CONGRESS POISED FOR BATTLE OVER REPARATIONS

WASHINGTON Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives have advanced a bill that could pave the way to reparations for Black Americans as part of efforts to address centuries of enslavement and institutional racism. The House Judiciary Committee late on Wednesday voted 25-17 to create a commission to draft reparation proposals. No Republicans voted in favour, a committee spokeswoman said.

The House Democrats' bill would set up a commission to examine enslavement and discrimination from 1619 to the present and draft reparation proposals. It would be modelled on a commission Congress approved in the 1980s to document the incarceration of Japanese-Americans during the Second World War.