic Council and White House strategist require Senate confirmation: Sessions, 69, was the first U.S. senator to endorse Trump’s presidential bid and has been a close ally since. Son of a country-store owner, the Alabama senator and former federal prosecutor has long taken a tough stance on illegal immigration, opposing any path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.  U.S. Representative Pompeo, 52, is a third-term congressman from Kansas who serves on the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, which oversees the CIA, National Security Agency and cyber security. A retired Army officer and Harvard Law School graduate, Pompeo supports the U.S. government’s sweeping collection of Americans’ communications data and wants to scrap the nuclear deal with Iran.     Ross, 78, heads the private equity firm W.L. Ross & Co. His net worth was pegged by Forbes at about $2.9 billion. A staunch supporter of Trump and an economic adviser, Ross helped shape the Trump campaign’s views on trade policy. He blames the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico, which went into force in 1994, and the 2001 entry of China into the World Trade Organization for causing massive U.S. factory job losses.     Mattis is a retired Marine general known for his tough talk, distrust of Iran and battlefield experience in Iraq and Afghanistan. A former leader of Central Command, which oversees U.S. military operations in the Middle East and South Asia, Mattis, 66, is known by many U.S. forces by his nickname “Mad Dog.” He was once rebuked for saying in 2005: “It’s fun to shoot some people.” DeVos, 58, is a billionaire Republican donor, a former chair of the Michigan Republican Party and an advocate for the privatization of education. As chair of the American Federation for Children, she has pushed at the state level for vouchers that families can use to send their children to private schools and for the expansion of charter schools. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY ADMINISTRATOR: SCOTT PRUITT An ardent opponent of President Barack Obama’s measures to stem climate change, Oklahoma Attorney General Pruitt, 48, has enraged environmental activists. But he fits with the president-elect’s promise to cut the agency back and eliminate regulation that he says is stifling oil and gas drilling. Pruitt became the top state prosecutor for Oklahoma, which has extensive oil reserves, in 2011, and has challenged the EPA multiple times since. U.S. Representative Price, 62, is an orthopedic surgeon who heads the House Budget Committee. A representative from Georgia since 2005, Price has criticized Obamacare and has championed a plan of tax credits, expanded health savings accounts and lawsuit reforms to replace it. He is opposed to abortion. The final leadership role of Kelly’s 45-year career was head of the U.S. Southern Command, responsible for U.S. military activities and relationships in Latin America and the Caribbean. The 66-year-old retired Marine general differed with Democratic President Barack Obama on key issues and has warned of vulnerabilities along the United States’ southern border with Mexico. Carson, 65, is a retired neurosurgeon who dropped out of the Republican presidential nominating race in March and threw his support to Trump. A popular writer and speaker in conservative circles, Carson previously indicated reluctance to take a position in the incoming administration because of his lack of experience in the federal government. Carson is the first African-American picked for a Cabinet spot by Trump. McMorris Rodgers, a 47-year-old U.S. congresswoman from Washington state, is the fourth most senior member of the House of Representatives leadership. A member of the House Energy Committee, she has supported efforts to expand the U.S. energy industry such as the recent repeal of the decades-old ban on oil exports and efforts to reject the Environmental Protection Agency’s Waters of the United States Act. She has also expressed skepticism about climate change. Before joining Congress in 2004, McMorris Rodgers served for a decades in the Washington state legislature, eventually becoming the first woman there to serve as minority leader. Cohn, 56, president and chief operating officer of investment bank Goldman Sachs, had widely been considered heir apparent to Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of the Wall Street firm. Trump hammered Goldman and Blankfein during the presidential campaign, releasing a television ad that called Blankfein part of a “global power structure” that had robbed America’s working class. Puzder, chief executive officer of CKE Restaurants Inc, which runs the Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s fast-food chains, has been a vociferous critic of government regulation of the workplace and the National Labor Relations Board. Puzder, 66, has argued that higher minimum wages would hurt workers by forcing restaurants to close, and praises the benefits of automation, so his appointment is likely to antagonize organized labor.  Retired Lieutenant General Flynn, 57, was an early Trump supporter and serves as vice chairman on his transition team. He began his Army career in 1981 and was deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq. Flynn became head of the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2012 under President Barack Obama but retired a year earlier than expected, according to media reports, and became a fierce critic of Obama’s foreign policy. McMahon, 68, is a co-founder and former chief executive of the professional wrestling franchise WWE, which is based in Stamford, Connecticut. She ran unsuccessfully as a Republican for a U.S. Senate seat in Connecticut in 2010 and 2012, and was an early supporter of Trump’s presidential campaign. Chao, 63, was labor secretary under President George W. Bush for eight years and the first Asian-American woman to hold a Cabinet position. She is a director at Ingersoll Rand, News Corp and Vulcan Materials Company. She is married to U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican from Kentucky. Mnuchin, 53, is a successful private equity investor, hedge fund manager and Hollywood financier who spent 17 years at Goldman Sachs before leaving in 2002. He assembled an investor group to buy a failed California mortgage lender in 2009, rebranded it as OneWest Bank and built it into Southern California’s largest bank. Housing advocacy groups criticized the bank for its foreclosure practices, accusing it of being too quick to foreclose on struggling homeowners. Haley, 44, has been the Republican governor of South Carolina since 2011 and has little experience in foreign policy or the federal government. The daughter of Indian immigrants, she led a successful push last year to remove the Confederate battle flag from the grounds of the South Carolina state capitol after the killing of nine black churchgoers in Charleston by a white gunman. Recently re-elected to serve as Republican National Committee chairman, Priebus will give up his party post to join Trump in the White House, where the low-key Washington operative could help forge ties with Congress to advance Trump’s agenda. The 44-year-old was a steadfast supporter of Trump during the presidential campaign even as the party fractured amid the choice. CHIEF WHITE HOUSE STRATEGIST, SENIOR COUNSELOR: STEVE BANNON, The former head of the conservative website Breitbart News came aboard as Trump’s campaign chairman in August. A rabble-rousing conservative media figure, he helped shift Breitbart’s into a forum for the alt-right, a loose confederation of those who reject mainstream politics and includes neo-Nazis, white supremacists and anti-Semites. His hiring signals Trump’s dedication to operating outside the norms of Washington. As White House chief of staff, Bannon, 63, will serve as Trump’s gatekeeper and agenda-setter.

