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House Progressives and moderates united to pass a massive infrastructure deal

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The House passed a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill Friday, but did not vote on a much larger, sweeping climate and social spending measure as originally planned.
The result was a major step forward for President Joe Biden’s agenda, but a blow to progressives who’ve long pushed for the two bills to be tied together. Progressives were able to extract a commitment from House moderates to vote for the spending measure by November 15, although that pledge came with an important caveat.
The now successful infrastructure bill passed the House on a bipartisan basis, 228-206, with <a href="https://twitter.com/mkraju/status/1456826746838429699?s=20">13 Republicans voting in favor</a>. The legislation was a compromise between a bipartisan group of lawmakers, includes major investments in roads, water quality, bridges, and broadband. It’s known as BIF — the bipartisan infrastructure framework — since members of both parties have backed it. Because it has already passed the Senate, it now heads to President Joe Biden’s desk to become law.
The $1.75 trillion social spending bill, dubbed the Build Back Better Act (BBB), did not receive a vote, however, and won’t be heading to the Senate. It contains historic funding for early childhood education and climate as well as key health care reforms.
The House action followed a chaotic day of back-and-forth over the two votes. Progressives have consistently demanded that votes for the two bills — the bipartisan infrastructure bill and the social spending package — be linked. They feared that moderates, who back BIF, would abandon the spending bill if the infrastructure bill passed first.
To satisfy this demand, Democratic leaders scheduled a vote on both for Friday. This week, however, a group of moderate Democrats including Reps. Kurt Schrader, Stephanie Murphy and Jared Golden, urged a delay for the social spending bill until it received a score from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) laying out how much it would add to the national debt.
In response to these concerns, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi decided to keep the infrastructure vote on the books, and delay the vote on the Build Back Better Act until lawmakers could get more information.
This strategy immediately prompted uproar from progressives, making it appear that the infrastructure vote would fail. Because Democrats have such narrow margins in the House, they can’t afford to lose more than three members on any vote. That gives any group of moderates or progressives the power to hold up legislation.
Biden intervened Friday night, and with Pelosi, offered progressives and moderates a deal. In exchange for progressive votes for the infrastructure package, moderates would pledge to vote for the spending bill, so long as the Congressional Budget Office — which will lay out how much the measure adds to spending and the deficit — finds the measure’s fiscal impact is as projected.
In the end, <a href="https://twitter.com/mkraju/status/1456826746838429699?s=20">all but six progressives</a> were willing to take the deal, enough for the infrastructure bill to pass the House.
The fate of the social spending bill, however, is now uncertain. Moderates are holding out for a score from the Congressional Budget Office before they move forward. And it may be that the CBO finds the spending bill would add to the deficit more than expected. In that case, moderates would not be required to vote for the bill, though they did <a href="https://twitter.com/sarahnferris/status/1456808013399003149?s=20">promise</a> to try “to resolve any discrepancies in order to pass the Build Back Better legislation.” Some could conceivably refuse to vote for it at all. In the best case scenario, a vote on the bill isn’t expected to take place until later this month at the earliest and then, should it pass, it must still get through the Senate as well.
Of concern to progressives is whether the spending package will stay alive. Without a concurrent vote on the social spending measure, progressives don’t really have much leverage to ensure that it won’t be abandoned entirely.
Previously, Congressional Progressive Caucus leader Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) said that progressives trusted Biden to deliver the support of moderate Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema for the bill. Both senators have demanded major cuts and reworking to the spending package over the past few weeks, and Manchin, in particular, has expressed concern about the cost.
Now, they’ll get a chance to see if moderates in both the House and the Senate actually come through for the legislation, if they’ll continue to whittle it down, or if they will come to oppose it altogether.
