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from Reuters
International news agency headquartered in London, UK
Federal officials will meet with Native American tribes next month to gather recommendations as the federal government seeks to move ahead with efforts to protect and restore tribal homelands, the U.S. Department of the Interior said on Tuesday. Tribal leaders will be asked for advice on several topics, including the process to take land back into trust, leasing and treaty rights, among other issues under the Biden administration's initiative to streamline steps allowing tribes to regain their land.
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from The Spokesman-Review
Newspaper in Spokane, Washington
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Providence is pausing all nonemergency surgeries and procedures at Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center and Holy Family Hospital. Due to the recent surge in COVID-19 patients, as well as staffing challenges, the health care system announced the indefinite pause on procedures, including those scheduled at the Doctor’s Building on the Sacred Heart campus.
Thousands of state employees, including hundreds of state troopers and prison guards, are seeking exemptions from Gov. Jay Inslee’s vaccination mandate. The deadline for full vaccination is Oct. 18, and so far about 8% of state workers have put in exemption requests. The issue is divisive, as state employee unions bargain its effects and some workers hope to resolve the issue by filing a lawsuit claiming the governor exceeded his authority and violated their constitutional rights when he ordered most employees to get the shot. Of 2,300 Washington State Patrol employees, 373 have submitted requests for religious exemptions.
Democrats and Republicans alike grilled Secretary of State Antony Blinken about the U.S. exit from Afghanistan in a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Tuesday, with the nation’s top diplomat pointing blame at the Afghan government and former President Donald Trump.
House Democrats on Tuesday began the serious work of trying to implement President Joe Biden’s expansive spending plan, but getting there will require remarkable legislative nimbleness, since Biden has said the revenue to pay for it must come only from Americans who earn more than $400,000 a year.
Pension systems for state government workers across the U.S. are in their best shape since the Great Recession began more than a dozen years ago, according to a study released Tuesday. The Pew Charitable Trust report credits a booming stock market over the past year as well as states’ longer-term steps, which include boosting taxpayer contributions to public pension funds and reducing promised retirement benefits, particularly to newly hired workers.
Senate Democrats unveiled a pare- back elections bill Tuesday in hopes of kickstarting their stalled push to counteract new laws in Republican states that could make it more difficult to cast a ballot. But the new compromise legislation is likely doomed to fail in the 50-50 Senate, facing the same lockstep Republican opposition that scuttled their previous attempts to pass an even more sweeping bill. The GOP blasted the earlier measure as “unnecessary” and a “partisan power grab.”
The United States may have completed its military withdrawal and chaotic evacuation from Afghanistan, but John Sopko, the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, intends to keep asking hard questions. “There’s still a lot of money in the pipeline” slated for Afghanistan, Sopko said Tuesday during an event hosted by the government watchdog organization Project on Government Oversight. “There are a lot of questions that need to be answered.”
Former President Donald Trump mostly held his tongue on the California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s recall election, but he had a last-minute complaint. The former president said the election was “probably rigged” in an interview on conservative television news outlet Newsmax last week and added that Democrats were good at rigging elections that used mail-in ballots.
Fearful of Donald Trump’s actions in his final weeks as president, the United States’ top military officer twice called his Chinese counterpart to assure him that the two nations would not suddenly go to war, a senior defense official said Tuesday after the conversations were described in excerpts from a forthcoming book. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley told Gen. Li Zuocheng of the People’s Liberation Army that the United States would not strike. One call took place on Oct. 30, 2020, four days before the election that defeated Trump. The second call was on Jan. 8, 2021, just two days after the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol by supporters of the outgoing chief executive.
Voting wrapped up Tuesday in the California recall election that could kick Gov. Gavin Newsom out of office, a race that hinges on how voters have judged the Democratic governor’s response to the coronavirus pandemic and determines if the nation’s most populous state will veer in a more conservative direction. Newsom is just the fourth governor in U.S. history and the second in California to face a recall. He was elected in a landslide less than three years ago and would be up for reelection next year if he survives the bid to oust him.
President Joe Biden tried to advance his domestic spending plans Tuesday by touring a renewable energy lab in Colorado to highlight how his clean-energy proposals would help combat climate change and create wel-paying jobs along the way.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday sought to parry bipartisan congressional criticism of the Biden administration’s Afghanistan withdrawal, as new intelligence estimates warned that al-Qaida could soon again use Afghan soil to plot attacks on the United States.
Obviously, COVID has caused reduced STA ridership. STA’s website graphically shows the negative impact. Mr. Cargill suggests giving “wasted” money back to working families by lowering sales taxes (“STA gets too much tax revenue for service provided,” Sept. 3). How much is wasted? Which routes should be eliminated? What happens to the 68% of riders who depend on STA as their only source of transportation?
County officials on Monday unveiled an overnight recovery center that will offer a range of medical and mental health services as part of an effort to address those who often cycle through jail and emergency rooms without ever getting treatment. After the yearslong effort to open the Spokane Regional Stabilization Unit at 1302 W. Gardener Ave., the Spokane County Board of Commissioners – joined by Mayor Nadine Woodward, Spokane Police Chief Craig Meidl, state representatives and private contractors – cut the ribbon on the multiroom crisis center that was transformed from a motor pool building.
The Spokane City Council approved a major funding commitment for a new homeless shelter on Monday but held off on supporting a second. The council unanimously pledged $1 million toward a relocated Crosswalk Youth Shelter in East Spokane, but deferred a $3.5 million commitment to The Salvation Army’s new bridge housing program on West Mission Avenue.
On the question of the deepening crisis of homelessness, we’re now caught in a political Catch-22. The city can’t enforce the law against sitting and lying on city sidewalks during the day unless there are enough shelter spaces to send people to. This is the view, based on a 9th Circuit Court ruling, of the city legal department.
If you need treatment or are hospitalized for COVID-19, be prepared to pay for those medical bills. Last year, many insurance companies waived treatment charges for COVID-19, including co-pays or cost-sharing deductibles, for patients who got COVID-19 and needed to be treated or hospitalized. Now with vaccines widely available and one fully approved by the Food and Drug Administration, some insurance companies are charging co-pays and cost sharing fees for patients who come down with the virus and need to be treated.
China’s ambassador to Britain has been barred from Parliament and told he could not enter the building for a talk he was scheduled to give on Wednesday. Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle said Tuesday it was not “appropriate” for the Chinese ambassador, Zheng Zeguang, to enter Parliament because China imposed sanctions against seven British parliamentarians over their criticism of Beijing’s human rights record.
A new chief prosecutor was sworn in Tuesday just hours after his predecessor asked a judge to charge Prime Minister Ariel Henry in the slaying of the president and to bar him from leaving Haiti, a move that could further destabilize a country roiled by turmoil following the assassination and a recent major earthquake. The request filed by Port-au-Prince prosecutor Bed-Ford Claude, who was fired by Henry, came on the same day that the prosecutor had asked that the prime minister come to a meeting and explain why he spoke twice with a key suspect in the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse just hours after the killing.
Afghanistan’s new foreign minister said Tuesday that the Taliban governing the country remain committed to not allowing militants to use their territory to launch attacks. But he refused to say when or if the country’s new rulers would create a more inclusive government. Without other political factions and women serving in the government, the Taliban seem unlikely to win international recognition as the legitimate leaders of Afghanistan. And without such recognition, the Afghan state is unable to tap billions of its funds frozen abroad, leaving it virtually bankrupt at a time of immense humanitarian need.
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