Summary: फैक्टबॉक्सः ट्रंप ने अपने प्रशासन के लिए शीर्ष पदों को भरा


ABOARD THE PAPAL PLANE (Reuters) - Pope Francis said the recent spate of hurricanes should prompt people to understand that humanity will  go down  if it does not address climate change and history will judge those who deny the science on its causes.  If we don t turn back, we will go down,  Francis told reporters on Sunday on the plane returning from Colombia. Francis strongly backed the 2015 Paris agreement on reducing global warming, from which the United States withdrew this year. Francis spoke as hurricane Irma pounded central Florida as it carved through the state with high winds, storm surges and torrential rains that left millions without power, ripped roofs off homes and flooded city streets. Francis was asked about recent hurricanes, including Irma and Harvey, and if political leaders who do not want to work with other countries to stem global warming should be held morally responsible for future effects on the planet.  You can see the effects of climate change and scientists have clearly said what path we have to follow,  he said, referring to a consensus by scientists that global warming is caused by human activity such as fossil fuels.  All of us have a responsibility, all of us, small or large, a moral responsibility. We have to take it seriously. We can t joke about it,  he said.  Each person has their own. Even politicians have their own.  Ahead of the Paris summit in 2015, Francis wrote a major encyclical, or papal letter, on the care of the environment which backed the gradual elimination of fossil fuels to stem global warming. The accord, agreed on by nearly 200 countries, aims to cut emissions blamed for global warming. The United States committed to reducing its own by 26 to 28 percent, compared with 2005 levels, by 2025. Many world leaders criticized Trump for pulling out.  If someone is doubtful that this is true, they should ask scientists. They are very clear. These are not opinions made on the fly.  They are very clear. Then each person can decide and history will judge the decisions,  he said. U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew from the Paris agreement shortly after visiting the Vatican in May. The Vatican had urged him to stay in the accord. A Vatican official said at the time that the U.S. move was a  slap in the face  for the pope and the Vatican.

Summary: पोप कहते हैं कि अगर यह जलवायु परिवर्तन को संबोधित नहीं करता है तो मानवता 'नीचे चली जाएगी'


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Friday abandoned his false claim that Barack Obama was not born in the United States after spending five years peddling conspiracy theories that the country’s first African-American president started life as a foreigner. But, never one to let a controversy go without fanning its flames, Trump accused Hillary Clinton, his Democratic rival in the Nov. 8 election, of starting the so-called birther movement in her failed 2008 presidential campaign against Obama, a claim that does not stand up to scrutiny. Trump, who has won back some ground in opinion polls and made the White House race more competitive after he went through a summer slump, made his announcement in an attempt to clear the air as he prepares for the first of three televised presidential debates with Clinton on Sept. 26. “President Barack Obama was born in the United States. Period,” said Trump, a real estate developer. “Now we all want to get back to making America strong and great again,” he said at an event in Washington at a new Trump International Hotel down the street from the White House. Devoting only about 30 seconds to the subject, Trump did not apologize and did not expand upon his abrupt decision to shift from a stance he held for five years. The New York businessman brought up the birther controversy as far back as 2011, appealing to a right-wing fringe of voters who formed the early base of his support when he launched his presidential bid last year. The birther conspiracy movement is aimed at challenging the legality of Obama’s presidency - the U.S Constitution requires that a president be a natural-born citizen. During his presidential campaign, Trump has readily trafficked in other theories that are the stuff of American supermarket tabloids. There was his declaration that the father of U.S. Senator Ted Cruz, one of Trump’s many rivals for the Republican nomination, might have been linked to the assassin of President John F. Kennedy. And there was his false claim that thousands of Muslims in Jersey City, New Jersey, cheered when the World Trade Center twin towers collapsed in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. In making his announcement on Friday, Trump advanced a widely debunked claim that Clinton and her 2008 campaign had been the original birthers. “Hillary Clinton and her campaign of 2008 started the birther controversy. I finished it. You know what I mean,” he said. His campaign directed reporters to a 2007 memo from then-Clinton adviser Mark Penn, who had encouraged the Clinton campaign to go negative against Obama by saying that his Hawaiian birth and boyhood in Indonesia gave him limited roots in American values and culture. Penn eventually left the Clinton campaign, and his advice was never acted upon.     The Democratic National Committee on Friday condemned Trump’s bid to link Clinton to the birther idea. “He had the audacity to spout a new lie about the birther movement that he helped to build,” it said. Clinton, who leads Trump by 4 percentage points in the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll, on Friday demanded Trump apologize to the president for having helped spread the birther idea and said Trump had tried to “delegitimize our first black president.” “His campaign was founded on this outrageous lie. There is no erasing it in history,” Clinton said in an address to the Black Women’s Association in Washington. Clinton seized on the issue after struggling to overcome the fallout from her remark a week ago that half of Trump’s supporters are in a “basket of deplorables” and her initial secrecy about her pneumonia diagnosis. Obama, who produced the longer version of his Hawaiian birth certificate in 2011 to prove doubters wrong, had famously mocked Trump over the issue at a White House Correspondents Association dinner as the wealthy businessman sat in the audience fuming. Still, Trump clung to the contention that Obama was foreign-born, tweeting in August 2012: “An ‘extremely credible source’ has called my office and told me that @BarackObama’s birth certificate is a fraud.” On Friday, Obama was asked for his reaction to the latest Trump declaration. “I’m shocked that a question like that has come up at a time when we have so many other things to do. Well, I’m not that shocked actually. It’s fairly typical. We’ve got other things to attend to,” he said. “I was pretty confident about where I was born.” Trump’s embrace of the birther movement has incensed black Americans, whose votes Trump has been trying to court. Members of the Congressional Black Caucus held a news conference on Friday to urge African-American voters to resist any temptation to support Trump. “I’m wondering when this country is going to awaken from this reality show,” said Representative Brenda Lawrence, a Democrat. First lady Michelle Obama told a crowd in Fairfax, Virginia, that her husband has set a strong example for those who have doubted “whether my husband was even born in this country.” “Well, during his time in office, I think Barack has answered those questions with the example he’s set: by going high when they go low. And he’s answered these questions with the progress that we’ve achieved together,” she said. At a rally in Miami later on Friday, Trump pushed back on the idea that he and his supporters were racist, saying that when Democrats are in trouble politically, “they always pull out the racist word.” He walked out at the rally to a song from the musical “Les Miserables” in front of a backdrop that read “Les Deplorables,” a reference to Clinton’s comment last week about his supporters. The issue of Obama’s birthplace has not been a factor in the campaign leading up to the November presidential election, but it resurfaced in recent days, taking the focus of Trump’s White House bid away from topics such as immigration, trade and the economy, which he has been using to hit Clinton. Trump revived the birther controversy on Thursday in an interview with The Washington Post when he declined to say whether he believed Obama was born in Hawaii.     Trump had promised “a big announcement” about the birther issue on Friday, giving the impression it was the purpose of the event at his hotel.  Instead, he held off saying anything about it through more than 20 minutes of endorsements from military veterans. Only then did Trump make a brief statement about Obama’s birth. Trump devoted more time at the beginning of the event to talking about his hotel where the event took place. He ignored reporters’ shouted questions.