Both bills are quite large. The infrastructure bill will spend $1.2 trillion on roads, water quality, bridges, and broadband, while the social spending and climate bill would put $1.75 trillion toward early childhood education and clean energy as well as key health care reforms. Together, they’d represent nearly $3 trillion in spending spread over several years that would come less than a year after Congress <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2021/3/6/22315536/stimulus-package-passes-checks-unemployment">authorized $1.9 trillion</a> in a third coronavirus relief bill.
Biden has emphasized that the entirety of the $1.75 trillion bill would be paid for with revenue raisers including a new corporate minimum tax, a tax on stock buybacks, and an additional tax on top income earners. An estimate from the Joint Committee on Taxation suggested the measure would bring in about $1.5 trillion in revenue over a decade. That calculation did not include newly added provisions like policies to cut prescription drug costs and to ramp up IRS tax enforcement that are expected to bring in further revenue. Progressives have noted, too, that the bipartisan infrastructure bill is not fully paid for and would add an estimated $256 billion to the debt, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/05/us/politics/infrastructure-bill.html">according to the Congressional Budget Office</a>.
Despite this, the scale of the legislation still has moderate lawmakers in both the House and Senate worried, and they’re not fully convinced by the estimates they’ve seen. <a href="https://budgetmodel.wharton.upenn.edu/estimates/2021/11/1/reconciliation-framework">A Wharton analysis</a>, for instance, found that Biden’s proposed framework could add as much as $2.5 trillion to the deficit.
Their demands for a CBO score — which would lay out the measure’s effects on spending, revenue, and the deficit — stem from worries that these programs will increase the deficit further, and that the revenue raisers included in the legislation won’t be sufficient to cover these costs.
Moderates have said they’d feel more comfortable moving forward if they knew for certain that the bill would have limited impacts on the debt.
“We have, because of Covid, already spent about $6 trillion roughly, and we need to approach this in a fiscally responsible manner, and the only way to do that is to know how much this package costs,” Murphy has previously said.
It could take as much as two weeks for the House to get a CBO score on the bill, something the Senate is also waiting on for the budget reconciliation process. The deal struck between progressives and moderates projected CBO data would come by November 15.
Any delays in getting that score could pose a problem for getting the spending bill passed before the year is over — or even before next spring, when lawmakers will begin to turn their attention to the 2022 midterm elections.
Congress will be on recess for two weeks in November and out again in the second half of December. Should the CBO score come in two weeks, lawmakers would receive it right before leaving Washington, DC, for the Thanksgiving recess. After returning from that break, lawmakers would have roughly 10 legislative days left before their winter recess to get the bill through the House and Senate.
Finishing the spending bill is expected to be particularly difficult given that Democrats haven’t yet agreed on what will be in it. Moderate senators are still pushing back on the size and some provisions in the spending legislation, and have winnowed it down notably in recent weeks. Progressives in both chambers are working to put provisions that have been stripped out back in, and, as was seen Friday, moderates continue to voice concerns about overall cost.
And even once the spending bill passes the House, it will still face a long journey through the Senate. The social spending bill is being advanced through the budget reconciliation process, which allows bills to pass the Senate with a simple majority. And Democrats have a one-vote majority. But reconciliation also mandates a bill’s provisions affect the budget.
The Senate parliamentarian, who rules on what is and isn’t allowed in a reconciliation bill, will need to make a decision on what can and can’t be included in the bill after Democrats finish their internal negotiations and the CBO score is released. After that, again, as part of the reconciliation process, the bill will also have to go through a step known as “vote-a-rama” in which senators will be able to add amendments to the legislation and alter it even more.
Once passed in the Senate, it will head back to the House, where lawmakers will need to approve the Senate’s changes.
It’s also important to remember that the spending bill isn’t the only thing lawmakers need to address. On December 3, if Congress doesn’t take action, the government will default on its debts, triggering a possible global economic crisis, and if lawmakers don’t pass more government funding, it could shut down as well.
A lot is riding on both bills passing the House quickly, but it’s no longer clear that can happen. And if the House fails to advance the spending bill, Biden’s full agenda — and all the benefits it hopes to bring — won’t come to fruition.
 
