NATION/WORLD
Thursday, March 23, 2017
East Oregonian
Page 7A
Five dead in attack at British Parliament
LONDON (AP) — A
knife-wielding man went
on a deadly rampage in the
heart of Britain’s seat of
power Wednesday, plowing
a car into pedestrians on
London’s
Westminster
Bridge before stabbing a
police officer to death inside
the gates of Parliament. Five
people were killed, including
the assailant, and 40 others
were injured in what Prime
Minister Theresa May
condemned as a “sick and
depraved terrorist attack.”
Lawmakers, lords, staff
and visitors were locked
down after the man was
shot by police within the
perimeter of Parliament,
just yards from entrances
to the building itself and in
the shadow of the iconic Big
Ben clock tower. He died,
as did three pedestrians on
the bridge, and the police
officer.
A doctor who treated the
wounded from the bridge
said some had “catastrophic”
injuries.
Three
police
officers, several French
teenagers on a school trip,
two Romanian tourists and
five South Korean visitors
were among the injured.
Police said they were
treating the attack as
terrorism. There was no
immediate claim of respon-
sibility.
Metropolitan
Police
counterterrorism chief Mark
Stefan Rousseau/PA via AP
Emergency services at the scene outside the Palace of Westminster, London,
Wednesday. London police say they are treating a gun and knife incident at Brit-
ain’s Parliament “as a terrorist incident until we know otherwise.”
Rowley said police believed
there was only one attacker,
“but it would be foolish
to be overconfident early
on.” He said an unarmed
policeman, three civilians
and the attacker died. Forty
others, including three
police officers, were injured.
Islamic extremism was
suspected in the attack,
Rowley said, adding that
authorities believe they
know the assailant’s identity
but would not reveal it
while the investigation was
ongoing.
The threat level for
international terrorism in
the U.K. was already listed
at severe, meaning an attack
was “highly likely.”
Speaking outside 10
Downing St. after chairing
a meeting of government’s
emergency
committee,
COBRA, May said that level
would not change. She said
attempts to defeat British
values of democracy and
freedom through terrorism
would fail.
“Tomorrow
morning,
Parliament
will
meet
as normal,” she said.
Londoners and visitors “will
all move forward together,
never giving in to terror and
never allowing the voices
of hate and evil to drive us
apart.”
U.S. President Donald
Leaders need votes for health bill
WASHINGTON (AP) —
The top Republican legisla-
tive priority in peril, President
Donald Trump dangled
possible changes to the health
care bill Wednesday aimed
at placating conservatives
threatening to torpedo the
legislation. The White House
seemed to make progress
with the hardliners while
House leaders struggled with
moderates on eve of a show-
down vote.
Trump
huddled
at
the White House with
18 lawmakers, a mix of
supporters and opponents,
Vice President Mike Pence
saw around two dozen
and House GOP leaders
held countless talks with
lawmakers at the Capitol.
The sessions came as leaders
rummaged for votes on a roll
call they can ill-afford to lose
without diminishing their
clout for the rest of the GOP
agenda.
Most GOP opponents were
conservatives asserting that
the legislation demolishing
former President Barack
Obama’s health care law did
not go far enough. They were
demanding repeal of the law’s
requirements that insurers
pay for specified services like
maternity care, prescription
drugs and substances abuse
treatment.
Late Wednesday night,
House Speaker Paul Ryan,
R-Wis., met with moderate
Republicans from Penn-
sylvania, Illinois, Maine
and New York as well as
members of leadership. Any
changes on essential health
benefits would likely trigger
an immediate backlash from
patient advocacy groups and
doctors.
In early meetings with
Trump and Pence and later
AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite
After eight hours of debate, House Rules Committee
Chairman Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, left, and Rep.
Tom Cole, R-Okla., the vice-chair, listen to arguments
from committee chairs as the panel meets to shape
the final version of the Republican health care bill be-
fore it goes to the floor for debate and a vote, Wednes-
day on Capitol Hill in Washington.
discussions with the White
House, talks focused on
language addressing conser-
vatives’ concerns that those
coverage requirements drive
up premiums. Details were
unclear, but members of the
House Freedom Caucus, the
hard-line group spearheading
the opposition, were expected
at the White House early
Thursday.
“Tonight is an encour-
aging night,” said Rep. Mark
Meadows, R-N.C., leader of
the caucus, who for days has
said he has the votes to kill the
measure. “But I don’t want to
be so optimistic as to say the
deal is done.”
It was initially uncertain if
the provision could survive in
the Senate or how moderate
Republicans would react.
Democrats said the language
would die in the Senate
because that chamber’s rules
don’t allow provisions not
directly related to the federal
budget.
The Republican legisla-
tion would halt Obama’s tax
penalties against people who
don’t buy coverage and cut
the federal-state Medicaid
program for low earners,
which the statute expanded.
It would provide tax credits to
help people pay medical bills,
though generally skimpier
than the aid Obama’s statute
provides. It also would allow
insurers to charge older
Americans more and repeal
tax boosts the law imposed
on high-income people and
health industry companies.
In a count by The Associ-
ated Press, at least 26 Repub-
licans said they opposed the
bill and others were leaning
that way, enough to narrowly
defeat the measure. The
number was in constant flux
amid eleventh-hour lobbying
by the White House and GOP
leaders.
Including vacancies and
expected absentees, the bill
would be defeated if 23
Republicans join all Demo-
crats in voting “no.”
In a show of support for
the opponents, the conserva-
tive Koch network promised
Wednesday night to spend
millions of dollars to defeat
the health care overhaul, the
influential network’s most
aggressive move against the
bill.