Summary: ट्रंप ने आखिरकार ओबामा के जन्म के दावे का समर्थन किया, झूठा दावा करते हुए कहा कि क्लिंटन ने इसे शुरू किया था


STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - A passenger train derailed in eastern Sweden after colliding with an armored vehicle during a major military exercise in the area, leaving at least four people injured, authorities said on Tuesday. The armored vehicle collided with a train near the small town of Trosa, about one hour south of the capital. Three people in the military vehicle were injured in the collision while one person on the train was also hurt, police said.  The driver of the train sustained minor injuries,  a spokesman for railway operator SJ said. The train had three cars and was carrying about 70 passengers, he added.  The Swedish armed forces and some NATO allies of the neutral country are currently conducting their biggest war games in two decades, with some of the activities taking place in the area where the accident took place.

Summary: स्वीडन में बख्तरबंद वाहन से टकराने के बाद ट्रेन पटरी से उतरी, चार घायल


(Reuters) - The largest labor federation in the United States, the AFL-CIO, endorsed Hillary Clinton for president on Thursday, vowing to throw the full weight of more than 50 unions representing 12.5 million members behind the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.      “Hillary Clinton is a proven leader who shares our values,” AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said in a statement. “We will run a sophisticated, targeted ground campaign. And with the dire consequences Donald Trump poses for America’s working families, it has to be.”  While the federation generally does not endorse a Democratic candidate until there is an official nominee, Trumka has warned for months that he believes Republican presumptive nominee Donald Trump would be disastrous for working people if elected.  After the endorsement, Clinton pledged to spend more on public infrastructure and to fight to improve schools. She vowed to increase the federal minimum wage, offer paid family leave and ensure that women receive equal pay. “As president, I will stand proudly with the AFL-CIO and fight to protect the rights and values that helped build the mighty American middle class. Workers will always have a seat at the table and a champion in the White House,” Clinton said in a statement. The AFL-CIO has already run digital ads criticizing Trump’s candidacy and will now work to boost Clinton’s campaign on the ground. Working America, one AFL-CIO affiliate that deals with nonunion workers, already has teams in crucial so-called battleground states. In response to the federation’s endorsement of Clinton, Trump’s campaign said the AFL-CIO no longer represents the interests of American workers. “I will fight harder for American workers than anyone ever has,” Trump said in a statement. Trump attacked Clinton for supporting free trade agreements and said he would win a majority of votes from U.S. union families.

Summary: लेबर पावरहाउस ए. एफ. एल.-सी. आई. ओ. ने क्लिंटन का समर्थन किया, 'लक्षित अभियान' का संकल्प लिया


LONDON (Reuters) - Britain will pledge on Monday that its commitment to security and defense in Nordic and Baltic nations will not change after Brexit, seeking to reassure states affected by what foreign minister Boris Johnson described as  Russian antagonism . The Foreign Office said Johnson would host a meeting of foreign ministers from eight countries, including Estonia, Sweden and Latvia, on Monday to discuss issues including Russia, NATO and defense co-operation after Britain s EU exit.  In an increasingly complex world, Britain remains a reassuring presence to its friends, especially those facing continued Russian antagonism in the north of Europe and the Baltic region,  he said in a statement ahead of the meeting. He cited the deployment British troops in Estonia, which in March reached around 800 personnel, as a statement that Britain stands by its allies  in the face of outside aggression  and of its commitment to NATO.  Britain wants a safe and secure world, and as we leave the European Union, we will continue to defend and promote our common interests, as we rise to any challenges we face together,  he said.

Summary: ब्रिटेन का कहना है कि ब्रेक्सिट के बाद नॉर्डिक और बाल्टिक राज्यों में रक्षा प्रतिबद्धता डगमगाएगी नहीं


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two U.S. senators from Midwestern states will introduce a bill on Tuesday that would require foreign companies buying U.S. food and agriculture firms to undergo a review aimed at ensuring the deal would not hurt U.S. food security. The legislation from Senators Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican, and Debbie Stabenow, a Michigan Democrat, would add the secretaries of the Agriculture Department and Health and Human Services, which oversees the Food and Drug Administration, to a panel that reviews mergers and other deals to ensure that transactions do not harm national security. The agencies would join a group that has traditionally focused on preventing sensitive high technology and military expertise from falling into the wrong hands. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, or CFIUS, as the panel is known, is headed by the Treasury Department and includes the departments of Defense, Justice, Homeland Security, Commerce, State and Energy. The bill currently has no companion in the U.S. House of Representatives. Representative Robert Pittenger, a Republican from North Carolina, has proposed exploring the idea of putting the agriculture secretary and the head of the Food and Drug Administration on the CFIUS board. Lawmakers have been concerned about several deals in the farm sector, and Stabenow was critical of the 2013 purchase of pork giant Smithfield Foods, Inc by China’s Shuanghui International Holdings, Ltd. Since the discovery of tainted baby formula in China in 2008, the country has been hit by a series of food safety scandals. Chinese officials uncovered as many as 500,000 food safety violations in the first nine months of 2016, an official told Reuters in December. The CFIUS panel is so secretive it normally does not even comment after it makes a decision on a deal. It approves most transactions, but under former President Barack Obama, CFIUS stopped a series of Chinese acquisitions of high-end chip makers.  In December, Obama blocked Aixtron’s 670 million euro ($717 million) sale to Fujian Grand Chip Investment Fund over national security concerns. In January 2016, CFIUS stopped Philips from selling its U.S. lighting business to GO Scale Capital, made up of GSR Ventures, Oak Investment Partners, Asia Pacific Resource Development and Nanchang Industrial Group.