 
source <a href="https://www.vox.com/2021/11/5/22766086/infrastructure-biden-house-democrats-vote-pass-bbb-spending-bill">https://www.vox.com/2021/11/5/22766086/infrastructure-biden-house-democrats-vote-pass-bbb-spending-bill</a>

vox House Progressives and moderates united to pass a massive infrastructure deal

The House passed a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill Friday, but did not vote on a much larger, sweeping climate and social spending measur...

The chicken industry’s worker safety problem

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Starting in the 1960s, US consumers <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-meat-consumption-by-type-kilograms-per-year?country=~USA">began a love affair with chicken</a>. America’s proteins of choice once were beef and pork, until the poultry industry found a way to produce a lot of chicken, making it cheap and plentiful. Human workers paid the cost of that productivity as, over the past few decades, poultry processing line speeds have increased to meet this demand. But that’s happened in tandem with the decline of unions and deregulation of the industry. The result is a high rate of workplace injuries and repetitive motion disorders, with gaps in workplace safety oversight.
For this video, we contacted Tyson Foods Inc. and the National Chicken Council for comment. The National Chicken Council (NCC), the poultry industry lobby that has repeatedly requested line speed increases, wrote that faster line speeds do not affect the pace of work because plants will add additional staff and lines to accommodate the increase in speeds. Through our reporting and our sources, we weren’t able to substantiate this claim, and the NCC did not respond when we asked for an example of when this has happened or for any other evidence that this is the industry standard.
The NCC also mentioned that other countries also run poultry line speeds as fast as, if not faster than, the US. It’s difficult to do an apples-to-apples comparison with other countries because of the regulatory framework and union issues we cover in the video. Claire Kelloway, reporter and researcher for OpenMarkets, noted that in Europe, for example, factories <a href="https://thefern.org/2020/06/how-did-europe-manage-to-avoid-the-covid-19-catastrophe-ravaging-u-s-meatpacking-plants/">are typically smaller than US plants</a>, and there are higher rates of unionization and more industry safety regulation. The regulating agencies <a href="https://euagenda.eu/upload/publications/untitled-178347-ea.pdf">enforce longer breaks and switching up job roles</a> to avoid repetition, for example. Even so, working conditions in poultry plants are still <a href="https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/europe-poor-working-housing-conditions-at-meat-packing-plants-responsible-for-covid-19-outbreak-among-workforce-report-alleges/">criticized</a> there.
While the NCC cites a decline in workplace injuries, experts and advocates say this data is unreliable. It relies on workers reporting injuries to the government agency that regulates workplace safety, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). There are a number of reasons a poultry worker might not report an injury or illness, including language barriers or fears over their citizenship status. We mention that worker- and advocate-led surveys show high levels of injury and <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/sites/default/files/d6_legacy_files/downloads/publication/Unsafe_at_These_Speeds_web.pdf">include one example</a>, but <a href="https://foodchainworkers.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Hands-That-Feed-Us-Report.pdf">there</a> <a href="https://www.uusc.org/sites/default/files/wages_and_working_conditions_in_arkansas_poultry_plants.pdf">are</a> <a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2019/09/04/when-were-dead-and-buried-our-bones-will-keep-hurting/workers-rights-under-threat#">many</a> more.
Tyson Foods Inc. disputes, without evidence, the petition that Magaly Licolli presented on behalf of the workers at the Berry Street poultry plant in Springdale, Arkansas. The company said it was misrepresented to the workers who signed it and that there were double signatures. We interviewed a worker who helped distribute the petition who said otherwise. Tyson Foods also noted that they <a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/tyson-raising-wages-to-keep-up-with-soaring-u-s-chicken-demand-01620694469">offered raises to poultry workers</a> in 2021 amid a labor shortage.
We also contacted OSHA for comment. In their response, they noted that they issue citations or fines to any workplace found by federal inspectors to have violated their safety standards, but confirmed that it is under the jurisdiction of the USDA to determine line speeds. They also said that they do not track data on the use of the chemicals we mention in the video: chlorine, ammonia, and peracetic acid.
While reporting this episode, I read <a href="https://bookshop.org/books/the-meat-racket-the-secret-takeover-of-america-s-food-business/9781451645835">Christopher Leonard’s The Meat Racket</a>, which I would recommend if you are interested in deep-dive reporting into the history of Tyson Foods and the poultry industry.
I also reread Upton Sinclair’s <a href="https://bookshop.org/books/the-jungle-9781945644061/9781945644061">The Jungle</a>. More on the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/cp/obituaries/archives/upton-sinclair-meat-industry">impact of The Jungle</a> here.
A congressional report recently revealed that the death toll from <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/28/world/meatpacking-workers-covid-cases-deaths.html">Covid-19 outbreaks in meat-processing plants</a> was three times higher than previously thought:
Read this for more coverage of the <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/food/2020/07/labor-eugene-scalia-meatpacking-osha-stress-carpal-tunnel-coronavirus-covid/">failed OSHA ergonomics</a> rule.
Deborah Berkowitz, the former OSHA chief of staff and director of the Worker Safety and Health Program of the National Employment Law Project, was a crucial source for this story. Here is her <a href="https://www.nelp.org/publication/testimony-debbie-berkowitz-health-safety-protections-meatpacking-poultry-agricultural-workers/">recent congressional testimony</a> on workplace safety for the meat-processing industry.
There is some reporting on whether more automation could help reduce workplace injuries. In general, <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/meatpackers-covid-safety-automation-robots-coronavirus-11594303535">Europe has higher levels of automation</a> in meat-processing plants than in the US.
This story is about the history of <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/07/20/how-trump-is-helping-tycoons-exploit-the-pandemic">anti-union politics</a>, specifically in Arkansas as it relates to the poultry industry.
You can find this video and all of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLXo7UDZvByw2ixzpQCufnA">Vox’s videos on YouTube</a>.
 
