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Senate Republicans eye changes to Trump’s megabill after House win
House Republicans eked out a win in May with their advancement of President Donald Trump’s «big, beautiful bill,» filled with negotiations and compromises on thorny policy issues that barely passed muster in the lower chamber.
Next week, Senate Republicans will get their turn to parse through the colossal package and are eying changes that could be a hard sell for House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., who can only afford to lose three votes.
INSIDE THE LATE-NIGHT DRAMA THAT LED TO TRUMP’S TAX BILL PASSING BY 1 VOTE
President Donald Trump listens to a question during an event to present law enforcement officers with an award in the Oval Office at the White House on May 19. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
Congressional Republicans are in a dead sprint to get the megabill — filled with Trump’s policy desires on taxes, immigration, energy, defense and the national debt — onto the president’s desk by early July.
Trump has thrown his support behind the current product, but said during a press conference in the Oval Office on Friday that he expected the package to be «jiggered around a little bit.»
«It’s going to be negotiated with the Senate, with the House, but the end result is it extends the Trump tax cuts,» he said.
«If it doesn’t get approved, you’ll have a 68% tax increase,» the president continued. «You’re going to go up 68%. That’s a number that nobody has ever heard of before. You’ll have a massive tax increase.»
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., has an identical margin to Johnson, and will need to cultivate support from a Senate GOP that wants to put its own fingerprints on the bill.
Senators have signaled they’d like to make changes to a litany of House proposals, including reforms to Medicaid and the timeline for phasing out green energy tax credits, among others, and have grumbled about the hike to the state and local tax (SALT) deduction cap pushed for by moderate House Republicans.
SCOOP: HOUSE GOP MEMO HIGHLIGHTS REPUBLICAN WINS IN TRUMP’S ‘BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL’
Senate Majority Leader John Thune speaks during a news conference following the Senate Republican policy luncheon at the U.S. Capitol on March 11. (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Thune said many Republicans are largely in favor of the tax portion of the bill, which seeks to make Trump’s first-term tax policy permanent, and particularly the tax policies that are «stimulative, that are pro-growth, that will create greater growth in the economy.»
Much of the debate, and prospective tweaks, from the upper chamber would likely focus on whether the House’s offering has deep enough spending cuts, he said.
«When it comes to the spending side of the equation, this is a unique moment in time and in history where we have the House and the Senate and the White House and an opportunity to do something meaningful about controlled government spending,» Thune said.
The House package set a benchmark of $1.5 trillion in spending cuts over the next decade.
Some in the Senate GOP would like to see that number cranked up marginally to at least $2 trillion, largely because the tax portion of the package is expected to add nearly $4 trillion to the deficit, according to recent findings from the Joint Committee on Taxation.
«There’s just so many great things in this bill,» Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., told Fox News Digital. «The only thing I would like to do is try to cut the spending, and I would love to take a little bit from a lot of places, rather than a lot from just one place.»
SPEAKER JOHNSON CLASHES WITH RAND PAUL OVER ‘WIMPY’ SPENDING CUTS IN TRUMP’S BILL
Sen. Ron Johnson talks with reporters in the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., after the House passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act on May 22. (CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
Others, like Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., want to see the cuts in the package return to pre-pandemic spending levels, which would amount to roughly a $6 trillion slash in spending.
Johnson has remained unflinching in his opposition to the current bill, and warned that «no amount of pressure» from Trump could change his mind.
«President Trump made a bunch of promises,» Johnson said at an event in Wisconsin on Wednesday. «My promise has been, consistently, we have to stop mortgaging our children’s future. OK, so I think there are enough [Republicans] to slow this process down until the president, our leadership, gets serious about returning to a pre-pandemic level.»
Others are concerned over the proposed slashes to Medicaid spending, which congressional Republicans have largely pitched as reform efforts designed to root out waste, fraud and abuse in the program used by millions of Americans.
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The House package would see a roughly $700 billion cut from the program, according to a report from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), and some Senate Republicans have signaled that they wouldn’t support the changes if benefits were cut for their constituents.
