Half its original size, Biden’s big plan in race to finish
WASHINGTON >> Half its original size, President Joe Biden’s big domestic policy plan is being pulled apart and reconfigured as Democrats edge closer to satisfying their most reluctant colleagues and finishing what’s now about a $1.75 trillion package.
How to pay for it all remained deeply in flux Tuesday, with a proposed billionaires’ tax running into criticism as cumbersome or worse. That’s forcing difficult reductions, if not the outright elimination, of policy priorities — from paid family leave to child care to dental, vision and hearing aid benefits for seniors.
The once hefty climate change strategies are losing some punch, too, focusing away from punitive measures on polluters in a shift toward instead rewarding clean energy incentives.
Pressure mounting, Biden met Tuesday evening with two holdout Democrats — Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, according to a person who requested anonymity.
Caravan to the U.S. border: Migrants, who are part of caravan, push strollers across a railroad track in Huixtla, Mexico, on Tuesday. They spent a day of rest before continuing their trek across southern Mexico to the U.S. border.
1970s radical David Gilbert granted parole in Brink’s case
ALBANY, N.Y. >> Former Weather Underground radical David Gilbert has been granted parole after 40 years behind bars for his role in a deadly 1981 Brink’s robbery that was a violent echo of left-wing extremism born in the 1960s, the state corrections department said Tuesday.
Gilbert, 76, has been imprisoned since shortly after the infamously botched armored car robbery in which a guard and two police officers were killed. He became eligible for parole only after his 75 years-tolife sentence was shortened by Gov. Andrew Cuomo in August.
Gilbert appeared before the state parole board Oct. 19 and was subsequently granted parole, a spokesperson said. He will be able to leave Shawangunk Correctional Facility in the Hudson Valley next month.
Supporters — including his son, San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin — lobbied to have Gilbert join other defendants in the case who have been released.
Senators put YouTube, TikTok, Snap on defensive on kids’ use
WASHINGTON >> Senators put executives from YouTube, TikTok and Snapchat on the defensive Tuesday, questioning them about what they’re doing to ensure young users’ safety on their platforms.
Citing the harm that can come to vulnerable young people from the sites — ranging from eating disorders to exposure to sexually explicit content — the lawmakers also sought the executives’ support for legislation bolstering protection of children on social media. But they received little firm commitment.
“The problem is clear: Big Tech preys on children and teens to make more money,” Sen. Edward Markey, D-Mass., said at a hearing by the Senate Commerce subcommittee on consumer protection. The subcommittee recently took testimony from a former Facebook data scientist, who laid out internal company research showing that the company’s Instagram photo-sharing service appears to seriously harm some teens.
150 people arrested in U.S.-Europe darknet probe
WASHINGTON >> Law enforcement officials in the U.S. and Europe have arrested 150 people and seized more than $31 million in an international drug trafficking investigation stemming from sales on the darknet, the Justice Department said Tuesday.
The arrests are connected to a 10-month investigation between federal law enforcement officials in the U.S. and Europol in Europe. Prosecutors allege those charges are responsible for tens of thousands of illegal sales in the U.S., the United Kingdom, Australia, Bulgaria, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Switzerland. The Justice Department says investigators have seized over $31.6 million in cash and virtual currency and 45 guns.
The darknet is a part of the internet hosted within an encrypted network and accessible only through specialized anonymity-providing tools, most notably the Tor Browser.
Investigators also recovered a slew of illegal drugs.
Mort Sahl, comedian who satirized politics, dies at 94
NEW YORK >> Satirist Mort Sahl, who helped revolutionize stand-up comedy during the Cold War with his running commentary on politicians and current events and became a favorite of a new, restive generation of Americans, died Tuesday. He was 94.
His friend Lucy Mercer said that he died “peacefully” at his home in Mill Valley. The cause was “old age,” she said.
During an era when many comedians dressed in tuxedos and told mother-in-law jokes, Sahl faced his audiences in the ‘50s and ‘60s wearing slacks, a sweater and an unbuttoned collar and carrying a rolled-up newspaper on which he had pasted notes for his act. Reading news items as if seated across from you at the kitchen table, he made his inevitably cutting comments, often joining the laughter with a horsey bellow of his own and ending his routines by inquiring: “Is there any group I haven’t offended yet?”