Summary: अमेरिकी कंपनियों के विदेशों में बेचे जाने पर सीनेटर खाद्य सुरक्षा समीक्षा चाहते हैं


(Reuters) - Ailing Puerto Rico would receive $295 million in Medicaid funding from the federal government as part of the U.S. Congress’ spending plan to avert a government shutdown, Governor Ricardo Rossello said on Monday.  Rossello said in a statement in Spanish that he was “grateful” for the addition in the spending bill reached late Sunday night.  The full House of Representatives and Senate must approve the bipartisan pact, though prompt passage was expected this week. Puerto Rico’s public health system is nearly insolvent, a key driver of emigration that has decimated the U.S. territory’s population as it wrestles with $70 billion in debt, a 45 percent poverty rate and unemployment twice the U.S. average. The island faces a deadline at midnight Monday to negotiate a debt-cutting agreement with creditors, or open itself up to lawsuits over debt defaults. It could also file for a modified version of U.S. bankruptcy to protect itself from such litigation. One creditor, who owns insured Puerto Rican bonds, said the proposal was “not even close to a good proposal. “Not just lowball but also not a well constructed proposal,” said Sean Burgess, portfolio manager and lead trader for Puerto Rico strategy at Sarasota, Florida-based Cumberland Advisors. The island’s aggressive lobbying for federal healthcare funding in Washington is seen as a possible detractor to filing bankruptcy, which would not garner sympathy from Congressional Republicans who opposed the in-court restructuring provision in last year’s Puerto Rico rescue law, PROMESA. The $295 million will help fund the island’s Medicaid budget for fiscal year 2018, which starts July 1, and enable Puerto Rico to contract with managed care health insurance companies that administer the Medicaid program.  Without the money, the island would have to run the Medicaid program on its own, a massive undertaking that Puerto Rico is not equipped to do, said island Health Secretary Dr. Rafael Rodríguez-Mercado. But Puerto Rico will still need an additional $300 million to fund its entire Medicaid budget for fiscal year 2018, Rodríguez-Mercado told Reuters in an interview on Monday. He hopes that money will come from the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) in September. Puerto Rico’s $2.76 billion Medicaid budget has been funded in part by a one-time pool of money provided to U.S. territories under the Affordable Care Act, commonly referred to as Obamacare.  That money is expected to run out by the end of 2017, triggering what island officials call the “Medicaid cliff” — the return to a federal funding cap of $321 million for Puerto Rico’s Medicaid program. U.S. territories receive proportionately less federal Medicaid reimbursement than U.S. states. Prior to Obamacare, Puerto Rico partially funded its Medicaid budget through bonds, exacerbating the island’s debt crisis.  In recent weeks, Governor Ricardo Rossello has been lobbying to boost Puerto Rico’s healthcare funding, warning that Washington’s failure to do so would leave some 900,000 people without health coverage.

Summary: अमेरिकी कांग्रेस प्यूर्टो रिको को अल्पकालिक चिकित्सा सहायता देगी


ATHENS (Reuters) - A makeshift bomb exploded outside a Greek court in Athens early on Friday shattering windows and damaging the facade of the building, police officials said.  Shots were also fired at a person guarding the Athens Appeal Court building, Justice Minister Stavros Kontonis told state TV. The Justice Ministry suspended the court s operation for one day. There were no reports of injuries. Two Greek media organizations received warning calls at 2:50 a.m. (0050 GMT), before the explosion, one official said.  Police, who had cordoned off the area, later found a bag which contained the makeshift bomb outside the building. Police were also investigating footage from cameras nearby, another official said, and reports of two people leaving the scene in a van. Small-scale attacks on businesses, state buildings, police and politicians are frequent in Greece, which has a long history of political violence.  Public anger remains high after seven years of belt-tightening in a crisis that has cut thousands of jobs and eroded living standards Protesters have repeatedly tried to block foreclosure auctions of home at courts, a key condition of Greece s international bailout. Electronic auctions started in November.

Summary: एथेंस की अदालत के बाहर विस्फोट, खिड़कियां टूटी, कोई घायल नहीं


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The chairman of the U.S. Senate health committee on Tuesday urged U.S. President Donald Trump to drop his threat to cut government subsidy payments to insurers that make Obamacare plans affordable and allow the payments through September. Republican Senator Lamar Alexander said his committee would begin bipartisan hearings on stabilizing the individual health insurance market the week of Sept. 4 and urged fellow lawmakers to fund the cost-sharing subsidies for one year.

Summary: सीनेट स्वास्थ्य बीमा बाजार पर सितंबर की सुनवाई की योजना बना रहा है


MADRID (Reuters) - The Catalan government s business head resigned on Thursday, a government source said, after regional president Carles Puigdemont ruled out elections and left the possibility of a unilateral declaration of independence from Spain. Santi Vila had said he was opposed to such a declaration and La Vanguardia newspaper reported he favored regional elections.

Summary: कैटलन सरकार के व्यापार प्रमुख ने स्वतंत्रता रणनीति को लेकर दिया इस्तीफा


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two key U.S. senators on Monday asked Equifax Inc (EFX.N) to answer detailed questions about a breach of information affecting up to 143 million Americans, including whether U.S. government agency records were compromised in the hack. Senator Orrin Hatch, who chairs the Finance Committee, and ranking Democrat Ron Wyden, also demanded that Equifax Chief Executive Rick Smith provide a timeline of the breach and its discovery. They asked for information on when authorities and the company’s board were notified and when three executives who sold stock in the company in August were first told of the data breach.  Equifax did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the letter. It came amid mounting scrutiny of the company’s response to the breach from lawmakers, regulators and security experts, prompting the credit-monitoring services to issue an apology on Friday and pledge to dedicate more resources to helping affected consumers. “The scope and scale of this breach appears to make it one of the largest on record, and the sensitivity of the information compromised may make it the most costly to taxpayers and consumers,” the letter said. Equifax announced last week that it learned on July 29 that hackers had infiltrated its systems in mid-May, pilfering names, birthdays, addresses and Social Security and driver’s license numbers. Cyber security experts said it was among the largest data hacks ever recorded and was particularly troubling due to the richness of the information exposed. Three days after Equifax discovered the breach, three top Equifax executives, including Chief Financial Officer John Gamble and a president of a unit, sold Equifax shares or exercised options to dispose of stock worth about $1.8 million, regulatory filings show. Equifax said in a statement last week that the executives were not aware that an intrusion had occurred when they sold their shares. Hatch and Wyden asked Smith to respond by Sept. 28. Other congressional committees have announced plans to hold hearings investigating the Equifax breach and want answers. The senators want to know if Equifax has a chief information security officer and over the past two years “how many times has Equifax employed third-party cyber security experts to conduct penetration tests of its internal and external systems?” The senators want copies of all Equifax penetration test and audit reports by outside cyber security firms. Separately, a group of 20 Democratic senators asked Equifax to end its use of forced arbitration agreements, which limit the ability of consumers to pursue claims, and not to lobby to reverse a new rule from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to limit the use of forced arbitration in the financial services sector.

