House Republicans united on US border policy focus
Despite Republican Conference divisions laid bare by a dayslong internal battle for speaker, the party has emerged united on plans to focus this year on immigration issues and oversight of the Biden administration’s border policies.
Republicans in both camps during those speaker votes underscored the need for action on border security. Republicans newly tasked with leading the House’s immigration and border security committees have said the issue will be a top priority.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., announced a border security bill will be brought to the floor in the coming weeks and said lawmakers would hold a hearing about the “open border” on location. And articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas have already been filed by one Republican lawmaker, and more are expected.
But Republicans’ goal for Congress to pass legislation to secure the border appears tough to accomplish. Democrats control the Senate, and Republicans have such a slim majority in the House that disagreement from only a few moderates could derail more aggressive approaches. suspected gunman was arrested on the scene for allegedly shooting Abe with a homemade firearm as the former premier was campaigning for his Liberal Democratic Party in July in the western city of Nara.
The suspect told police he targeted Abe, the country’s longest-serving premier, because of his ties with the South Korean-based group formerly known as the Unification Church. The suspect blamed the group for ruining his family by taking excessive donations from his mother.
Video taken at the time of the killing showed the suspect approaching Abe from behind as he spoke at an outdoor campaign event and shooting him from about 10 feet away.
Public broadcaster NHK reported last month the suspect had been found capable of taking responsibility for his actions and was set to be indicted by Nara district prosecutors. The prosecutors’ office declined to discuss details of the legal proceedings over the telephone.
BERKELEY’S PEOPLE’S PARK IS AGAIN IN A FIGHT FOR THE AGES, NOW OVER UC STUDENT HOUSING
People’s Park — among California’s most contested and colorful patches of public land and a ’60s era symbol of free speech and community power — is again embroiled in a battle for the ages, this time involving the University of California, Berkeley, a key environmental law and the acute student housing shortage.
A state appellate court heard oral arguments Thursday over its tentative ruling last month that could delay UC Berkeley’s plan to build badly needed student dorms. If the tentative ruling is made final, it is likely to open controversial new paths that stand to obstruct housing developments statewide, legal experts said.
The tentative ruling stunned the university and drew condemnation from student leaders, lawmakers, Bay Area business executives and progressive law professors. In it, the 1st District Court of Appeal in San Francisco found that the California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA, required developers to analyze and mitigate a project’s potential “social noise’’ — in this case the noise generated by students who may drink, yell and hold loud “unruly parties,” as some neighbors have complained in documents submitted to the court.
UC Berkeley failed to adequately assess this potential impact, the court said in its tentative ruling.