NEWS OF THE DAY
1 Senator rips Trump: Republican Sen. Susan Collins got caught Tuesday at the end of a hearing with a microphone that was still hot — and captured her ripping President Trump. Collins, a moderate from Maine, can be overheard complaining about Trump and his proposed 2018 budget, which slashes spending with deep cuts to domestic agencies, food stamps, Medicaid, highway funding and medical research. “Whenever there was a grant, they just X-ed it out, with no metric, no thinking about it, no nothing,” she tells Democratic Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island. “It’s just incredibly irresponsible.” “I think he’s crazy,” Reed says. And Collins adds, “I’m worried.”
2 Abortion regulations: Missouri lawmakers on Tuesday delivered Republican Gov. Eric Greitens a political win by sending him a wide-ranging bill tightening abortion regulations that would give the attorney general power to prosecute violations, prompting critics to say the changes are aimed at limiting access to abortion in a state that already has tough restrictions. The bill’s passage comes after the first-year governor called lawmakers back to the Capitol for a special summer session focused on abortion policy. He said the move was motivated by a St. Louis ordinance banning discrimination in employment and housing based on “reproductive health decisions” and a federal judge’s ruling that struck down some Missouri abortion restrictions passed in previous legislative sessions.
3 Deadly border crossing: The bodies of at least three people were recovered Tuesday after they drowned while trying to cross the Rio Grande from Mexico, federal and El Paso officials said. The El Paso Fire Department water rescue team recovered the bodies of a teenage boy and girl and an adult woman on Tuesday, department spokesman Carlos Briano said. All three were Guatemalan nationals, the Guatemalan Foreign Ministry said. Ministry spokesman Tekandi Paniagua said the boy was 16, the girl was 15, and the woman was 37.
4 Rail accident: The driver of a sport utility vehicle that was hit by a Metro-North Railroad train caused the accident that killed her and five train passengers when she drove onto the tracks in Westchester County, N.Y., two years ago, the National Transportation Safety Board said Tuesday. But the board said it could not answer a key question: why the woman drove forward — into the path of the train after a crossing arm came down on her vehicle — rather than back up. Still, the severity of the accident was exacerbated by the track itself. The electrified third rail was constructed in such a way that the crash caused it to rip away and tear through the train.
5 “Bathroom bill”: A Texas version of a North Carolina-style “bathroom bill” targeting transgender people again passed the state Senate on Tuesday over opposition from police and major corporations, but it still faces an uncertain path to becoming law. It is the second time this year Texas has lurched toward putting restrictions on which bathrooms transgender people can use, but the same deep GOP divisions that sank the first try remain. If anything, tensions are running even hotter. Now at stake for Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, who faces re-election in 2018 and has gone against the tide of GOP governors who have shied from following the lead of North Carolina, is whether his party will deliver after ordering them to finish the job in a legislative session that ends in August.
Chronicle News Services