Summary: प्रमुख अमेरिकी सीनेटरों ने इक्विफैक्स हैकिंग पर जवाब मांगे


MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia said it had repeatedly warned the United States it would retaliate against what it saw as hostile moves and was growing tired of showing restraint, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said, the Interfax news agency reported. Ryabkov’s comments came after the U.S. House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday to slap new sanctions on Russia and force President Donald Trump to obtain lawmakers’ permission before easing any sanctions on Moscow.

Summary: रूस ने चेतावनी दी है कि वह नए अमेरिकी प्रतिबंध विधेयक के बाद जवाबी कार्रवाई करने के करीब हैः इफैक्स


STRASBOURG (Reuters) - The European Parliament named its press room in Strasbourg after Daphne Caruana Galizia, the Maltese journalist killed last month in a car bomb after years of reporting allegations of deep-rooted corruption on the island. On a day when the EU legislature debated a broadly supported resolution questioning the rule of law in Malta and demanding answers on allegations of high-level money laundering made by Caruana Galizia, the ceremony underlined the pressure the Union s smallest state has found itself under since her Oct. 16 murder. In the auditorium used for news conferences in Parliament s Strasbourg seat, the new name above the door would, Parliament President Antonio Tajani said, ensure that from now on  we will not turn our eyes away from what happened in Malta . At the Parliament s other home, in Brussels, the press room is named after Anna Politkovskaya, the Russian investigative journalist shot dead in her apartment block in Moscow in 2006 in a killing opposition leaders blamed on the Kremlin. Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, who had sued Caruana Galizia and one of her sons for libel over allegations of graft, has vowed to track down her killers and insists that the Maltese state is fully compliant with EU standards. Peter Caruana Galizia, the dead journalist s husband, said during the naming ceremony in Strasbourg in the presence of other family members that Malta s political elite had  deep and wide  links to money laundering networks and the country had  slipped further and further away from European values .

Summary: यूरोपीय संघ की संसद ने हत्या किए गए माल्टीज़ पत्रकार के नाम पर प्रेस कक्ष का नाम रखा


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle donated less to charities in 2015 as their income also dipped, tax returns released by the White House showed on Friday. The Obamas donated $64,066 to 34 charities last year, down nearly 9.4 percent from their donations of $70,712 in 2014 to 33 charities.  For both years, the couple donated slightly less than 15 percent of their income to charity. On average, Americans donate about 3 percent of their income to charity, according to the Chronicle of Philanthropy. The Obamas earned $436,065 in 2015, down nearly 8.7 percent from $477,383 in 2014, continuing a downward trend as sales of the president’s books slowed. As president, Obama is entitled to a $400,000 annual salary. Most of the rest of the couple’s income came from the book sales.  Their top charity donation of $9,066 went to Fisher House Foundation, which provides housing for military families near military hospitals. The couple gave the organization $22,012 in 2014.  The couple also gave $5,000 to the Beau Biden Foundation, an organization that honors the life of Vice President Joe Biden’s son, who died of brain cancer last year.  The Obamas paid $81,472 in total tax, with an effective federal income tax rate of 18.7 percent. Biden and his wife Jill, a community college professor,  reported a combined income of $392,233, up from $388,844 in 2014.

Summary: ओबामा ने 2015 में चैरिटी को कम दान दिया क्योंकि आय में गिरावट आई


MOSCOW (Reuters) - Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday that Moscow regarded updated U.S. sanctions on Russia extremely negatively. The U.S. Treasury s Office of Foreign Assets Control on Tuesday published an amendment which bans U.S. entities from helping sanctioned Russian oil companies in exploration or production for deepwater, Arctic offshore, or shale projects anywhere in the world. Peskov said extending the original sanctions to cover projects globally was unacceptable for Moscow.

Summary: क्रेमलिन ने रूस पर अद्यतन अमेरिकी प्रतिबंधों को बेहद नकारात्मक बताया


ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkish police arrested 15 senior military officers in an investigation into the network of a U.S.-based cleric who Ankara accuses of orchestrating last year s attempted coup, state-run Anadolu news agency said on Friday. It said police were seeking one more officer in the operation, focused on the capital Ankara and spread across nine provinces, adding that 12 of the total 16 suspects were serving officers. Among the suspects were seven colonels and nine lieutenant colonels from Turkey s gendarmerie force, which maintains security in rural areas, the Hurriyet news website said. More than 50,000 people, including security personnel and civil servants, have been jailed pending trial in the aftermath of the failed putsch, which the government blames on Islamic preacher Fethullah Gulen. He has denied involvement.     Some 150,000 people have also been suspended or dismissed in a crackdown which rights groups say has been used as a pretext to muzzle dissent but which the government says has been necessary due to the security threats Turkey faces. Police operations targeting alleged followers of Gulen have been conducted on a near daily basis since the coup attempt in July 2016, and authorities issued arrest warrants for 44 teachers on Friday, Anadolu said. The suspects were former teachers at Gulen-linked schools which were previously closed by state decree, Anadolu said. Twenty-eight of the teachers were arrested so far. Schools linked to Gulen s network have been established across Asia, Africa and the United States and since the putsch, Turkey has asked countries including Afghanistan and Pakistan to close them down.

Summary: तुर्की पुलिस ने गुलेन जांच में 15 वरिष्ठ सैन्य अधिकारियों को गिरफ्तार कियाः अनादोलु


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two senior U.S. House of Representatives Republicans said on Friday they have agreed on terms for the reauthorization of the deeply indebted National Flood Insurance Program. House Majority Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana and House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling of Texas said in a statement: “The bill we support will begin to make the flood insurance program more stable and sustainable for the people who count on it. We look forward to bringing this legislation to the House soon and urge our colleagues to support it.” They did not provide any details of the agreement. Lawmakers are wrestling with how to handle the flood insurance program’s expiration on Dec. 8. It is at least $24.6 billion in debt to the U.S. Treasury and likely to face billions of dollars in additional costs due to Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, which struck Texas and Florida in recent weeks. The program was extended 17 times between 2008 and 2012 and lapsed four times in that period. A 2012 law extended the program to September. In October the House and Senate approved $16 billion of funding to help the program cover claims from recent natural disasters after reaching its borrowing limit.

