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- House on the brink of approving Ukraine and Israel aid after months of struggleon April 20, 2024 at 5:18 am
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House is preparing in a rare Saturday session to approve $95 billion in foreign aid for Ukraine, Israel and other U.S. allies, Democrats and Republicans joining together behind the legislation after a grueling months-long fight over renewed American support for repelling Russia’s invasion into Ukraine. Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson — putting his job on the line — relied on Democratic support this week to set up a series of votes on three aid bills, as well as a fourth that contains several other foreign policy proposals. If the votes are successful, the package will go to the Senate, where passage in the coming days is nearly assured. President Joe Biden has promised to sign it immediately. Passage through the House would clear away the biggest hurdle to Biden’s funding request, first made in October as Ukraine’s military supplies began to run low. The GOP-controlled House, skeptical of U.S. support for Ukraine, struggled for months over what to do, first demanding that any assistance be tied to policy changes at the U.S. southern border — only to immediately reject a bipartisan Senate offer along those very lines. Reaching an endgame has been an excruciating lift for Johnson that has tested both his resolve and his support among Republicans, with a small but growing number now openly urging his removal from the speaker’s office. Yet congressional leaders cast the votes as a turning point in history — an urgent sacrifice as U.S. allies are beleaguered by wars and threats from continental Europe to the Middle East to Asia. “The only thing that has kept terrorists and tyrants at bay is the perception of a strong America, that we would stand strong,” Johnson said this week. “And we will. I think that Congress is going to show that. This is a very important message that we are going to send the world.” Still, Congress has seen a stream of world leaders visit in recent months, from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, all but pleading with lawmakers to approve the aid. Globally, the delay left many questioning America’s commitment to its allies. At stake has also been one of Biden’s top foreign policy priorities — halting Russian President Vladimir Putin’s advance in Europe. After engaging in quiet talks with Johnson, the president quickly endorsed Johnson’s plan this week, paving the way for Democrats to give their rare support to clear the procedural hurdles needed for a final vote. “It’s long past time that we support our democratic allies in Israel, Ukraine and the Indo-Pacific and provide humanitarian assistance to civilians who are in harm’s way in theaters of conflict like Gaza, Haiti and the Sudan,” House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said at a news conference Friday. Voting on the package is likely to create unusual alliances in the House. While aid for Ukraine will likely win a majority in both parties, a significant number of progressive Democrats are expected to vote against the bill aiding Israel as they demand an end to the bombardment of Gaza that has killed thousands of civilians. At the same time, Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has loomed large over the fight, weighing in from afar via social media statements and direct phone calls with lawmakers as he tilts the GOP to a more isolationist stance with his “America First” brand of politics. Ukraine’s defense once enjoyed robust, bipartisan support in Congress, but as the war enters its third year, a bulk of Republicans oppose further aid. At one point in the months-long slog to get Ukraine assistance through Congress, Trump’s opposition essentially doomed the bipartisan Senate proposal on border security. This week, Trump also issued a social media post that questioned why European nations were not giving more money to Ukraine, though he spared Johnson from criticism and said Ukraine’s survival was important. Still, the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus has derided the legislation as the “America Last” foreign wars package and urged lawmakers to defy Republican leadership and oppose it because the bills do not include border security measures. Johnson’s hold on the speaker’s gavel has also grown more tenuous in recent days as three Republicans, led by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, supported a “motion to vacate” that can lead to a vote on removing the speaker. A few more were expected to soon join, said Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, who is urging Johnson to voluntarily step aside. The speaker’s office has been working furiously to whip up support for the bill, as well as for Johnson. It arranged a series of press calls in the lead-up to the final votes on the package, first with Jewish leaders, then with Christian groups, to show support for the speaker and the legislation he is bringing to the floor. Ari Fleischer, a former White House press secretary under President George W. Bush, said it was about time the United States “did something to support Israel, fight Vladimir Putin and stand up to China.” “Coming together like this is a refreshing reminder of the old days when foreign policy had bipartisan support,” he said. The package includes several Republican priorities that Democrats endorse, or at least are willing to accept. Those include proposals that allow the U.S. to seize frozen