 
source <a href="https://www.vox.com/videos/22766151/tyson-poultry-plant-worker-safety-meat-processing">https://www.vox.com/videos/22766151/tyson-poultry-plant-worker-safety-meat-processing</a>

vox The chicken industry’s worker safety problem

Starting in the 1960s, US consumers began a love affair with chicken . America’s proteins of choice once were beef and pork, until the poul...

What is the price of separated immigrant families’ trauma?

President Joe Biden suggested this week that paying immigrant families separated by the Trump administration <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-administration-in-talks-to-pay-hundreds-of-millions-to-immigrant-families-separated-at-border-11635447591?mod=article_inline">$450,000 in compensation</a> per separated person — as the Department of Justice is reportedly currently discussing in settlement talks — is too much to ask the federal government. The White House has noted it hasn’t ruled out some form of payout altogether.
Some 5,600 families were intentionally separated in immigration detention under former President Donald Trump in 2017 and 2018 after they tried to cross the southern US border without authorization, and about 1,000 families have yet to be reunited. Children taken from their parents were placed in foster care, the homes of relatives in the US, and federal detention centers, while their parents were detained separately. About 940 claims have been filed so far that would potentially be part of the settlement.
For those families, the $450,000 figure reflects the price of dealing with what could be lifelong psychological and health consequences of the trauma of separation, as well as, in some cases of separated children, physical and sexual abuse they experienced while in <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/08/16/immigrant-children-separated-border-abused-foster-care-claims/2027970001/">foster care</a> and in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/27/us/immigrant-children-sexual-abuse.html">US custody</a>. Many advocates question whether this amount is really sufficient given the depth of the families’ trauma — and how long-term its effects could be.
“There’s no amount of money, or anything really, that is ever going to make something like that okay,” said Conchita Cruz, co-executive director of the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project, which has represented separated families and is part of the ongoing negotiations.
But to some US officials, $450,000 seems too high a price.
While eager to make amends for the family separation policy on the campaign trail, Biden said Wednesday that settlements of that size were “<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-says-payments-to-families-separated-at-the-mexico-border-are-not-gonna-happen-11635976872">not going to happen</a>” and admonished reporters for “sending that garbage out.” White House deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre later <a href="https://twitter.com/MHackman/status/1456352382590332929?s=20">clarified</a> that Biden supports settling with separated families if it is less costly than continuing litigation, but not for the amount of $450,000. The DOJ has said that price <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/04/politics/separated-families-border-lawsuit/index.html">is too steep</a> as well.
Republicans have seized on the issue, seeking to weaponize it against Biden. Nearly a dozen Republican senators recently argued in a <a href="https://www.cornyn.senate.gov/content/news/cornyn-opposes-biden-efforts-settle-lawsuits-illegal-immigrants-millions-taxpayer-0">letter</a> to the White House that a settlement “would financially reward aliens who broke our laws” and “encourage more lawlessness” at the southern border, where the Biden administration has continued to uphold hardline Trump-era enforcement policies, which facilitate the mass expulsions of migrants.
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz has ridiculed the idea.
<div>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
So <a href="https://twitter.com/JoeBiden?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@JoeBiden</a> wants to give $450k to every illegal immigrant.
And Hunter Biden paintings “sell” for $500k each.
Perfect solution: give a Hunter Biden painting to every illegal immigrant.
A Win-Win!
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) <a href="https://twitter.com/tedcruz/status/1456276382921732097?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 4, 2021</a></blockquote>
</div>
But while Republicans — and Biden — have dismissed the efforts to secure what might seem like a very large settlement for separated families, it’s important to put that number in context. The federal government has <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/08/09/210138278/japanese-internment-redress">compensated victims</a> of its own policies before, including those subject to Japanese American internment during World War II, under which some 120,000 American citizens and residents of Japanese ancestry were sent to camps in the US following the bombing of Pearl Harbor by Japanese forces.
And advocates argue $450,000 is not an unreasonable amount given what separated families have endured, and will continue to suffer, as a result of their separation.
“There is robust evidence from pediatricians, mental health and public health experts that family separation causes significant trauma that can impact a child for years to come,” said Amy Fischer, Americas advocacy director at Amnesty International USA. “The trauma in this case was the point, explicitly used as a tactic by the US government to try and deter families from seeking safety in the United States. The US government then bears the responsibility to compensate families for this trauma that was caused.”
Family separation carries long-term psychological and health impacts that might not manifest until years later, or worsen over time — outcomes that the US government predicted even before implementing the family separation policy.
