Hundreds of Nigerian schoolgirls taken in mass abduction

Gunmen abducted 317 girls from a boarding school in northern Nigeria on Friday, police said, the latest in a series of mass kidnappings of students in the West African nation.

Police and the military have begun joint operations to rescue the girls after the attack at the Government Girls Junior Secondary School in Jangebe town, according to a police spokesman in Zamfara state, Mohammed Shehu, who confirmed the number abducted.

Several large groups of armed men operate in Zamfara state, described by the government as bandits, and are known to kidnap for money and to push for the release of their members from jail.

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari said Friday the government’s primary objective is to get all the school hostages returned safe, alive and unharmed.

“We will not succumb to blackmail by bandits and criminals who target innocent school students in the expectation of huge ransom payments,” he said. “Let bandits, kidnappers and terrorists not entertain any illusions that they are more powerful than the government. They shouldn’t mistake our restraint for the humanitarian goals of protecting innocent lives as a weakness, or a sign of fear or irresolution.”

WASHINGTON — A $1.9 trillion package aimed at helping the countr y rebuild from the pandemic seemed headed toward House passage Friday, even as Democrats searched for a way to revive their derailed drive to boost the minimum wage.

A vir tual par ty-line House vote was expected on the COVID-19 relief measure, which embodies President Joe Biden’s push to flush cash to individuals, businesses, states and cities. The White House issued a statement reinforcing its support for the new president’s paramount initial goal.

“The bill would allow the administration to execute its plan to change the course of the COVID-19 pandemic,” it said. “And it would provide Americans and their communities an economic bridge through the crisis.”

Republicans have lined up against the plan, calling it an overpriced and wasteful attempt to help Democratic allies like labor unions and Democratic-run states.

The bill is “a partisan circus” designed to “quickly notch some wins for the president’s buddies,” said Rep. Jason Smith, R-MO., top Republican on the House Budget Committee.

That’s making the fight a showdown over which party voters will reward for approving added federal spending to combat the coronavirus and revive the economy, on top of $4 trillion previously passed. The pandemic has killed a halfmillion Americans, thrown millions out of work and reconfigured the daily lives of nearly everyone from coast to coast.

The battle is also emerging as an early test of Biden’s ability to hold together his party’s fragile congressional majorities — just 10 votes in the House and an evenly divided 50-50 Senate.

At the same time, Democrats were trying to figure out how to respond to their jarring setback Thursday in the Senate.

That chamber’s nonpar tisan parliamentarian, Elizabeth Macdonough, said Senate rules require that a federal minimum wage increase would have to be dropped from the COVID19 bill, leaving the proposal on life support. The measure would gradually lift that minimum to $15 hourly by 2025, doubling the current $7.25 floor in effect since 2009.

Hoping to revive the effort in some form, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., is considering adding a provision to the Senate version of the COVID relief bill that would penalize large companies that don’t pay workers at least $15 an hour, said a senior Democratic aide who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal conversations.

That was in line with ideas floated Thursday night by Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-VT., a chief sponsor of the $15 plan, and Senate

Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, D-ore., to boost taxes on corporations that don’t hit certain minimum wage targets.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also weighed in, promising Democrats would continue fighting for a minimum wage increase and saying Congress would “absolutely” approve a final version of the bill even if it lacked progressives’ treasured goal.

“If it doesn’t prevail because of Senate rules, we will persist,” said Pelosi, D-calif. “But we will not stop until we ver y soon pass the $15 minimum wage.”

She provided no details about how they would achieve that.