Summary: दो प्रमुख रिपब्लिकन राष्ट्रीय बाढ़ बीमा पर सहमत हैं


BEIJING (Reuters) - A scooter driver in a bright blue jacket on a food delivery run dashes across a busy intersection slick with rain, hits a turning car and is hurled along the tarmac in a video posted by Chinese police warning that couriers should slow down. China s home delivery boom, powered by an estimated three million couriers, most of them riding quiet electric scooters or boxy three-wheelers, has triggered a surge in road accidents, prompting warnings from police and complaints from drivers who say they feel pressure to put speed before safety.  Accidents happen all the time at rush hour. I have a friend who was hit by a car and could not work for two months,  said a food courier in Beijing surnamed Zhang, declining to give his full name. The number of users of China s online food delivery market, dominated by services backed by technology giants Alibaba Group Holding Ltd and Tencent Holdings Ltd, surged  41.6 percent to 300 million in the first half of 2017, according to a report by the state-controlled China Internet Network Information Center.      After 76 injuries and deaths involving food delivery drivers in Shanghai were recorded in the first half of 2017 alone, police called in China s largest food delivery companies in late August to warn them to improve safety standards.  Drivers from China s two largest food delivery companies, Meituan-Dianping and Ele.me, were responsible for about a quarter of all the incidents, the Shanghai police said. The news sparked a countrywide reaction as city police and state media came out to chastise the industry for accidents. Police in the eastern city of Nanjing met with food delivery companies on Sept 20 after couriers were involved in more than 3,000 accidents in the first half of 2017, over 90 percent of which were deemed their fault, state media reported.   The official Legal Daily urged authorities to  mobilise the masses  to use phone cameras to catch offenders and punish their employers, identified by distinctively colored uniforms. A spokesman for Meituan, whose drivers wear a fluorescent yellow, said that the company has safety training for drivers and conducted more than 300 driver training courses in July. He said there was a 13.6 percent drop in traffic incidents in the following month. A spokeswoman for Ele.me said it tells drivers that  safety is first, speed is second  and that the company recently launched a system to track traffic violations by drivers, as well as offering rewards to onlookers who report incidents. China s drivers are rarely mugged or shot - a risk facing their counterparts in parts of the United States and some other countries - but they often suffer injuries on the country s hectic city roads.   While drivers typically take the blame for accidents, labor activists and numerous drivers said incentives make speed a necessity. The Hong Kong-based China Labour Bulletin, which tracks labor action in China, said couriers are increasingly airing their grievances, staging protests and strikes to demand better wages and accident insurance.  Drivers can face fines for late deliveries or poor customer ratings, the drivers said, adding that companies do not always provide insurance or coverage for accidents. Companies say drivers are covered by public and third party liability insurance. Food delivery drivers told Reuters that they are expected to do up to 40 deliveries in one 10-to-12-hour shift, usually with a time limit of under half an hour per delivery. Being on time and getting good reviews from customers can mean an extra 5 yuan (0.75 U.S. cents) or so per delivery. Couriers are also usually not hired directly by the companies that design the ordering software. Instead, they work freelance or for third party companies, leaving them without direct contracts with the platform operators. In August, dozens of Meituan drivers staged a strike in the southern city of Yixing to complain about pay and injury compensation, showing off their scab-covered legs and using hand-written equations to show how a build up of fines for late deliveries can eat into their salaries. The vast majority of drivers are migrant workers under the age of 26 who send most of their income home to support their families, according to a 2016 report by Meituan-dianping.   Food delivery platforms  management needs to become more humane,  the official People s Daily newspaper said in a recent commentary.  Switch from an operating model that only seeks speed to one that only seeks stability... don t let delivery drivers risk their lives delivering meals.  An Ele.me spokeswoman acknowledged that  balancing delivery speed and traffic safety is indeed very hard , adding that the company is working to use artificial intelligence to optimize routes and monitor drivers. Criticism has mostly targeted food delivery companies as their drivers face greater time pressure and have less well-defined routes than those delivering other packages. But the wider delivery industry also has its problems. Niu Hongqiang, 23, a driver from Hebei province working for a package delivery company in Beijing said that the safety training he received was  useless.   When something goes wrong, it goes wrong in a big way.

Summary: सुरक्षा से अधिक गति? चीन के खाद्य वितरण उद्योग ने दुर्घटनाओं पर चेतावनी दी


MANILA (Reuters) - The Philippines  military chief vowed no letup on Monday in hunting down and destroying extremist groups loyal to Islamic State, saying Marawi City would be retaken within days after the pivotal killing of two top rebel commanders. General Eduardo Ano said the successful operation to take out the two leaders was a  triumph of good over evil  and urged the 30 militants remaining in a shrinking combat zone to surrender and free hostages as troops stepped up their fight.  It will be just a matter of days before it will finally be declared that Marawi has been liberated from the clutches of terrorists,  Ano told a televised news conference.  There will be no let up. It s about time to end these terrorists.  Isnilon Hapilon, Islamic State s anointed  emir  in Southeast Asia, was shot in the head by a sniper and Omarkhayam Maute, one of two Middle East-educated  Khalifas  at the helm of the militant alliance, died of a chest wound in a targeted operation during the night, officials said. The mission came after a freed hostage disclosed the leaders  location. Ano said the bodies had been recovered and identified by experts and by captured rebels. The deaths of Hapilon and Maute is a major win for a  military criticized for its slow progress in retaking Marawi and the ease with which rebels laid siege to it on May 23, before holding the heart of the city for nearly five months. The United States has for years offered a bounty of up to $5 million for the elusive Hapilon over his activities as a faction leader of Abu Sayyaf, a group notorious for kidnapping, piracy and for beheading hostages, including foreigners. Experts say Hapilon was an Islamist ideologue who took fighters from his faction to join forces with the Maute clan, a well-funded extremist group on the island of Mindanao that emerged only last year. Abdullah Maute, the alliance s military commander, was reported killed in August, though no body was found. Ano said another key operative, Malaysian Mahmud Ahmad, was believed to be in the battle zone.   The leaders have been central to rebels regrouping, re-arming and recruiting after previous clashes over the past two years, growing stronger each time.   The alliance, Dawla Islamiya, has been bolstered by fighters from Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and the Middle East, among other countries. Experts say foreigners have aided funding and recruiting, preying on vulnerable youth, as shown by the presence of teenagers and child soldiers in Marawi. The military will target the destruction of all groups tied to Islamic State by the end of the year, Ano said.  There will be no let-up. It s about time to end these terrorists in Mindanao. The resistance, or what s left of it, the terrorists, will crumble. It is a dead end, there is nowhere else to go.  Rommel Banlaoi, head of the Philippine Institute for Political Violence and Terrorism Research, warned of retaliatory attacks from leaders  deputies, who would assume control.  He described Monday s operation as a  tremendous setback  to Islamic State loyalists, but said security forces should avoid complacency, boost intelligence and tackle recruitment.  We have seen many times in the past, the death of key leaders will not prevent the terrorist organizations from wreaking havoc,  Banlaoi told news channel ANC. More than 300,000 Filipinos have been displaced by the fighting, which authorities say has killed 824 rebels, 47 civilians and 162 military. The occupation has been the biggest internal security crisis in the Catholic-majority Philippines for years, compounding fears that Islamic State s extremist agenda and its advanced recruitment methods are more widespread than previously thought. Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said defense chiefs would assess whether to lift martial law in Mindanao. He said all cities on the island of 22 million people were vulnerable to attack, but authorities were vigilant.