Commander Jonathan White, who previously oversaw the government’s program providing care to unaccompanied immigrant children, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/health-north-america-ap-top-news-judiciary-az-state-wire-ee8e81ca0c9542dfb997f4bef444d0e1">told</a> Congress that he repeatedly warned the officials who concocted the policy that it would likely have “significant potential for traumatic psychological injury to the child.”
A September 2019 government watchdog report confirmed that immigrant children who entered government custody in 2018 frequently experienced “intense trauma” and that trauma was even more acute for those who were “unexpectedly separated from a parent.”
Each child reacts to family separation differently. But psychologists have observed three main kinds of effects: Disruptions to their social attachments, increases in their emotional vulnerability, and (in some cases) post-traumatic stress disorder, said Lauren Fasig Caldwell, director of the American Psychological Association’s children, youth, and families office.
Children may face difficulty establishing relationships, resulting in social isolation. They may show signs of anxiety and depression, aggression, and difficulty regulating their emotions or coping with stress. Stress can hinder memory, attention span, and an individual’s abilities to plan, make decisions, and process information.
Fasig Caldwell added those symptoms could be only short-term or persist in the long run — or not even manifest until a child enters their teen years or adulthood. All of them could significantly hinder a child’s later success in school and in the workplace. Suicidal ideation stemming from PTSD and bipolar disorder may also crop up later in life, as might high-risk and self-destructive behaviors.
Beyond those psychological effects, some children were also subjected to physical and sexual abuse while separated from their parents. For instance, one 6-year-old child was <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6780878-2-19-19-HHS-ACF-Prod4#document/p80/a553707">hit in his foster home</a> while separated from his father for months.
And when Honduran immigrant Daniel Paz was separated from his 7-year-old daughter Angie in May 2018, she was sent to a detention facility for children, where he says an immigration officer sexually abused her and told her that if she told anyone, she would never see her parents again. Angie said she also saw the same officer sexually abuse two girls who were even younger than her.
“The Angie the U.S. government returned to me is not the same girl they took out of my arms in that detention center,” Paz <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/we-fled-honduras-fearing-our-lives-immigration-officers-abused-my-child-opinion-1605760">wrote</a> in Newsweek after their reunification.
Overall, these forms of abuse can have <a href="https://www.nctsn.org/what-is-child-trauma/trauma-types/sexual-abuse/effects">severe, long-term impacts</a> on a child’s <a href="https://www.childwelfare.gov/pubpdfs/long_term_consequences.pdf">physical and mental health</a> and later sexual adjustment, and may also erode their trust in adults to care for them.
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<figcaption>Yeni Gonzalez, a Guatemalan mother who was separated from her three children at the US-Mexico border, is embraced by volunteer Janey Pearl, during a news conference in 2018, in New York.</figcaption>
<cite>Craig Ruttle/AP</cite></figure>
While the money won’t undo the harms caused by US government officials, it would begin to help separated families move forward and serve as a public statement that what happened to them was wrong.
Settlement negotiations are still ongoing, and it’s not clear what framework might be used to determine how much compensation each family would get. But Fischer said that, in devising such a framework, lawyers should consider the long-term social, emotional, and physical impacts on the child, the age of the child at the time of separation, as well as what might be sufficient for families to secure long-term care and recovery from the trauma.
There are also historical models for administering compensation to victims of US government policies that could guide that framework. In 1983, a high-profile <a href="https://encyclopedia.densho.org/National_Council_for_Japanese_American_Redress/">class action lawsuit</a> demanded that the US government pay $27.5 billion in damages to survivors of Japanese American internment or their descendants, to redress, among other things, their psychological distress. The suit argued that the internment program was not militarily necessary as the government had claimed, but rather was motivated by “race prejudice, war hysteria and a failure of political leadership.”
The case advanced through the appellate courts, including the Supreme Court, inspiring vigorous political debate before it was finally dismissed on a technicality. Though the litigation did not prevail, it galvanized political pressure to rectify past wrongs and ultimately led Ronald Reagan to sign the Civil Liberties Act in 1988, giving $20,000 in compensation to each survivor; around $46,000 in 2021 dollars.
There are other ways that the US government could help separated families, aside from compensating them.
Conchita Cruz said that there has been a push to get affected families free access to medical and mental health care and social services. That’s especially important given that many of them are noncitizens and might not be eligible for public health insurance programs, including Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program. Without insurance, continuous care often becomes prohibitively expensive. Though individuals who have been granted asylum are eligible for those programs, the process of obtaining asylum can take months or even years.
Lawyers have also been advocating for a more immediate legal pathway for separated families to remain in the US without fear of deportation, though it’s not clear whether <a href="https://twitter.com/KannoYoungs/status/1456359957113286660?s=20">Biden would support</a> such a pathway.
Advocates believe that dismissing these potential solutions, as some Republicans have, is a way of trivializing the trauma of the separated families.
“The government can choose to defend instances of government officials abusing children in their custody or not,” Conchita Cruz said. “That’s really where we are.”
 
