Nation & World Watch
vWashington: Cuts OK’d for family planning funds
Republican legislation letting states deny federal family planning money to Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers squeezed through the Senate on Thursday.
The bill was rescued by a 51-50 vote, with Vice President Mike Pence breaking the tie.
The tally had been tied after two GOP senators, Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski and Maine’s Susan Collins, joined Democrats opposing the measure.
Senate approval sent the legislation to President Donald Trump, who was expected to sign it. The House voted to give its consent last month.
vWashington: Chinese leader to visit US in April
The White House confirmed Thursday that President Donald Trump will hold his first face-to-face meetings with Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping on April 6-7 at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida.
The long-planned summit comes after months of criticism by Trump over what he calls unfair Chinese trade practices, including claims of currency manipulation. The president has threatened to slap new import taxes on Chinese goods.
China has denounced Trump’s bellicose rhetoric as a threat to cooperation.
vCape Canaveral, Fla.: Patch fixes spacewalk goof
Spacewalking astronauts carried out an impromptu patch job Thursday outside the International Space Station after losing a vital piece of cloth shielding when it floated away.
As the drama unfolded, Peggy Whitson set a record for the most spacewalks by a woman — eight — and the most accumulated time spent spacewalking at just over 53 hours.
The bundled-up shield somehow came loose as Whitson and Shane Kimbrough worked to install micrometeorite protection over a spot left exposed when a new docking port was relocated.
Mission Control quickly came up with a MacGyver-like plan for a patch. The astronauts filled the gap using the cover they had just removed from the relocated docking port.
vSouth Korea: Ex-leader detained in corruption case
Ousted South Korean President Park Geun-hye was arrested Friday in Seoul in connection with a corruption scandal that led to her removal from office, according to Yonhap News Agency.
A court issued a warrant to detain Park on charges of bribery, coercion, abuse of power and disclosure of state secrets. TV footage showed Park being driven to a detention facility.
Prosecutors filed the request Monday to arrest Park because of the “graveness of the alleged crimes” and “possibility of the destruction of evidence.”
The court’s ruling means prosecutors can detain Park for up to 20 days before formally charging her, the Associated Press reported.
vBelgium: NATO, Russia share troop information
NATO’s chief says the allies and Russia remain at loggerheads over the conflict in Ukraine but have exchanged briefings on their troop movements elsewhere in Europe to help ease tensions.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the “allies and Russia continue to have clear disagreements on the crisis in and around Ukraine.”
Stoltenberg’s remarks came after ambassadors from the military alliance’s 28 nations met Thursday for the first time this year.
Russia briefed the ambassadors about new troop deployments near its western border, while NATO gave an update on forces being deployed to the Baltic states and Poland.