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., warned in an op-ed for The New York Times last month that cutting benefits was «both morally wrong and politically suicidal.» Meanwhile, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, raised concerns about what proposed cuts to the program would do to rural hospitals in her state.
«I cannot support proposals that would create more duress for our hospitals and providers that are already teetering on the edge of insolvency,» she said.
Donald Trump,Senate,House Of Representatives,Politics
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Pro-life group celebrates Planned Parenthood’s closing of remaining Louisiana facilities: ‘Huge success’
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EXCLUSIVE: Planned Parenthood is set to shutter its last two Louisiana facilities next month, a move pro-life advocates say represents «success» amid efforts to shut down the organization.
In an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital, 40 Days for Life CEO and founder Shawn Carney said the closure of the clinics is a «huge victory» for the entire pro-life movement and his organization, which has prayed and held vigils outside Planned Parenthood facilities for roughly 20 years.
«The only remaining Planned Parenthoods in the state of Louisiana, in Baton Rouge and New Orleans, are closing because they can’t do abortions there,» Carney said. «Planned Parenthood survives financially on abortions, and they survive financially on the American taxpayer. This is a huge success for the pro-life movement.»
Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast — which runs six clinics in the Houston, Texas, area and two in Louisiana — announced it will close its Baton Rouge and New Orleans clinics on Sept. 30.
PRO-LIFE GROUP ‘ELATED’ AFTER PLANNED PARENTHOOD SHUTTERS HOUSTON FACILITIES: ‘TREMENDOUS VICTORY’
Shawn Carney, CEO and founder of 40 Days for Life, stated the closure of more Planned Parenthood facilities is a «huge victory» for the pro-life movement. (Fox News Digital/Landon Mion)
Planned Parenthood previously announced the closure of the Prevention Park and Southwest centers in the Houston area, one of which was the largest abortion facility in the Western Hemisphere. The remaining Houston facilities will be acquired by the organization’s largest Texas affiliate.
Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast President Melaney Linton said in a statement that the closures in Louisiana are a «direct result of relentless political assaults.»
«This is not a decision we wanted to make; it is one we were forced into by political warfare,» she wrote. «Anti-reproductive health lawmakers obsessed with power and control have spent decades fighting the concept that people deserve to control their own bodies.»
Linton said «extremist» Republican lawmakers have done everything in their power to defund Planned Parenthood, adding: «Every health center closure, every patient who goes without care, every undetected cancer and untreated infection is on those lawmakers’ hands.»
Facilities in GOP-led states with abortion restrictions, including Louisiana and Texas, have also been forced to cease the procedures following the 2022 Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe V. Wade and returned the power to make laws regarding abortion back to the states.
GOP officials in recent years have made repeated attempts to shut down Planned Parenthood, even after nearly all abortions were banned under state law in Louisiana and Texas, as well as other Republican-controlled states.
Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry (R) celebrated the pending closures of the remaining Planned Parenthood facilities in the state in a post on X, writing that abortion «should NEVER be considered healthcare.» (Valerie Plesch/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Louisiana Republican Gov. Jeff Landry wrote on X that the Planned Parenthood closures in his state mark a «major win for the pro-life movement» in his state, adding that he has fought to «rid our state of this failed organization» and that abortion «should NEVER be considered healthcare.»
The state’s Attorney General Liz Murrill, also a Republican, wrote that the Planned Parenthood clinic closures are «welcome news.»
«Planned Parenthood built its business around promoting death. Louisiana chooses life. We will always protect women and babies,» she wrote.
While Planned Parenthood is not allowed to provide abortion procedures in Louisiana, it has helped women access out-of-state abortions.
EX-PLANNED PARENTHOOD DIRECTOR CELEBRATES CLOSURE OF HOUSTON FACILITIES: ‘NOT SHOCKING’
Planned Parenthood facilities have been shuttering in various states across the country, including California and New York, where the organization is selling its only Manhattan health center building for $39 million.
