Congress’ analyst: Millions to lose coverage under GOP bill
WASHINGTON (AP) — Fourteen million Americans would lose coverage next year under House Republican legislation remaking the nation’s health care system, and that number would balloon to 24 million by 2026, Congress’ budget analysts projected Monday. Their report deals a stiff blow to a GOP drive already under fire from both parties and large segments of the medical industry.
The Congressional Budget Office report undercuts a central argument President Donald Trump and Republicans have cited for swiftly rolling back the 2010 health care overhaul: that the insurance markets created under that statute are “a disaster” and about to implode. The congressional experts said the market for individual policies “would probably be stable in most areas under either current law or the (GOP) legislation.”
The report also flies in the face of Trump’s talk of “insurance for everybody,” which he stated in January. He has since embraced a less expansive goal — to “increase access” — advanced by House Speaker Paul Ryan and other Republicans.
Health secretary Tom Price told reporters at the White House the report was “simply wrong” and he disagreed “strenuously,” saying it omitted the impact of additional GOP legislation and regulatory changes the Trump administration plans.
In a signal of trouble, Rep. Mark Walker, R-N.C., leader of a large group of House conservatives, said the report “does little to alleviate” concerns about the bill including tax credits considered too costly.
———
Justice Dept. asks for more time on wiretapping evidence
WASHINGTON (AP) — Facing a Monday deadline, the Justice Department asked lawmakers for more time to provide evidence backing up President Donald Trump’s unproven assertion that his predecessor wiretapped his New York skyscraper during the election. The request came as the White House appeared to soften Trump’s explosive allegation.
The House intelligence committee said it would give the Justice Department until March 20 to comply with the evidence request. That’s the date of the committee’s first open hearing on the investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election and possible contacts between Trump associates and Russia.
A spokesman for the committee’s Republican chairman said that if the Justice Department doesn’t meet the new deadline, the panel might use its subpoena power to gather information.
“If the committee does not receive a response by then, the committee will ask for this information during the March 20 hearing and may resort to a compulsory process if our questions continue to go unanswered,” said Jack Langer, a spokesman for Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif.
Trump’s assertions have put his administration in a bind. Current and former administration officials have been unable to provide any evidence of the Obama administration wiretapping Trump Tower, yet the president’s aides have been reluctant to publicly contradict their boss.
———
UK Parliament gives government power to begin EU exit
LONDON (AP) — Britain lurched closer to leaving the European Union Monday when Parliament stopped resisting and gave Prime Minister Theresa May the power to file for divorce from the bloc.
But in a blow to May’s government, the prospect of Scotland’s exit from the United Kingdom suddenly appeared nearer, too. Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon called for a referendum on independence within two years to stop Scotland being dragged out of the EU against its will.
In an announcement that took many London politicians by surprise, Sturgeon vowed that Scotland would not be “taken down a path that we do not want to go down without a choice.”
Sturgeon spoke in Edinburgh hours before the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill passed its final hurdle in Parliament’s upper chamber, the House of Lords.
The House of Commons approved the bill weeks ago, but the 800-strong Lords fought to amend it, inserting a promise that EU citizens living in the U.K. will be allowed to remain after Britain pulls out of the bloc.
———
Scotland seeks new independence referendum amid Brexit spat
LONDON (AP) — Scotland’s leader delivered a shock twist to Britain’s EU exit drama on Monday, announcing that she will seek authority to hold a new independence referendum in the next two years because Britain is dragging Scotland out of the EU against its will.
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said she would move quickly to give voters a new chance to leave the United Kingdom because Scotland was being forced into a “hard Brexit” that it didn’t support. Britons decided in a June 23 referendum to leave the EU, but Scots voted by 62 to 38 percent to remain.
Scotland must not be “taken down a path that we do not want to go down without a choice,” Sturgeon said.
The move drew a quick rebuke from Prime Minister Theresa May, who said a second referendum would be hugely disruptive and was not justified because evidence shows most Scottish voters oppose a new independence vote.
May accused Sturgeon’s Scottish National Party of political “tunnel vision” and called the referendum “deeply regrettable.”
———
Staring down the barrel of nor’easter, region preps for snow
NEW YORK (AP) — Sandwiched between days that felt like spring last week and the official start of spring next week, a “life-threatening” nor’easter is poised to bring a reminder that winter isn’t over yet, with blizzard conditions and a blanket of heavy snow expected in the mid-Atlantic and Northeast.
Meteorologists were calling for snowfall totals as high as 20 inches in New York City from the storm’s start late Monday through Tuesday evening. The National Weather Service warned that blizzard conditions of wind gusts over 35 mph and low visibility would extend from the Philadelphia area to Maine.
The weather service’s office near Philadelphia called the storm “life-threatening” and warned people to “shelter in place.” Coastal flooding was also predicted.
Travel was sure to be dismal: About 5,000 Tuesday flights were canceled as of late Monday afternoon , Amtrak canceled and modified service up and down the Northeast Corridor and motorists were urged to stay off the roads.