 
source <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/22763438/family-separation-settlement-biden-trump">https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/22763438/family-separation-settlement-biden-trump</a>

vox What is the price of separated immigrant families’ trauma?

President Joe Biden suggested this week that paying immigrant families separated by the Trump administration $450,000 in compensation per s...

China Threatens Taiwan Separatists With Lifelong Criminal Liability

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<div class="ins_instory_dv_cont"><img alt="China Threatens Taiwan Separatists With Lifelong Criminal Liability" src="https://c.ndtvimg.com/2021-10/2o3b2qsg_china-taiwan_625x300_02_October_21.jpg" title="China Threatens Taiwan Separatists With Lifelong Criminal Liability" /></div>
China on Friday spelled out the punishment awaiting Taiwan independence supporters. (Representational)
</div>
Beijing:
China will hold those who support "Taiwan independence" criminally liable for life, it said on Friday, provoking anger and ridicule from the democratic island at a time of heightened tension across the sensitive Taiwan Strait. 
For the first time China was spelling out the punishment that awaits people deemed to back independence for Taiwan, top officials of the self-ruled island among them, as tension rises over what China regards as a province of its own. 
China has not ruled out using force to bring Taiwan under its control, despite the island's claim that it is an independent country that will defend its freedom and democracy. 
The Taiwan Affairs Office named Taiwan Premier Su Tseng-chang, Parliament Speaker You Si-kun and Foreign Minister Joseph Wu as being "stubbornly pro-Taiwan independence", as it made public for the first time that it had drawn up a list of those falling into the category. 
China will enforce punishment for those on the list by not letting them enter the mainland and its Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and Macau, spokeswoman Zhu Fenglian said in a statement on Friday.
Such blacklisted individuals will not be allowed to cooperate with entities or people from the mainland, nor will their companies, or entities which fund them, be allowed to profit from the mainland, she added. 
Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council admonished China, saying Taiwan was a democratic society with rule of law and not ruled by Beijing. "We do not accept intimidation and threats from an autocratic and authoritarian region," the council said, adding that it would take the "necessary countermeasures to safeguard the safety and well-being of the people". 
Zhu said the message China wanted to send to supporters of Taiwan independence was: "Those who forget their ancestors, betray the motherland and split the country, will never end up well, and will be spurned by the people and judged by history." 
In a Twitter post on Saturday, Taiwan's Foreign Minister, Joseph Wu, wrote, "I've received countless notes of congratulations after being blacklisted and sanctioned, for life, by the #CCP," referring to the Chinese Communist Party. 
"Many are jealous for not being recognized; some ask where they can apply for it. To deserve the rare honor, I'll keep fighting for #Taiwan's freedom and democracy." 
China believes Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen is a separatist bent on declaring formal independence. She says Taiwan is already an independent country called the Republic of China, its formal name.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
 
