AP News in Brief at 9:04 p.m. EDT
Big pressure on Biden, Dems to trim $3.5T federal overhaul
WASHINGTON (AP) - Pressure mounting, President Joe Biden and Democrats in Congress strained Tuesday to trim back his potentially historic $3.5 trillion government overhaul to win support from two key holdout senators ahead of make-or-break deadlines for votes.
With Republicans solidly opposed and no votes to spare, Biden canceled a Wednesday trip to Chicago that was to focus on COVID-19 vaccinations so he could continue working on a deal, according to a White House official granted anonymity to discuss the planning.
Democrats are poised to adjust the huge measure's tax proposals and spending goals to meet the overall size demanded by party colleagues Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona. The two say Biden´s plan is too big but are publicly quiet about a number they can live with.
The president met separately with them Tuesday at the White House, making apparent progress before a Thursday test vote.
As the legislation comes into focus, the adjustments will follow -child care subsidies could be offered for several years, or just a few. Funding to expand health care programs could start later or end sooner. Tax hikes on corporations and the wealthy may be adjusted. And provisions to fight climate change or curb prescription drug prices could change.
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The AP Interview: Haiti PM plans to hold elections next year
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) - Struggling with political turmoil and the aftermath of an earthquake, Haiti's prime minister said Tuesday that he plans to hold a referendum to modify the country's constitution by February, and he hopes to organize presidential and legislative elections early next year.
In an interview with The Associated Press at his official residence, Ariel Henry dismissed opponents who accuse him of wanting to stay in power and said that mistrust is one of the biggest challenges he faces.
The referendum is a priority, Henry said, because the current constitution is rejected by a majority of political figures and civil society leaders. He said an electoral council that will be responsible for setting dates has yet to be named after he recently dissolved the previous provisional council.
"The elections must be held as soon as possible," he said as he lamented the lack of trust among Haitians. "People don't believe what is being said."
Just hours after he spoke, members of the provisional council that Henry dissolved issued a statement saying they plan to contest the prime minister's actions and accused him of violating Haitian law because only a president has the power to dismiss them. The council added that it will continue to work on organizing the upcoming elections.
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Joint Chiefs chairman calls Afghan war a 'strategic failure'
WASHINGTON (AP) - The top U.S. military officer called the 20-year war in Afghanistan a "strategic failure" and acknowledged to Congress on Tuesday that he had favored keeping several thousand troops in the country to prevent a collapse of the U.S.-supported Kabul government and a rapid takeover by the Taliban.
Republicans on the Senate Armed Services Committee pointed to the testimony by Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as evidence that President Joe Biden had been untruthful when, in a television interview last month, he suggested the military had not urged him to keep troops in Afghanistan.
Milley refused to say what advice he gave Biden last spring when Biden was considering whether to comply with an agreement the Trump administration had made with the Taliban to reduce the American troop presence to zero by May 2021, ending a U.S. war that began in October 2001. Testifying alongside Milley, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin also refused to reveal his advice to Biden.
Milley told the committee, when pressed, that it had been his personal opinion that at least 2,500 U.S. troops were needed to guard against a collapse of the Kabul government and a return to Taliban rule.
Defying U.S. intelligence assessments, the Afghan government and its U.S.-trained army collapsed in mid-August, allowing the Taliban, which had ruled the country from 1996 to 2001, to capture Kabul with what Milley described as a couple of hundred men on motorcycles, without a shot being fired. That triggered a frantic U.S. effort to evacuate American civilians, Afghan allies and others from Kabul airport.
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Pfizer vaccine for kids may not be available until November
WASHINGTON (AP) - Pfizer has submitted research to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on the effectiveness of its COVID-19 vaccine in children but the shots may not be available until November.
The company said Tuesday it provided health regulators with data from a recent study of its vaccine in children 5 to 11 years old. Officials had said previously they would file an application with the FDA to authorize use in the coming weeks.
Once the company files its application, U.S. regulators and public health officials will review the evidence and consult with their advisory committees in public meetings to determine if the shots are safe and effective enough to recommend use.
That process may mean the shots may not be available until closer to Thanksgiving, according to a person familiar with the process but not authorized to discuss it publicly. But it is possible that, depending on how quickly the FDA acts, the shots could become available earlier in November, the person said.
The drugmaker and its partner, Germany´s BioNTech, say they expect to request emergency use authorization of their vaccine in children ages 5 to 11 "in the coming weeks." The companies also plan to submit data to the European Medicines Agency and other regulators.
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A jury convicted R. Kelly; will his music face consequences?
NEW YORK (AP) - Will a criminal conviction do to R. Kelly's music what years of ugly allegations couldn't?
It's unlikely that Monday's moment of justice - when a federal jury in New York found the 54-year-old R&B superstar guilty of all nine counts in a sex trafficking trial - will mean much for his fans, given all the awful things they had learned already, some observers say.
"The lines have already been drawn," said Jem Aswad, deputy music editor for the trade publication Variety, who has been covering R. Kelly for 20 years. "The people that are going to listen to R. Kelly´s music are still listening to it. I don´t think a guilty verdict is going to change their minds."
Still, advocates hope the criminal conviction brings a moral reckoning.
Tarana Burke, founder of the #MeToo movement, understands how irresistible the music of R. Kelly can be for people who grooved to songs like "Ignition," but said, "People should just have a second thought about the message that it sends."
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Scars from 2015 Paris stadium bombing still pain victims
PARIS (AP) - It is almost the forgotten attack of Nov. 13, 2015: France´s national stadium was the sole site outside Paris to come under assault that night from Islamic State extremists.