In New York City, the above-ground portions of the subway system were being shut down from 4 a.m. Tuesday. Connecticut Gov. Dannel P. Malloy imposed a statewide travel ban beginning at 5 a.m.
———
Turkey sanctions the Netherlands over ministers’ treatment
ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkey announced a series of political sanctions against the Netherlands on Monday over its refusal to allow two Turkish ministers to campaign there, including halting high-level political discussions between the two countries and closing Turkish air space to Dutch diplomats.
Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus, briefing journalists after the weekly council of ministers meeting, said the sanctions would apply until the Netherlands takes steps “to redress” the actions that Ankara sees as a grave insult.
“There is a crisis and a very deep one. We didn’t create this crisis or bring it to this stage,” Kurtulmus said. “Those who did have to take steps to redress the situation.”
Other sanctions bar the Dutch ambassador entry back into Turkey and advise parliament to withdraw from a Dutch-Turkish friendship group
The announcement came hours after Turkey’s foreign ministry formally protested the treatment of a Turkish minister who was prevented from entering a consulate in the Netherlands and escorted out of the country after trying to attend a political rally.
———
Lefties, techies long at odds in SF, team up against Trump
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Before Donald Trump’s election, Laurence Berland viewed political protest as a sort of curiosity. He was in a good place to see it: San Francisco’s Mission District, once an immigrant enclave in the country’s heartland of radicalism that is increasingly populated by people like him — successful tech workers driving up rents while enjoying a daily commute to Silicon Valley on luxury motor coaches.
Berland regarded the activism of his adopted city with a mix of empathy and bemusement, checking out Occupy Wall Street demonstrations and protests against the gentrification of his own neighborhood. But now there is less distance between him and activists on the street. On a recent day Berland stood with about 100 others — from software engineers like himself to those who work in tech company cafeterias — outside a downtown museum for a rally against President Trump.
“Everyone come closer! We’re going to practice some chanting, and we’re going to get to know each other,” called a woman wearing a union T-shirt with a bullhorn pressed to her lips. The crowd closed in around a banner reading “Workers in Tech Say No Ban No Wall.” A clipboard-carrying organizer approached Berland to ask if he wanted to join a network of grassroots activists, but Berland waved him away. He had already signed up.
In the place that fought against the Vietnam War and for gay rights and, more recently, has been roiled by dissent over the technology industry’s impact on economic inequality, an unlikely alliance has formed in the left’s resistance against Trump. Old-school, anti-capitalist activists and new-school, free-enterprise techies are pushing aside their differences to take on a common foe.
For years, these two strands of liberal America have been at each other’s throats. There’ve been protests against evictions of those who can’t afford the Bay Area’s ever-soaring rents. And think back, not so long ago, to the raucous rallies to block those fancy buses shuttling tech workers from city neighborhoods to the Silicon Valley campuses of Yahoo, Facebook, Apple and Google, where Berland once worked.
———
Poland confirms Minnesota man as Nazi commander
WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Poland will seek the arrest and extradition of a Minnesota man exposed by The Associated Press as a former commander in an SS-led unit that burned Polish villages and killed civilians in World War II, prosecutors said Monday.
Prosecutor Robert Janicki said evidence gathered over years of investigation into U.S. citizen Michael K. confirmed “100 percent” that he was a commander of a unit in the SS-led Ukrainian Self Defense Legion.
He did not release the last name, in line with Poland’s privacy laws, but the AP has identified the man as 98-year-old Michael Karkoc, from Minneapolis.
“All the pieces of evidence interwoven together allow us to say the person who lives in the U.S. is Michael K., who commanded the Ukrainian Self Defense Legion which carried out the pacification of Polish villages in the Lublin region,” Janicki said.
The decision in Poland comes four years after the AP published a story establishing that Michael Karkoc commanded the unit, based on wartime documents, testimony from other members of the unit and Karkoc’s own Ukrainian-language memoir.
———
2 ex-Penn State officials plead guilty in child-sex scandal
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Two former Penn State administrators accused of covering up child sexual abuse allegations against Jerry Sandusky pleaded guilty to reduced charges Monday, more than five years after the scandal rocked the university and led to the downfall of football coach Joe Paterno.
Tim Curley, a 62-year-old former athletic director, and Gary Schultz, 67, a one-time vice president, could get up to five years in prison for misdemeanor child endangerment. No sentencing date was set.
They struck a deal in which prosecutors dropped three felony charges of child endangerment and conspiracy that carried up to seven years each.
Former Penn State President Graham Spanier, 68, was also charged in the scandal, and the case against him appears to be moving forward, with jury selection set for next week. His lawyers and the lead prosecutor had no comment.
The three administrators handled a 2001 complaint by a graduate assistant who said he saw Sandusky, a retired member of the coaching staff, sexually abusing a boy in a team shower. They failed in their legal duty by not reporting the matter to police or child welfare authorities, prosecutors said.