 
source <a href="https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/china-threatens-taiwan-separatists-independence-supporters-with-lifelong-criminal-liability-2600890">https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/china-threatens-taiwan-separatists-independence-supporters-with-lifelong-criminal-liability-2600890</a>

news world China Threatens Taiwan Separatists With Lifelong Criminal Liability

China on Friday spelled out the punishment awaiting Taiwan independence supporters. (Representational) Beijing: China will hold those w...

China Successfully Launches 3 New Remote Sensing Satellites Into Space

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<div class="ins_instory_dv_cont"><img alt="China Successfully Launches 3 New Remote Sensing Satellites Into Space" src="https://c.ndtvimg.com/2020-02/bqktufvc_satellite-generic_625x300_01_February_20.jpg" title="China Successfully Launches 3 New Remote Sensing Satellites Into Space" /></div>
This launch marked the 396th mission for the Long March series carrier rockets. (Representational)
</div>
Beijing:
China on Saturday successfully launched three new remote sensing satellites from the Xichang Satellite Launch Centre in the country's southwestern Sichuan province, official media reported.
The satellites, belonging to the Yaogan-35 family, were launched by a Long March-2D carrier rocket and entered the planned orbit successfully, according to the Xinhua news agency.
This launch marked the 396th mission for the Long March series carrier rockets.
In March 2019, China's Long March-3B rocket -- regarded as the main stay of the country's space programme since 1970 -- had successfully completed its 300th launch by putting a new communication satellite into orbit.
The Long March carrier rocket series, developed by the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, is responsible for about 96.4 per cent of all the launch missions in China.
It took 37 years for the Long March rockets to complete the first 100 launches, 7.5 years to complete the second 100 launches, and only about four years to accomplish the final 100, with the average number of launches per year increasing from 2.7 to 13.3 and then to 23.5, Xinhua reported in 2019.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
 
 
source <a href="https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/china-successfully-launches-3-new-remote-sensing-satellites-into-space-2600875">https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/china-successfully-launches-3-new-remote-sensing-satellites-into-space-2600875</a>

news world China Successfully Launches 3 New Remote Sensing Satellites Into Space

This launch marked the 396th mission for the Long March series carrier rockets. (Representational) Beijing: China on Saturday successfu...