«This will be the 40th Planned Parenthood to close in 2025,» Carney said. I suspect before September 30, which is the end of their fiscal year, that we will see about 25 to 30 more Planned Parenthoods close, maybe more.»
Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast announced it will close its Baton Rouge and New Orleans clinics on Sept. 30. (Getty Images)
The Trump administration has sought to impose funding cuts to Planned Parenthood that could lead to the closure of additional facilities. A provision in a GOP-backed spending bill would end Medicaid payments for one year to abortion providers that received more than $800,000 from the program in 2023, although that provision is facing legal challenges and has been blocked, at least for now, by a federal judge.
«Planned Parenthood is in the worst shape in their entire history, and they were before the fall of Roe V. Wade and before their defunding,» Carney said.
Carney predicted that Planned Parenthood affiliates across the country will continue to merge, just as Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast is set to do. Former Planned Parenthood clinic director turned pro-life activist Abby Johnson recently made a similar prediction in an interview with Fox News Digital.
«The suffering ones, like Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, will end up merging with some of these other affiliates that they used to just compete against for abortion numbers,» Carney said. «I think you’ll see these closures lead to them not rebuilding, but just going away in some parts of the country and merging with other affiliates throughout the rest of America.»
Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast President Melaney Linton said the closures in Louisiana are a «direct result of relentless political assaults.» (Getty Images)
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«If they’re a nonprofit, they can go out and do what all nonprofits do, what we do and churches do, and that’s go out and raise money,» he continued. «And if people want to support your mission, they will. You shouldn’t be dependent on the federal government, and this just highlighted how dependent they were.»
Carney also noted that Planned Parenthood lost 78,000 individual donors last year, emphasizing that the organization is not only at risk of potentially losing public funding.
Addressing Planned Parenthood’s claim that abortions make up only 3% of its services, Carney said that is «complete garbage» and pointed to the shuttering of facilities in Republican-controlled states with abortion bans.
«It’s like McDonald’s saying that only 3% of their business is selling french fries,» he said. «If that were true, they wouldn’t be closing all these facilities in pro-life states where you can’t do abortions. So that’s hardly believable anymore in 2025.»
exclusive,abortion,politics,louisiana,us,donald trump,supreme court
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ISIS soldiers behead Christians in Mozambique, burning church and homes: ‘Silent genocide’
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International observers are reporting that ISIS-aligned soldiers are beheading Christians and burning churches and homes in central and southern Africa – with some of the most brutal attacks happening in the nation of Mozambique.
The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) – a counter-terrorism research nonprofit based in Washington, D.C. – is sounding that alarm about what it describes as a «silent genocide» taking place against Christians.
The Islamic State Mozambique Province (ISMP) recently released 20 photos boasting of four attacks on «Christian villages» in the Chiure district, in Mozambique’s northern Cabo Delgado province, according to MEMRI.
MEMRI said the photos show ISIS operatives raiding villages and burning a church and homes. The images also allegedlydepict the beheadings of a member of what the jihadists consider «infidel militias» and two Christian civilians. Rampaging jihadist groups celebrated the killings. Photos also showed the corpses of several members of those so-called «infidel militias,» according to the institute’s analysis.
«What we see in Africa today is a kind of silent genocide or silent, brutal, savage war that is occurring in the shadows and all too often ignored by the international community,» MEMRI Vice President Alberto Miguel Fernandez told Fox News Digital.
ISLAMIST TERRORISTS KILL 49 CHRISTIANS IN AFRICAN CHURCH MASSACRE; EYEWITNESS REVEALS HORRIFIC DETAILS
ISIS operatives raided Christian villages and burned homes in Mozambique. (Middle East Media Research Institute)
«That jihadist groups are in a position to take over not one, not two, but several countries in Africa – take over the whole country or most of several countries – is dangerous,» Fernandez, a former U.S. diplomat, said. «It’s very dangerous for the national security of the United States let alone the security of the poor people who are there – Christians or Muslims or whoever they are.»