The three suicide bombers who struck killed one man out of the 130 people who died that night around the city. But for those who survived, the explosions are seared into their bodies and their minds, in the form of projectiles still embedded beneath their skin and unfading trauma in their psyche.
Victims of the November 2015 terror attacks on Paris began testifying Tuesday, the first day of five weeks of testimony about that night from those at the soccer stadium, the cafés and bars, and the Bataclan concert hall.
Fourteen people are on trial in Paris, including the only surviving member of the Islamic State group cell that attacked the city that night in 2015. Another six people are being tried in absentia.
Bilal Mokono, who went to the match with his teenage son, was wheeled into the courtroom, his powerful torso dominating the stand and a mix of fury at the attackers and gratitude for his life on his face. He crossed paths with two of the bombers that night before the first explosion knocked him off his feet.
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Far-right cryptocurrency follows ideology across borders
BRUSSELS (AP) - The Daily Stormer website advocates for the purity of the white race, posts hate-filled, conspiratorial screeds against Blacks, Jews and women and has helped inspire at least three racially motivated murders. It has also made its founder, Andrew Anglin, a millionaire.
Anglin has tapped a worldwide network of supporters to take in at least 112 Bitcoin since January 2017 - worth $4.8 million at today´s exchange rate - according to data shared with The Associated Press. He´s likely raised even more.
Anglin is just one very public example of how radical right provocateurs are raising significant amounts of money from around the world through cryptocurrencies. Banned by traditional financial institutions, they have taken refuge in digital currencies, which they are using in ever more secretive ways to avoid the oversight of banks, regulators and courts, finds an AP analysis of legal documents, Telegram channels and blockchain data from Chainalysis, a cryptocurrency analytics firm.
Anglin owes more than $18 million in legal judgments in the United States to people whom he and his followers harassed and threatened. And while online, he remains visible - most days, dozens of stories on the Daily Stormer homepage carry his name - in the real world, Anglin's a ghost.
His victims have tried - and failed - to find him, searching at one Ohio address after another. Voting records place him in Russia in 2016 and his passport shows he was in Cambodia in 2017. After that, the public trail goes cold. He has no obvious bank accounts or real estate holdings in the U.S. For now, his Bitcoin fortune remains out of reach.
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South Dakota AG reviewing Noem's meeting with daughter
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) - South Dakota's attorney general said Tuesday he is reviewing concerns from state lawmakers over a meeting Gov. Kristi Noem held last year that included both her daughter and a state employee who was overseeing her daughter's application to become a certified real estate appraiser.
"I have been contacted by concerned citizens and legislators," Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg said in a statement. "I am actively reviewing their concerns and I will be following the steps prescribed in codified law in relation to those questions."
Ravnsborg didn´t immediately respond to a question about what steps he might take. The attorney general is tasked under state law with issuing legal opinions to lawmakers.
The Associated Press reported Monday that Noem held the meeting shortly after the state agency had moved to deny her daughter the license last year. Noem´s daughter eventually received her license four months later. Afterward, the state employee who directed the agency was allegedly pressured to retire by Noem´s cabinet secretary. The state employee, Sherry Bren, eventually received a $200,000 payment from the state to withdraw the complaint and leave her job.
Ethics experts said the episode raised concerns that the governor had abused the power of her office.
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COVID-related attacks prompt hospital to issue panic buttons
Nurses and hundreds of other staff members will soon begin wearing panic buttons at a Missouri hospital where assaults on workers tripled after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Cox Medical Center Branson is using grant money to add buttons to identification badges worn by up to 400 employees who work in the emergency room and inpatient hospital rooms. Pushing the button will immediately alert hospital security, launching a tracking system that will send help to the endangered worker. The hospital hopes to have the system operational by the end of the year.
A similar program was successfully tested last year at CoxHealth's Springfield hospital, spokeswoman Kaitlyn McConnell said Tuesday.
Hospital data showed that the number of "security incidents" at the Branson hospital rose from 94 in 2019 to 162 in 2020. Assaults rose from 40 to 123 during that same period, and injuries to health care workers rose from 17 to 78. Data for 2021 was not available.
The delta variant of the virus hit hard in southwestern Missouri starting in June, leaving hospitals so full that many patients were sent to other facilities hundreds of miles away. The hospital in Branson, the popular tourist town known for its many shows and attractions, has been at or near capacity for four months.
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Theranos CEO wooed investors while lab director saw trouble
SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) - Fallen Silicon Valley star Elizabeth Holmes convinced media mogul Rupert Murdoch and other billionaires to invest in her biotechnology startup despite warnings its unconventional blood tests were dangerously unreliable, according to evidence presented Tuesday during her criminal trial.
The revelations emerged during the eighth day of a high-profile trial revolving around allegations Holmes duped investors, customers and unwitting patients as CEO of Theranos, a company she founded after dropping out of college in 2003 when she was 19.
Holmes briefly became a Silicon Valley sensation while peddling the premise she had invented a breakthrough technology scan for an array of health problems using just a few drops of blood taken with a finger prick.
But Adam Rosendorff, a medical doctor who oversaw Theranos' clinical laboratory from September 2013 through November 2014, drew a darker picture Tuesday while testifying as witness for the federal government prosecutors trying to convince a jury to convict Holmes on 12 counts of fraud.
Holmes, 37, has pleaded innocent, maintaining she poured nearly 15 years of her life pursuing a great idea that simply didn't pan out. She could be sentenced to 20 years in prison if convicted.
