House approves 9/11 victims bill, sends it to Senate
WASHINGTON — The House on Friday overwhelmingly approved a bill ensuring that a victims compensation fund for the Sept. 11 attacks never runs out of money.
The 402-12 vote sends the bill to the Senate, where Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has agreed to call a vote before Congress goes on its August recess.
Lawmakers from both parties hailed the House vote, which comes a month after comedian Jon Stewart sharply criticized Congress for failing to act. Stewart, a longtime advocate for 9/11 responders, told lawmakers at an emotional hearing that they were showing “disrespect” to first responders now suffering from respiratory ailments and other illnesses as a result of their recovery work at the former World Trade Center site in New York City.
Stewart called the sparse attendance at the June 11 hearing “an embarrassment to the country and a stain on this institution.” He later targeted McConnell for slow-walking previous version of the legislation and using it as a political pawn to get other things done.
Stewart said Friday that replenishing the victims fund was “necessary, urgent and morally right.”
Pence migrant center tour shows men crowded into cages
WASHINGTON — Vice President Mike Pence toured two detention facilities on the Texas border Friday, including a Border Patrol station where hundreds of men were crowded in sweltering cages without cots.
Some of the men said they were hungry and had been held there for 40 days or longer.
“Look, this is tough stuff,” Pence acknowledged at a later news conference.
“I knew we’d see a system that is overcrowded,” he added. “It’s overwhelmed and that’s why Congress has to act.”
Pence’s office said the tour was part of an effort to show the Trump administration is providing adequate care for migrants. But the scene the vice president witnessed is sure to spark new criticism of the conditions facing migrants in U.S. government facilities.
Special counsel Mueller’s testimony delayed til July 24
WASHINGTON — Special counsel Robert Mueller’s testimony to Congress has been delayed until July 24 under an agreement that gives lawmakers more time to question him.
Mueller had been scheduled to testify July 17 before two house committees about the findings of his Russia investigation. But lawmakers in both parties complained that the short length of the hearings would not allow enough time for all members to ask questions.
Under the new arrangement, Mueller will testify for an extended period of time — three hours instead of two — before the House Judiciary Committee. He will then testify before the House intelligence committee in a separate hearing. The two committees said in a statement that all members of both committees will be able to question him.
The agreement will also give Mueller more time to prepare for the rigorous questioning. The statement said the postponement was “at his request.”
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., announced the terms after days of negotiations and questions over whether the testimony would be delayed. In the joint statement, the panels said the longer hearings “will allow the American public to gain further insight into the special counsel’s investigation and the evidence uncovered regarding Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and President Trump’s possible obstruction of justice and abuse of power.”
From wire sources
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Epstein philanthropy since sex plea included all-girl school
NEW YORK — In the decade since striking a deal that required him to register as a sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein has sought to underwrite all manner of youth causes, such as a baseball program near his retreat in the U.S. Virgin Islands and an all-girls’ school a few blocks from his Manhattan mansion.
The Associated Press found that the wealthy financier’s donations included $15,000 to the exclusive Hewitt School on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, $35,000 to the Junior Tennis Champions Center in College Park, Maryland, and $25,000 to the Ecole du Bel-Air grade school in Haiti — all after he pleaded guilty in 2008 to charges of soliciting a minor for prostitution.
Epstein’s donations through his charitable foundations, though not in violation of his status as a sex offender, were nonetheless awkward for some recipients. They were also, at times, difficult to trace.
It wasn’t until later, when they realized a sex offender was behind the donations, that the school, the tennis center and the Haiti project returned the money.
It’s not clear why Epstein, who taught calculus and physics at Manhattan’s coed Dalton School in the 1970s, singled out the Hewitt School for the 2016 gift. Administrators at the 500-student school responded to questions by saying only that it immediately gave the money back after learning of the Epstein connection several months ago.
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Trump citizenship plan will face logistical, legal hurdles
WASHINGTON — After failing to get his citizenship question on the census, President Donald Trump now says his fallback plan will provide an even more accurate count — determining the citizenship of 90 percent of the population “or more.” But his plan will likely be limited by logistical hurdles and legal restrictions.
Trump wants to distill a massive trove of data across seven government agencies — and possibly across 50 states. It’s far from clear how such varying systems can be mined, combined and compared.
He directed the Commerce Department, which manages the census, to form a working group.
“The logistical barriers are significant, if not insurmountable,” said Paul Light, a senior fellow of Governance Studies at New York University with a long history of research in government reform. “The federal government does not invest, and hasn’t been investing for a long time, in the kind of data systems and recruitment of experts that this kind of database construction would require.”
Trump says he aims to answer how many people are here illegally, though there already are recent estimates , and possibly use such information to divvy up congressional seats based on citizenship. It’s also a way for Trump to show his base that he’s not backing down (even as he’s had to back down) from a battle over the question on his signature topic, immigration.