Summary: फिलीपींस ने दो नेताओं की हत्या के बाद इस्लामिक स्टेट समर्थक समूहों को कुचलने का संकल्प लिया


NEW YORK (Reuters) - Former President Barack Obama used a rare public appearance on Wednesday to question Republicans’ latest effort to repeal his signature healthcare law, saying it would inflict “real human suffering” on Americans. In his speech at a Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation event in New York City, Obama also laid out an optimistic vision of the world’s future while implicitly criticizing Republican President Donald Trump’s “America First” philosophy. The remarks were one of the few times that Obama, a Democrat, has spoken publicly since he left office in January. “It is aggravating,” Obama said of the Republican attempt to eliminate Obamacare. “It’s certainly frustrating to have to mobilize every couple of months to keep our leaders from inflicting real human suffering on our constituents.” But Obama said the healthcare fight was a good example of the way that advancement is often made: through fits and starts, with backward steps tempering every success. “Progress is never inevitable,” he said. “It can often be fragile; it’s in need of constant renewal.” The true test, he said, was in how people respond in times of difficulty, when their efforts to make the world better run into resistance. “Your response has to be to reject cynicism and reject pessimism and to push forward with a certain infectious and relentless optimism,” he said. “Not blind optimism, not one that ignores the scale and the scope of challenges, but that hard-earned optimism that is rooted in the stories of very real progress that have occurred throughout human history.” The speech came a day after Trump addressed the United Nations General Assembly for the first time as president, offering a full-throated defense of nationalism and expressing skepticism about multilateral foreign policy. During a question-and-answer session with Bill and Melinda Gates after his speech, Obama said the United States cannot hope to solve the world’s biggest problems, such as climate change or mass migration, on its own. As he has largely done since leaving office, Obama did not mention Trump by name, but he made it clear that he disagreed with the president’s viewpoint. “You don’t have to cede your sovereignty or it doesn’t make you less patriotic to believe that,” Obama said. “You just have to have some sense - and read.”

Summary: दुर्लभ सार्वजनिक भाषण में ओबामा ने रिपब्लिकन स्वास्थ्य सेवा विधेयक की निंदा की


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama said on Wednesday he hoped “cooler heads will prevail” and that the Republican-led Senate will act on his U.S. Supreme Court nominee but top Republicans dug in their heels, defending their refusal to consider anyone Obama picks. Obama has narrowed to five his list of candidates to replace conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, who died on Feb. 13. Obama’s nominee could tip the nine-member court to the left for the first time in decades. The Republicans who control the Senate have vowed not to hold confirmation hearings or an up-or-down vote on anyone Obama picks, saying the choice should belong to the next president who takes office in January after the Nov. 8 presidential election. “My hope is that cooler heads will prevail and people will reflect on what’s at stake here once a nomination is made,” Obama said at a news conference with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The White House is interviewing five candidates, federal judges Sri Srinivasan, Jane Kelly, Ketanji Brown Jackson, Paul Watford and Merrick Garland, according to a source familiar with the process. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, whose panel handles Supreme Court nominations, offered a lengthy defense of the Senate Republicans’ stance. Grassley accused Democrats of a “charade” with feigned outrage over the Republican refusal to consider Obama’s nominee simply to “score as many political points as possible.” “Regardless of what some are willing to admit publicly, everybody knows any nominee submitted in the middle of this presidential campaign isn’t getting confirmed. Everybody. The White House knows it. Senate Democrats know it. Republicans know it. Even the press knows it,” Grassley told a committee hearing. Under the U.S. Constitution, the president selects a Supreme Court nominee and the Senate confirms or rejects the nominee. “I’m going to do my job,” Obama said, promising an “eminently qualified” nominee. “And it will then be up to Senate Republicans to decide whether they want to follow the Constitution and abide by the rules of fair play that ultimately undergird our democracy and that ensure that the Supreme Court does not just become one more extension of our polarized politics,” Obama said.  Denis McDonough, Obama’s chief of staff, and other presidential aides met with Judiciary Committee Democrats at the White House on the nomination. Afterward, the Democratic senators predicted Republicans would buckle under public pressure and drop their “obstruction” once Obama names his nominee. “We are optimistic that, soon enough, not only will the president nominate, but our Republican colleagues will see the light,” said U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer, forecasting that Obama’s nominee will be confirmed with bipartisan support. Separately, one Republican senator indicated Senate Republicans would act on a nominee if they had a Republican president. “If a conservative president’s replacing a conservative justice, there’s a little more accommodation to it,” Wisconsin’s Ron Johnson told a radio interviewer. “President Obama’s nominee would flip the court from a 5-4 conservative to a 5-4 liberal-controlled court. And that’s the concern,” Johnson added. THE GRASSLEY-KELLY CONNECTION Grassley in 2013 spoke in favor of Kelly’s nomination to the St. Louis-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit. She was confirmed by a 96-0 Senate vote. Kelly, an Obama classmate at Harvard Law School, is based in Iowa and previously served as a federal public defender there. The Iowa senator rejected any notion he could be persuaded to drop his opposition if Obama were to nominate a candidate previously confirmed by him and other Republicans. He denounced the idea that the White House selection process was “guided by the raw political calculation of what they think will exert the most political pressure on me.” Choosing someone like Kelly from Iowa would be an “obvious political ploy” that would fail, Grassley added. Senator Orrin Hatch, another Judiciary Committee Republican, said in an interview that Garland, whose previous nomination to the appellate court he backed, is “a fine man” who would be “a moderate choice” for the high court.  But Hatch said he opposed acting even on Garland. “It isn’t a question about the person in my opinion. It’s a question about the timing ... and the atmosphere that we have around here, which is poisonous,” Hatch said. Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid delivered his latest attack on Grassley, saying on the Senate floor that it was “a little strange, a little odd” that Grassley would not hold hearings even for Kelly, considering his past support. Iowa’s Tom Miller, a Democrat, was among a group of attorneys general from 19 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico who sent a letter to Grassley and other Senate leaders urging them to act promptly on Obama’s nominee.