Joe Biden's $1.2 Trillion Infrastructure Bill Passed Amid Approval Slump

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<div class="ins_instory_dv_cont"><img alt="Joe Biden's $1.2 Trillion Infrastructure Bill Passed Amid Approval Slump" src="https://c.ndtvimg.com/2021-09/1l3kh3d8_joe-biden-afp-650_625x300_14_September_21.jpg" title="Joe Biden's $1.2 Trillion Infrastructure Bill Passed Amid Approval Slump" /></div>
Recently, US President Joe Biden has seen his popularity plunge. (File)
</div>
Washington:
Democrats rescued President Joe Biden's faltering domestic agenda Friday, passing a giant infrastructure package that is one of the pillars of his $3 trillion economic vision after rebel moderates had earlier blocked a vote on his social welfare expansion.
Despite hours of cajoling lawmakers, party leaders had risked seeing Biden's two-pronged legislative strategy collapse as they failed to unite the party's feuding progressive and moderate factions.
But the breakthrough came as lawmakers rubber-stamped the Senate-passed $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill on the House floor by a comfortable 228 votes to 206.
The passage of the infrastructure spending marks a legacy-making achievement for Biden, amid plunging personal approval ratings and a humiliating upset defeat for his Democratic Party in the Virginia gubernatorial election.
His spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the success was "proof that delivering for the American people is worth all the painful sausage making."
"Clean drinking water for kids, broadband access, electric vehicles, biggest investment in public transit. It's happening. And more to come," she tweeted.
Party leadership in the House of Representatives began the day aiming to rubber-stamp the infrastructure bill, the biggest upgrade of roads, bridges and waterways in decades, after sending an even bigger social welfare deal, worth up to $1.85 trillion, to the upper chamber.
But six moderate Democrats refused to commit to the "Build Back Better" benefits package, arguing they first needed to see a full accounting of its economic impacts, which won't be available for at least a week.
With a majority of just three votes in the House, Speaker Nancy Pelosi was forced to postpone the vote on the Build Back Better package, which includes major investments in health, education, tackling climate change and expanding social welfare programs.
Suspicion
Progressives initially blocked the infrastructure vote amid suspicion that Senate centrists would reject the Build Back Better bill as soon as they got their transport upgrades signed into law.
But Pelosi refused to back down, insisting on the vote before the end of the day and offering an olive branch to the liberals -- a procedural vote on the "rule" to at least get debate started on Build Back Better.
"I am urging all members to vote for both the rule for consideration of the Build Back Better Act and final passage of the Bipartisan Infrastructure bill tonight," Biden had said in a late evening statement.
"I am confident that during the week of November 15, the House will pass the Build Back Better Act."
The victory will be a salve to Democratic leaders who have spent two days in meetings painstakingly trying to bring aboard holdouts over multiple sticking points in Build Back Better, from prescription drug pricing to immigration provisions.
Passing the infrastructure package into law required some tricky mathematics with several progressives, still smarting over the moderate rebellion, voting no -- but Democrats were able to add 13 Republicans to their side of the ledger.
"After four years of failed 'infrastructure weeks' under Trump and Republican control, President Biden delivered on his promise to work across the aisle and shepherd through a historic investment in our nation's infrastructure," Jaime Harrison, chairman of the Democratic National Committee said.
Biden, who spent much of Thursday and Friday on the phone corralling lawmakers, watched the vote in the official residence after strategizing with his policy and legislative teams, including Vice President Kamala Harris, according to a White House official.
Immediate victory
Pelosi had attempted twice in recent weeks to advance the twin mega-bills but was forced to postpone votes on infrastructure as progressives, unhappy about the lack of commitment to their priorities, refused to pledge their support.
Biden is banking on a bounce from the vote, 10 months after he swept to the White House promising the pandemic-devastated nation he would "build back better" -- only to see his popularity plunge.
The infrastructure package passing before the weekend marks an unambiguous, resounding and immediate victory for the 78-year-old former senator, who touts his ability to reach across the aisle.
By funding work on roads, bridges and ports and high-speed internet, the White House says it would create millions of high-paying jobs.
Build Back Better, on the other hand, does not have the Senate's blessing and is likely to be downsized significantly and put through further arduous votes in the upper chamber, even if it advances from the House.
"It will not be enacted as is. Everybody needs to sit with that and get comfortable with it," Montana's democratic senator Jon Tester told Politico.
The votes capped months of tense negotiations on Capitol Hill since the Senate approved the infrastructure package in August, giving it rare bipartisan support in Washington's polarized political atmosphere.
Most House Republicans withheld their support, however, after former president Donald Trump threatened reprisals for helping to hand Biden a political win.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
 
 
source <a href="https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/us-congress-joe-bide-us-president-joe-biden-joe-bidens-giant-infrastructure-bill-passed-amid-popularity-slump-2600837">https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/us-congress-joe-bide-us-president-joe-biden-joe-bidens-giant-infrastructure-bill-passed-amid-popularity-slump-2600837</a>

news world Joe Biden's $1.2 Trillion Infrastructure Bill Passed Amid Approval Slump

Recently, US President Joe Biden has seen his popularity plunge. (File) Washington: Democrats rescued President Joe Biden's falteri...