Russian central bank assets to rebuild Ukraine; impose sanctions on Iran, Russia, China and criminal organizations that traffic fentanyl; and legislation to require the China-based owner of the popular video app TikTok to sell its stake within a year or face a ban in the United States. Still, the all-out push to get the bills through Congress is a reflection not only of politics, but realities on the ground in Ukraine. Top lawmakers on national security committees, who are privy to classified briefings, have grown gravely concerned about the situation in recent weeks. Russia has increasingly used satellite-guided gliding bombs — which allow planes to drop them from a safe distance — to pummel Ukrainian forces beset by a shortage of troops and ammunition. “I really do believe the intel and the briefings that we’ve gotten,” Johnson said, adding, “I think that Vladimir Putin would continue to march through Europe if he were allowed.” A former ambassador to Ukraine under President George W. Bush, John Herbst, said the months-long delay in approving more American assistance has undoubtedly hurt Ukrainian troops on the battlefield. But it’s not yet too late, Herbst added. “The fact that it’s coming now means that disaster has been averted.” Brought to you by www.srnnews.com
- Senate passes reauthorization of key US surveillance program after midnight deadlineon April 20, 2024 at 5:18 am
WASHINGTON (AP) — After its midnight deadline, the Senate voted early Saturday to reauthorize a key U.S. surveillance law after divisions over whether the FBI should be restricted from using the program to search for Americans’ data nearly forced the statute to lapse. The legislation approved 60-34 with bipartisan support would extend for two years the program known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. It now goes to President Joe Biden’s desk to become law. White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Biden “will swiftly sign the bill.” “In the nick of time, we are reauthorizing FISA right before it expires at midnight,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said when voting on final passage began 15 minutes before the deadline. “All day long, we persisted and we persisted in trying to reach a breakthrough and in the end, we have succeeded.” U.S. officials have said the surveillance tool, first authorized in 2008 and renewed several times since then, is crucial in disrupting terror attacks, cyber intrusions, and foreign espionage and has also produced intelligence that the U.S. has relied on for specific operations, such as the 2022 killing of al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahri. “If you miss a key piece of intelligence, you may miss some event overseas or put troops in harm’s way,” Sen. Marco Rubio, the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said. “You may miss a plot to harm the country here, domestically, or somewhere else. So in this particular case, there’s real-life implications.” The proposal would renew the program, which permits the U.S. government to collect without a warrant the communications of non-Americans located outside the country to gather foreign intelligence. The reauthorization faced a long and bumpy road to final passage Friday after months of clashes between privacy advocates and national security hawks pushed consideration of the legislation to the brink of expiration. Though the spy program was technically set to expire at midnight, the Biden administration had said it expected its authority to collect intelligence to remain operational for at least another year, thanks to an opinion earlier this month from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which receives surveillance applications. Still, officials had said that court approval shouldn’t be a substitute for congressional authorization, especially since communications companies could cease cooperation with the government if the program is allowed to lapse. House before the law was set to expire, U.S. officials were already scrambling after two major U.S. communication providers said they would stop complying with orders through the surveillance program, according to a person familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private negotiations. Attorney General Merrick Garland praised the reauthorization and reiterated how “indispensable” the tool is to the Justice Department. “This reauthorization of Section 702 gives the United States the authority to continue to collect foreign intelligence information about non-U.S. persons located outside the United States, while at the same time codifying important reforms the Justice Department has adopted to ensure the protection of Americans’ privacy and civil liberties,” Garland said in a statement Saturday. But despite the Biden administration’s urging and classified briefings to senators this week on the crucial role they say the spy program plays in protecting national security, a group of progressive and conservative lawmakers who were agitating for further changes had refused to accept the version of the bill the House sent over last week. The lawmakers had demanded that Majority Leader Chuck Schumer allow votes on amendments to the legislation that would seek to address what they see as civil liberty loopholes in the bill. In the end, Schumer was able to cut a deal that would allow critics to receive floor votes on their amendments in exchange for speeding up the process for passage. The six amendments ultimately failed to garner the necessary support on the floor to be included in the final passage. One