The Islamic State Central Africa Province (ISCAP) also recently released several photos of their own documenting a July 27 attack against the Christian village of Komanda in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s Ituri province. Islamic State-affiliated soldiers opened fire at a Catholic Church and set fire to homes, stores, vehicles and possessions. At least 45 people were killed, according to MEMRI. The photos show burning facilities and the corpses of Christians.
Fernandez explained to Fox News Digital that the goal of these jihadist groups is «eliminating Christian communities,» as they push down from safe havens and Muslims are «given a choice: ‘either join us or you too will face killing and annihilation.’»
«Christians, of course, are not going to be asked to join,» Fernandez told Fox News Digital. «Christians are going to be targeted and destroyed.»
The United Nations migration agency said Monday that attacks by insurgents in Mozambique’s northern Cabo Delgado province displaced more than 46,000 people in the span of eight days last month.
The International Organization for Migration said nearly 60% of those forced from their homes were children.
ISIS fighters set fire to Christian villages in Mozambique. (Middle East Media Research Institute)
In a separate report, the U.N.’s humanitarian office said the wave of attacks between July 20 and July 28 across three districts in Cabo Delgado caused the surge in displacements.
While the United Nations references attacks, its reporting has not detailed deaths or specified the targets. At least nine Christians in the Cabo Delgado province were reportedly killed in separate attacks by Islamic insurgents during that timeframe.
«I’m no fan of the United Nations in general, but I think what they’re doing is kind of the lowest common denominator,» Fernandez told Fox News Digital. «It’s kind of easy to be vague like that. The fact that some of this and some of the worst of it is happening because of a deep anti-Christian animus, hatred of Christians, religiously-based hatred of Christians is something that the UN usually doesn’t like to talk about.»
Fighters from Islamic State Mozambique allegedly captured and beheaded six Christians in the village of Natocua in the Ancuabe district of Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado Province on July 22, according to MEMRI.
POPE LEO XIV CONDEMNS BRUTAL MACHETE ATTACK THAT KILLED 49 CHRISTIANS DURING PRAYER IN DR CONGO
Barnabas Aid, an international Christian charity, pointed to reporting by the Terrorism Research & Analysis Consortium claiming another three Christians were slaughtered in the Chiure district in attacks on July 24 and 25.
The southern African nation has been fighting an insurgency by Islamic State-affiliated militants in the north for at least eight years. Rwandan soldiers have been deployed to help Mozambique fight them.
Structures burned in Mozambique ISIS attacks. (Middle East Media Research Institute)
The jihadist groups have been accused of beheading villagers and kidnapping children to be used as laborers or child soldiers. The U.N. estimates that the violence, and the impact of drought and several cyclones in recent years, has led to the displacement of more than 1 million people in northern Mozambique.
Fernandez said that he feels the Trump administration «has refreshingly been tough and strong when it comes to jihadist terrorism» – but what’s happening in Africa typically does not receive as much attention compared to the Middle East. He pointed to how Trump’s intervention in the U.S. brokering a ceasefire deal between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo helps offset jihadist groups that take advantage of security vacuums and ungoverned spaces to expand control.
Fernandez also warned about the threat of jihadist ideology. After the Islamic State was «very strongly defeated» in the Middle East during Trump’s first administration, he said branches are now looking to weaker territories to expand their influence.
«It’s kind of like a whack-a-mole situation,» Fernandez said, explaining that the Islamic State not long ago controlled a pseudo-state the size of the United Kingdom between Syria and Iraq. «What we need to see is them to be utterly defeated in Africa, so people will say, people on the sidelines or people on defense will say, ‘Well obviously these people did not have the mandate of Allah, the mandate God, they were losers, they lost.’ That’s what we need.»
Doctors Without Borders said it has launched an emergency response to help thousands of recently displaced people who now live in camps in Chiure district.
Vehicles set on fire by ISIS soldiers in Africa. (Middle East Media Research Institute)
Cabo Delgado has large offshore natural gas reserves, and the insurgency caused the suspension of a $20 billion extraction project by French company TotalEnergies in 2021.