Summary: ओबामा को उम्मीद है कि सुप्रीम कोर्ट के नामित व्यक्ति पर 'ठंडे सिर' की जीत होगी


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. House of Representatives Republicans unveiled long-delayed legislation on Thursday to deliver deep tax cuts that President Donald Trump has promised, setting off a frantic race in Congress to give him his first major legislative victory. The 429-page bill, representing what would be the largest overhaul of the U.S. tax system since the 1980s, called for slashing the corporate tax rate to 20 percent from 35 percent, cutting tax rates on individuals and families and ending certain tax breaks for companies and individuals. Congressional passage of this legislation that would affect nearly every U.S. company and family was far from certain, and some business groups quickly came out against it. Contentious provisions will test Republicans, who control the White House and both chambers of Congress but have been unable to deliver any major legislative achievements for Trump since the businessman-turned-politician became president in January. A number of provisions would hit taxpayers in Democratic-leaning states hardest, like rolling back deductions for state and local taxes and cutting in half the popular mortgage interest deduction.  The legislation, called the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, produces new advantages for rich Americans through lowered corporate taxes, phasing out the estate tax and dumping the alternative minimum tax.  “This is a very important and special moment for our country, for all Americans. Are we going to let the defenders of the status quo win and see our country continue down this downward spiral?” Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan asked, despite data showing about eight straight years of economic growth. Meeting with Ryan and other key House Republicans, Trump told the lawmakers he was counting on them to maintain the momentum for tax cuts, and repeated his request that Congress send him the legislation to sign into law by the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday on Nov. 23. That is an ambitious timetable for such a long, multi-faceted piece of legislation that will face a ferocious lobbying battle among business sectors affected by the bill and fierce opposition from many Democrats. Trump called the bill an “important step” toward tax relief for Americans, adding in a statement, “We are just getting started, and there is much work left to do.” The bill presented by the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee would consolidate the current number of tax brackets to four from seven: 12 percent, 25 percent, 35 percent and 39.6 percent. An earlier Republican tax outline had called for cutting the top rate for the highest earners to 35 percent. The National Association of Home Builders blasted the legislation, saying it would damage home prices and punish homeowners in urban areas.  “We’re concerned if enacted, this bill will throw us back into another housing recession,” Jerry Howard, the group’s president, said in an interview. The group said the provision in the bill capping the interest deduction for future home purchases at $500,000 - half the current amount - was unacceptable. Howard said 7 million homes are currently above $500,000 and in high-cost regions like Washington, D.C., New York City, California and Hawaii, the impact would be felt the most.  The bill would repeal the existing deduction for state and local income and sales taxes, and would cap the deduction for state and local property taxes at $10,000. Those provisions would most affect Americans in higher-tax states such as California, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Illinois. The National Federation of Independent Business, the influential small business lobby, also came out against the bill, while the U.S. Chamber of Commerce business lobby backed it. Ryan said the typical family of four would save $1,182 annually on taxes under the bill.  With Democrats solidly opposed to legislation they see as a giveaway to corporations and the rich that would expand the federal deficit, Republicans can ill afford to lose many in their own ranks as they aim to pass the bill in the coming weeks. “Ultimately, what the American people really get from this tax plan is a huge bill for the debt incurred to pay for tax breaks that line the pockets of Donald Trump personally along with his billionaire buddies. Like a Trump University degree, it is phony,” said Democratic congressman Lloyd Doggett. The bill’s architects avoided one showdown by deciding not to make changes to the popular tax-deferred 401(k) retirement savings program. The bill would roughly double the standard deduction for individuals and families. But it would repeal a personal exemption of $4,050 that taxpayers can currently claim for themselves, their spouse and any dependents. The legislation would also phase out tax-exempt financing for sports stadiums and subject large private universities to 1.4-percent excise tax on investment income. It would also repeal a long standing prohibition on religious institutions being involved in political activities. The bill would create a new family tax credit and double exemptions for estate taxes on inherited assets, while also allowing small businesses to write off loan interest. The bill would cap the maximum tax rate on small businesses and other non-corporate enterprises at 25 percent, down from the present maximum rate on “pass-through” income of 39.6 percent. It would set standards for distinguishing between individual wage income and actual pass-through business income to prevent tax-avoidance abuse of the new, lower tax level. It would create a new 10-percent tax on U.S. companies’ high-profit foreign subsidiaries, calculated on a global basis, in a move to prevent companies from moving profits overseas. Foreign businesses operating in the United States would face a tax of up to 20 percent on payments they make overseas from their American operations. U.S. equities have rallied in 2017 to a series of record highs, partly on expectations of deep corporate tax cuts. Shares of U.S. homebuilders fell after the bill was released, with luxury homebuilders including Toll Brothers taking the biggest hit. As investors parsed its provisions, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up modestly and the S&P 500 was down slightly. Investors cautioned the tax plan was preliminary and it was too soon to gauge the effect on specific industries. [nL2N1N81IG] The Ways and Means Committee will begin formal consideration of the bill next week before the full House can vote on it. It also must pass the Senate, where Republicans hold a slimmer 52-48 majority and earlier this year failed to garner enough votes to approve a major healthcare overhaul sought by Trump.

Summary: रिपब्लिकन ने कर कटौती विधेयक का अनावरण किया, लेकिन कड़ी मेहनत का इंतजार है