of the major changes detractors had proposed centered around restricting the FBI’s access to information about Americans through the program. Though the surveillance tool only targets non-Americans in other countries, it also collects communications of Americans when they are in contact with those targeted foreigners. Sen. Dick Durbin, the No. 2 Democrat in the chamber, had been pushing a proposal that would require U.S. officials to get a warrant before accessing American communications. “If the government wants to spy on my private communications or the private communications of any American, they should be required to get approval from a judge, just as our Founding Fathers intended in writing the Constitution,” Durbin said. In the past year, U.S. officials have revealed a series of abuses and mistakes by FBI analysts in improperly querying the intelligence repository for information about Americans or others in the U.S., including a member of Congress and participants in the racial justice protests of 2020 and the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. But members on both the House and Senate intelligence committees as well as the Justice Department warned requiring a warrant would severely handicap officials from quickly responding to imminent national security threats. “I think that is a risk that we cannot afford to take with the vast array of challenges our nation faces around the world,” Democratic Sen. Mark Warner, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Friday. __ Associated Press writers Eric Tucker contributed to this report. Brought to you by www.srnnews.com
- Trump set to gain national delegates as the only choice for Wyoming Republicanson April 20, 2024 at 5:18 am
Republicans in Wyoming will decide Saturday which presidential candidate will get their state’s votes at the GOP national convention this summer — but they will have only one choice. Former President Donald Trump will be the only candidate listed on a presidential preference poll at the state Republican convention in Cheyenne. The poll will decide how all 29 of Wyoming’s delegates to the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee pledge their first-round votes. Trump clinched the Republican nomination in March. If any other candidates are vying for the party’s nomination at the July convention, the Wyoming delegates will be free to vote for anyone they wish in any subsequent rounds of convention voting. Twenty-three of Wyoming’s national delegates — one from each county in the state — already have been selected at Republican county conventions that began in February. The remaining six will be chosen at the state convention. Republicans are dominant in Wyoming politics and gave Trump the highest percentage of votes of any state in 2020. Wyoming Democrats have a similar process for allocating delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August. They held a preference poll at county caucuses on April 13 that will determine how the state’s 17 national delegates will be pledged in the first-round convention vote. Brought to you by www.srnnews.com
- Israel and Iran’s apparent strikes and counterstrikes give new insights into both militarieson April 20, 2024 at 5:18 am
WASHINGTON (AP) — Israel demonstrated its military dominance over adversary Iran in its apparent precision strikes that hit near military and nuclear targets deep in the heart of the country, meeting little significant challenge from Iran’s defenses and providing the world with new insights into both militaries’ capabilities. The international community, Israel and Iran all signaled hopes that Friday’s airstrikes would end what has been a dangerous 19-day run of strikes and counterstrikes, a highly public test between two deep rivals that had previously stopped short of most direct confrontation. The move into open fighting began April 1 with the suspected Israeli killing of Iranian generals at an Iranian diplomatic compound in Syria. That prompted Iran’s retaliatory barrage last weekend of more than 300 missiles and drones that the U.S., Israel and regional and international partners helped bat down without significant damage in Israel. And then came Friday’s apparent Israeli strike. As all sides took stock, regional security experts predicted that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government and the country’s allies would emerge encouraged by the Israeli military’s superior performance. In response to international appeals, however, both Israel and Iran had appeared to be holding back their full military force throughout the more than two weeks of hostilities, aiming to send messages rather than escalate to a full-scale war. Crucially, experts also cautioned that Iran had not brought into the main battle its greatest military advantage over Israel — Hezbollah and other Iran-allied armed groups in the region. Hezbollah in particular is capable of straining Israel’s ability to defend itself, especially in any multifront conflict. Overall, “the big-picture lesson to take away is that unless Iran does absolutely everything at its disposal all at once, it is just the David, and not the Goliath, in this equation,” said Charles Lister, a senior fellow and longtime regional researcher at the Washington-based Middle East Institute. Aside from those Iranian proxy forces, “the Israelis have every single advantage on every single military level,” Lister said. In Friday’s attack, Iranian state television said the country’s air defense batteries fired in several provinces following reports of drones. Iranian army commander