Moderates were daunted
by projections of 24 million
Americans losing coverage
in a decade and higher out-of-
pocket costs for many low-in-
come and older people, as
predicted by the nonpartisan
Congressional Budget Office.
For now, leaders showed
no sign of delaying a House
vote, their initial attempt to
deliver on a pledge to erase
Obama’s law they’ve repeated
since its 2010 enactment.
Underscoring the delicate
pathway to victory, partici-
pants in the Pence meeting
said there were no visible
signs of weakened opposition
and described one tense
moment. Rep. Randy Weber,
R-Texas, said White House
chief strategist Steve Bannon
told them: “We’ve got to do
this. I know you don’t like it,
but you have to vote for this.”
Weber said Rep. Joe
Barton, R-Texas, bristled.
“When somebody tells me
I have to do something, odds
are really good that I will do
exactly the opposite,” Barton
said, according to Weber.
Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa,
said that talk of deleting the
insurance coverage require-
ments had converted him
into a supporter. But before
the late talks, others were
skeptical.
“We’re being asked to sign
a blank check,” said Rep.
Scott Perry, R-Pa., who’s
been an opponent. “In the
past, that hasn’t worked out
so well.”
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of blood and give mouth to
mouth while waiting for the
medics to arrive but I think
he had lost too much blood,”
Ellwood said. “He had
multiple wounds, under the
arm and in the back.”
The attack began early
Wednesday afternoon as
a driver in a gray SUV
slammed into pedestrians
on the bridge linking Parlia-
ment to the south bank of the
River Thames.
Ambulances
arrived
within minutes to treat
people who lay scattered
along the length of the
bridge.
One
bloodied
woman lay surrounded by a
scattering of postcards.
Police said one injured
woman was pulled from the
river.
The car crashed into rail-
ings on the north side of the
bridge, less than 200 yards
from the entrance to Parlia-
ment. As people scattered in
panic, witnesses saw a man
holding a knife run toward
the building.
“The whole crowd just
surged around the corner
by the gates just opposite
Big Ben,” said witness
Rick Longley. “A guy came
past my right shoulder
with a big knife and just
started plunging it into the
policeman. I have never
seen anything like that. I
just can’t believe what I just
saw.”
Trump’s ‘skinny budget’
deepens cuts to USDA
By CAROL RYAN DUMAS
EO Media Group
President
Donald
Trump’s
preliminary
“skinny budget” would slim
down resources to farmers,
ranchers and rural America,
further cutting USDA’s
already
trimmed-down
budget.
Trump’s
FY2018
proposal would cut discre-
tionary funding to USDA
by 21 percent, a decrease of
$4.7 billion to $17.9 billion.
The current USDA
budget includes $25 billion
in discretionary spending
for such programs as the
special nutrition program
for Women, Infants and
Children called WIC, Rural
Development, food safety,
the U.S. Forest Service,
research and conservation
activities.
That’s on top of $130
billion in congressionally
mandated spending for a
current overall budget of
$155 billion. Of that total,
71 percent goes to WIC
and SNAP food stamps for
44.5 million Americans, 16
percent goes to farm and
commodity programs, 7
percent goes to conservation
and forestry and 6 percent
goes to rural development,
research,
food
safety,
marketing and regulatory
functions and management.
In a climate of serious
economic challenges in
farm country, it’s not the
time to cut programs and
services that have already
been on the chopping block
the past few years, said R.J.
Karney, American Farm
Bureau Federation director
of congressional relations.
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Trump was among world
leaders offering condo-
lences, and in Paris, the
lights of the Eiffel Tower
were to be dimmed in soli-
darity with London.
London has been a target
for terrorism many times
over past decades. Just
this weekend, hundreds of
armed police took part in
an exercise simulating a
“marauding” terrorist attack
on the River Thames.
Wednesday was the anni-
versary of suicide bombings
in the Brussels airport and
subway that killed 32 people
last year, and the latest
events echoed recent vehicle
attacks in Berlin and Nice,
France.
In
the
House
of
Commons, legislators were
holding a series of votes
on pensions when deputy
Speaker Lindsay Hoyle
announced that the sitting
was being suspended and
told lawmakers not to leave.
Parliament was locked
down for several hours, and
the adjoining Westminster
subway station was shut-
tered.
Conservative lawmaker
Tobias Ellwood, whose
brother was killed in the
Bali terror attack in 2002,
performed first aid on the
wounded police officer, who
later died. About 10 yards
away lay the assailant.
“I tried to stem the flow
The significant cut in
USDA’s budget demon-
strates the importance of
having the secretary of agri-
culture at the table to cham-
pion the needs of farmers
and ranchers. That didn’t
happen, as Trump’s nominee
for that position, Sonny
Purdue, has been sidelined
by delays in the confirmation
process, he said.
“Not having the secretary
of ag at the table to help the
budget process was made
clear by the negative impact
to the (USDA’s) budget,” he
said.
National Farmers Union
President Roger Johnson
said in a statement the
proposed cuts and message
they send to rural America
are “deeply disappointing.”
Family farmers and
ranchers are enduring the
worst farm economy in well
over a decade and an inad-
equate safety net already
hamstrung by $23 billion in
budget cuts, he said.
All the details have not yet
been released, but funding
cuts would target USDA’s
statistical capabilities within
the National Agricultural
Statistics
Service
and
Economic Research Service
and USDA Service Center
Agencies — Farm Service
Agency, Natural Resources
and Conservation Service
and Rural Development.
It would also eliminate the
Waste and Wastewater loan
and grant program.
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