GOP’s ‘Obamacare’ repeal all but dead; McCain deals the blow
GOP’s ‘Obamacare’ repeal all but dead; McCain deals the blow
WASHINGTON (AP) — Sen. John McCain declared his opposition Friday to the GOP’s last-ditch effort to repeal and replace “Obamacare,” dealing a likely death blow to the legislation and, perhaps, to the Republican Party’s years of vows to kill the program. It was the second time in three months the 81-year-old McCain emerged as the destroyer of his party’s signature promise to voters.
“I believe we could do better working together, Republicans and Democrats, and have not yet really tried,” McCain said of the bill, co-written by Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, his best friend in the Senate, and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana. “Nor could I support it without knowing how much it will cost, how it will affect insurance premiums, and how many people will be helped or hurt by it.”
McCain, who is battling brain cancer in the twilight of a remarkable career, said he could not “in good conscience” vote for the legislation. That all but ensured a major setback for President Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and appeared likely to deepen rifts between congressional Republicans and a president who has begun making deals with Democrats out of frustration with his own party’s failure to turn proposals into laws.
During the election campaign Trump had pledged to quickly kill President Barack Obama’s health care program — “It will be easy,” he contended — and he has publicly chided McConnell for not winning passage before now.
With the Arizona senator’s defection, there are now two declared GOP “no” votes on the repeal legislation, the other being Rand Paul of Kentucky. With Democrats unanimously opposed, that’s the exact number McConnell can afford to lose. But Maine GOP Sen. Susan Collins said Friday she, too, is leaning against the bill, and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska was also a possible “no,” making it highly unlikely that McConnell can prevail.
‘Little Rock Nine’ members mark school’s 1957 desegregation
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — When she saw images unfold from a deadly white supremacist rally this summer in Virginia, Minnijean Brown Trickey immediately thought about the angry mob she and eight other black students faced when they integrated an all-white high school in Little Rock 60 years ago.
“That triggered me so much and watching the mindless mob action just touched me, and I thought, ‘This is 60 years later. I can’t believe this happened in this time,’” Trickey said Friday, referring to the violence that erupted at a rally of white nationalists opposed to the removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.
“So where did I see it last? In Virginia or wherever people coalesce into mindless violence,” she added.
Trickey and the seven other surviving members of the “Little Rock Nine” — who were escorted by federal troops into Little Rock’s Central High School in September 1957 — gathered at the University of Arkansas’ Clinton School of Public Service for a joint news conference to kick off a series of events commemorating the desegregation anniversary. Some of the surviving members said 60 years ago, they tried to focus more on having the opportunity to attend the school rather than the mobs screaming threats and insults at them.
“The crowd was there, but I ignored them,” Carlotta Walls LaNier said. “It was ignorance, in my view, that was across the street in all of the harassment and name-calling and all of that sort of stuff. But I just dismissed it, to be honest with you. I just wanted to go to school.”
Families of missing in Mexico quake still hold out hope
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Hope mixed with fear Friday on a 60-foot stretch of a bike lane in downtown Mexico City, where families huddled under tarps and donated blankets, awaiting word of their loved ones trapped in the four-story-high pile of rubble behind them.
On Day 4 of the search for survivors of the 7.1-magnitude earthquake that brought down the seven-floor office building and many others, killing at least 293 people, hope rose and fell on the small things. A change in the weather, word that Japanese rescuers — strangers from half a world away — had joined the recovery effort, officials’ assurances that people remained alive inside, a call from a familiar number.
For Patricia Fernandez Romero, who spent the morning on a yellow folding stool under a handwritten list with the names of the 46 missing, it was remembering how badly her 27-year-old son, Ivan Colin Fernandez, sang and realizing how much she wanted to hear him again.
“There are moments when you feel like you’re breaking down,” Fernandez said. “And there are moments when you’re a little calmer. … They are all moments that you wouldn’t wish on anyone.”
The families have been camped out since the quake hit Tuesday. More than half of the dead —155 — perished in the capital, while another 73 died in the state of Morelos, 45 in Puebla, 13 in Mexico State, six in Guerrero and one in Oaxaca.
Trump dives into Senate runoff in Alabama
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — President Donald Trump is embracing the establishment pick in a Republican runoff election in Alabama. But it’s not clear his still-loyal base will follow.
The president headlined a raucous rally in Huntsville, Alabama, Friday night on behalf of incumbent Sen. Luther Strange, who was appointed in February to temporarily fill the seat that opened up when Jeff Sessions became attorney general. Strange greeted Trump on the tarmac at Huntsville International Airport and traveled with him to the rally.
Despite Trump’s endorsement and heavy spending by a super political action committee tied to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Strange remains locked in a tight race against former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, a jurist known for opposing gay marriage and pushing unsuccessfully for the public display of the Ten Commandments.
Trump noted the race was close, but said he appreciated Strange’s support during the push to overhaul President Barack Obama’s health care law. Said Trump, “We have to be loyal in life.”
The president also said Strange would be a partner in Washington, adding that “he doesn’t know Mitch McConnell at all” and he “doesn’t deal and kowtow.”
Cuban official: Still no clue on US diplomat health mystery
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Cuba hasn’t unearthed any information so far about who or what caused a mysterious series of health problems that have affected U.S. and Canadian diplomats in Havana, its top diplomat said Friday.
Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla told the U.N. General Assembly that early results from its investigation have to date “found no evidence whatsoever that could confirm the causes or the origin” of the incidents, though the inquiry is continuing.
“It would be unfortunate if a matter of this nature is politicized,” Rodriguez added in a speech that also laid into U.S. President Donald Trump as a leader with a “supremacist vision” of “America First.” Trump had slammed Cuba’s leadership as “corrupt and destabilizing” in his own General Assembly speech Tuesday.
At least 21 Americans and several Canadians in Havana’s diplomatic community have suffered hearing loss and other symptoms believed to have come from some sort of sonic attack.
Some of the Americans have permanent hearing loss or concussions, while others suffered nausea, headaches and ear-ringing. Some are struggling with concentration or common word recall, The Associated Press has reported.