Gen. Abdolrahim Mousavi said crews targeted several flying objects. Lister said it appeared to have been a single mission by a small number of Israeli aircraft. After crossing Syrian airspace, it appears they fired only two or three Blue Sparrow air-to-surface missiles into Iran, most likely from a standoff position in the airspace of Iran’s neighbor Iraq, he said. Iran said its air defenses fired at a major air base near Isfahan. Isfahan also is home to sites associated with Iran’s nuclear program, including its underground Natanz enrichment site, which has been repeatedly targeted by suspected Israeli sabotage attacks. Israel has not taken responsibility for either the April 1 or Friday strikes. The Jewish Institute for National Security of America, a Washington-based center that promotes Israeli-U.S. security ties, quickly pointed out that Friday’s small strike underscored that Israel could do much more damage “should it decide to launch a larger strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities.” Iran’s barrage last weekend, by contrast, appears to have used up most of its 150 long-range ballistic missiles capable of reaching Israel, more than 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) away, said retired Gen. Frank McKenzie, former commander of the U.S. military’s Central Command. Especially given the distance involved and how easy it is for the U.S. and others to track missile deployments by overhead space sensors and regional radar, “it is hard for Iran to generate a bolt from the blue against Israel,” McKenzie said. Israelis, for their part, have “shown that Israel can now hit Iran from its soil with missiles, maybe even drones,” said Alex Vatanka, director of the Iran program at the Middle East Institute. Iran’s performance Friday, meanwhile, may have raised doubts about its ability to defend against such an attack, Vatanka said. Iran is about 80 times the size of Israel and thus has much more territory to defend, he noted. Plus, Israel demonstrated that it can rally support from powerful regional and international countries, both Arab and Western, to defend against Iran. The U.S. led in helping Israel knock down Iran’s missile and drone attack on April 13. Jordan and Gulf countries are believed to have lent varying degrees of assistance, including in sharing information about incoming strikes. The two weeks of hostilities also provided the biggest showcase yet of the growing ability of Israel to work with Arab nations, its previous enemies, under the framework of U.S. Central Command, which oversees U.S. forces in the Middle East. The U.S. under the Trump administration moved responsibility for its military coordination with Israel into Central Command, which already hosted U.S. military coordination with Arab countries. The Biden administration has worked to deepen the relationship. But while the exchange of Israeli-Iran strikes revealed more about Iran’s military abilities, Lebanon-based Hezbollah and other Iranian-allied armed groups in Iraq and Syria largely appeared to stay on the sidelines. Hezbollah is one of the most powerful militaries in the region, with tens of thousands of experienced fighters and a massive weapons arsenal. After an intense war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006 that killed more than a thousand Lebanese civilians and dozens of Israeli civilians, both sides have held back from escalating to another full-scale conflict. But Israeli and Hezbollah militaries still routinely fire across each other’s borders during the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. Hezbollah “is Iran’s only remaining potential advantage in this whole broader equation,” Lister said. Six months of fighting in Gaza have “completely stretched” Israel’s military, he said. “If Hezbollah went all out and launched the vast majority of its rocket and missile arsenal at Israel, all at once, the Israelis would seriously struggle to deal with that.” And in terms of ground forces, if Hezbollah suddenly opened a second front, the Israel Defense Forces “would be incapable at this point” of fighting full-on with both Hezbollah and Hamas, he said. Brought to you by www.srnnews.com
- California is rolling out free preschool. That hasn’t solved challenges around child careon April 20, 2024 at 5:18 am
CONCORD, Calif. (AP) — A year before I-Ting Quinn’s son was old enough for kindergarten, she and her husband had the option to enroll him in “transitional kindergarten,” a program offered for free by California elementary schools for some 4-year-olds. Instead, they kept their son, Ethan, in a private day care center in Concord, California, at a cost of $400 a week. Transitional kindergarten’s academic emphasis was appealing, but Ethan would have been in a half-day program, and options for afterschool child care were limited. And for two parents with hectic work schedules in the hospitality industry, there was the convenience of having Ethan and his younger brother at the same day care, with a single stop for morning drop-off and evening pickup. “Ethan is navigating changes at home with a new younger brother and then possibly a new school where he is the youngest,” Quinn said. “That doesn’t even include the concerns around drop-off and pickups, including transportation to and from his class to afterschool care at a different location. It is just a lot to consider.” Investments that California and other states have made in public preschool have helped many parents through a child care crisis, in which quality options for early learners are often scarce and unaffordable. But many parents say the programs don’t work for their families. Even when Pre-K lasts the whole school day, working parents struggle to find child care before 9 a.m. and after 3 p.m. No state has a more ambitious plan for universal preschool than California, which plans to extend eligibility for transitional kindergarten to all 4-year-olds by fall 2025 as part of a $2.7 billion, four-year expansion. The idea is to provide a two-year kindergarten program to prepare children earlier for the rigors of elementary school. Enrollment in the optional program has grown more slowly than projected. Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, had estimated about 120,000 students would enroll last year; however, the average daily attendance was around 91,000 students. Through December of this year, the average daily attendance was about 125,000 students, said Sara Cortez, a policy analyst for the California Legislative Analyst’s Office. Coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic, some families no longer see the same value in traditional kindergarten. Some are just as happy with programs that don’t have an academic component. School days requiring midday pickups also can sway families toward private day cares, Head Start programs and other alternatives offering full-day care. Some schools hosting transitional kindergarten offer child care before or after instruction, but not all. “If your school doesn’t offer those wraparound child care services at the beginning or end of school days, then staying in child care may be the only option parents have,” said Deborah Stipek, a former dean of the Graduate School of Education at Stanford University, who has advocated for equitable access to early childhood education in California. States including Iowa, Michigan, New Jersey and Washington have provided early learning options similar to transitional kindergarten, and there is evidence of the program’s benefits. In California, where the programs are taught by educators with the same credential requirements as kindergarten teachers, a five-year study found their students entered kindergarten with stronger mathematics and literacy skills. In Michigan, where the transitional kindergarten program is not offered statewide, the programs have been linked to increases in third-grade test scores in math and English. A California study, however, found no such test score increase by third or fourth grade. “Kids are getting the opportunity to become familiar with the school environment before they start kindergarten,” said Anna Shapiro, a policy researcher at RAND who has studied early childhood program effectiveness for about a decade and analyzed the TK program in Michigan. Another benefit to transitional kindergarten is that it’s free. María Maldonado, who has seven children and works at a deli in Los Angeles, sends her 4-year-old daughter, Audrey, to transitional kindergarten at Para Los Niños Charter Elementary School. Her daughter likes it so much, Maldonado said she would happily pay even if it wasn’t free. The program includes afterschool care, so Audrey remains at the school from 7 a.m. until 6 p.m. Audrey is learning to read and can count to 35, and asks to stay at the school longer when her parents arrive well before pickup time, her mother said. Maldonado only wishes she had heard about the program sooner for her other children. She said she was sold on the school after visiting and speaking to the teachers. “Academically, they have to learn everything they’re taught. But if the atmosphere is good, that’s a combination that will keep kids happy. As a result, this girl loves going to school,” she said. As of this school year, California’s transitional kindergarten was open only to 4-year-old children who turn 5 by early April. The cutoff will widen to include more kids this fall in a graduated expansion. For Ethan’s parents, the emphasis on play-based learning at his day care center, run by KinderCare, was an important factor in their decision to keep him there, in addition to the all-day care. “There are families who choose to stay with us because we have full-time, full-year care,” said Margot Gould, senior manager of government relations for KinderCare, which operates in 40 states. Ethan’s father, Scott Quinn, recalls thinking, “How bad can it be?” when they opted out of transitional kindergarten. But he has been discouraged to see Ethan — one of the oldest kids in his day care class — pick up the behavior of kids who are several years younger than him. “In retrospect, it would have been better to send him to school to be around kids his age and older,” he said. I-Ting Quinn said she also has feelings of regret as she sees Ethan outgrow some of his previous needs, including a midday nap. The couple considered enrolling him in TK midway through the school year, but ultimately decided it would cause too much stress in managing the logistics of their work schedules. Raising Ethan was her first exposure to the fragmented landscape of early education, and she said she wishes she started considering the options even before she was pregnant. “That’s easier said than done,” she said. The Quinns are planning to move to Connecticut this year to be closer to family and are looking into kindergarten options for Ethan. “We are for sure enrolling him in a public kindergarten. Not only is he ready, but we are.” ___ AP data reporter Sharon Lurye reported from New Orleans. ___ The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org. Brought to you by www.srnnews.com
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