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Meanwhile, the Congolese army said last month that attacks in the village of Komanda in the conflict-battered region were carried out by the Allied Democratic Force, which is backed by the Islamic State. The group has mostly targeted villagers in eastern Congo and across the border in Uganda. ADF leaders pledged allegiance in 2019 to the Islamic State and have sought to establish an Islamic caliphate in Uganda.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
africa,christianity religion,terrorism
INTERNACIONAL
El mayor incendio forestal de Francia en décadas arrasó un área más grande que París: los bomberos trabajan día y noche
El mayor incendio forestal de Francia en décadas seguía ardiendo y propagándose este jueves, aunque a un ritmo más lento, después de haber arrasado ya más de 160 kilómetros cuadrados (62 millas cuadradas) en el sur del país y haberse cobrado una vida, dijeron las autoridades locales.
El incendio, que se inició el martes y arrasó el macizo de Corbières en la región de Aude, no ha sido contenido a pesar del despliegue de más de 2.100 bomberos y varios aviones cisterna.
La rápida propagación del incendio fue alimentada por semanas de clima cálido y seco, aunque las temperaturas más frías y los vientos más tranquilos durante la noche ayudaron a aliviar levemente la situación.
“La batalla continúa, tenemos un incendio que aún no está bajo control”, dijo el administrador de la región, Christian Pouget, a la emisora BFMTV.
El incendio ha arrasado 15 municipios del macizo de las Corbières, destruyendo o dañando al menos 36 viviendas. La evaluación completa de los daños aún está en curso. Una persona falleció en su vivienda y al menos otras 13 resultaron heridas, incluidos 11 bomberos, según las autoridades locales. Tres personas fueron reportadas como desaparecidas, añadió la prefectura de Aude.
Se está llevando a cabo una investigación para determinar la causa del incendio, que ha dejado un paisaje ennegrecido de árboles esqueléticos y cenizas.
Es muy triste pensar en la imagen que daremos de nuestra región de Corbières, con sus paisajes devastados y sus mujeres y hombres desesperados, no solo hoy ni mañana, sino durante las próximas semanas y meses. La reconstrucción llevará años, declaró Xavier de Volontat, alcalde de Saint-Laurent-de-la-Cabrerisse, a BFMTV.
Mientras tanto, se ha pedido a los residentes y turistas de las zonas cercanas que permanezcan en sus hogares a menos que se les indique que deben evacuar. Quienes ya habían huido de las llamas se refugiaron durante la noche en centros de alojamiento temporal en 17 municipios.
El incendio, que comenzó en el pueblo de Ribaute, es el más importante que ha afrontado Francia desde 1949, según Agnès Pannier-Runacher, ministra francesa de Transición Ecológica.
“La noche fue más fresca, por lo que el incendio se propaga más lentamente, pero sigue siendo el incendio más importante que Francia ha sufrido desde 1949”, declaró a la radio France Info. “Es un incendio claramente consecuencia del cambio climático y la sequía en esta región”.
El incendio de esta semana fue el más grande desde la creación de una base de datos nacional de incendios en 2006, según el servicio nacional de emergencias.
El sur de Europa ha sufrido múltiples incendios de gran magnitud este verano. Los científicos advierten que el cambio climático está agravando la frecuencia e intensidad del calor y la sequía, lo que aumenta la vulnerabilidad de la región a los incendios forestales. El mes pasado, un incendio forestal que alcanzó el puerto de Marsella, la segunda ciudad más grande de Francia, dejó alrededor de 300 heridos.
Europa es el continente que se calienta más rápido del mundo, con temperaturas que aumentan al doble de velocidad que el promedio mundial desde la década de 1980, según el Servicio de Cambio Climático Copernicus de la Unión Europea.
(con información de AP)
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Pro-life group celebrates Planned Parenthood’s closing of remaining Louisiana facilities: ‘Huge success’
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