In brief: Stopgap transportation bill passes House
WASHINGTON – The House passed a bill Wednesday to temporarily shore up funding for transportation programs and prevent a shutdown in highway and transit aid to states at the end of this month. But Senate Republicans are trying to cobble together a longer-term bill that could provide money for several years.
The House bill would provide $8 billion to keep transportation aid flowing through Dec. 18 while lawmakers work on a long-term bill. It passed by a vote of 312-119.
Rep. Bill Shuster, R-Pa., chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, said the five-month measure is necessary to buy more time to work on a longer-term measure.
As the House debated its short-term measure, Senate Republicans circulated a list of about $80 billion in potential savings, enough to cover the cost of a renewal of highway and mass transit funding for several years.
Among the items was a proposal to reduce the rate of return on one of the investment funds available to federal retirees, a $31 billion item over a decade. Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada has said he would oppose the move.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has said he wants a bill that would cover programs at least through next year’s election and preferably longer.
The Senate bill is also expected to include a provision to renew the Export-Import Bank, which provides backing for U.S. companies selling goods overseas. Authority for the bank to operate expired at the end of last month; supporters have said they will try to use the must-pass highway bill to win its reauthorization.
Bush, 91, injured in fall at Maine home
KENNEBUNKPORT, Maine – George H.W. Bush, the oldest living former U.S. president, fell at his summer home Wednesday and broke a bone in his neck but was doing OK, a spokesman said.
Bush, 91, was in stable condition and was doing “fine” after Wednesday’s fall, spokesman Jim McGrath said. McGrath tweeted that the 41st president would be in a neck brace.
Bush, who has a form of Parkinson’s disease that has forced him to use a motorized scooter or wheelchair for mobility, has suffered a few other recent health setbacks. He was hospitalized in Houston in December for about a week for treatment of shortness of breath. He said he was grateful to the doctors and nurses for their care there.
Bush, a Republican, served two terms as Ronald Reagan’s vice president before being elected president in 1988.
After one term, highlighted by the success of the 1991 Gulf War in Kuwait, he lost to Democrat Bill Clinton amid voters’ concerns about the economy.
Mormon church fills leadership post
SALT LAKE CITY – The Mormon church has a new top-ranking leader to replace the late Boyd K. Packer, who was next in line to become president and prophet of the faith.
The Salt Lake City-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced Wednesday that Russell M. Nelson will serve as the president of the church’s Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, its high-level governing body.
Nelson has been a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles since 1984.
He replaces Packer, who died July 3 at his Salt Lake City home of natural causes. He was 90.
Obama won’t revoke Cosby’s medal
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama on Wednesday rejected the idea of revoking Bill Cosby’s Presidential Medal of Freedom because of sexual misconduct allegations.
“There’s no precedent for revoking a medal,” Obama said. “We don’t have that mechanism.”
The president, who was asked about Cosby’s medal at a news conference, declined to address specific allegations against the entertainer because there are pending legal matters. But Obama left no question about his thinking on the larger issue of drugs, consent and rape.
“If you give a woman, or a man, for that matter, without his or her knowledge a drug, and then have sex with that person without consent, that’s rape,” he said. “And I think this country, any civilized country, should have no tolerance for rape.”