Biden tells GOP to 'get out of the way' on debt limit

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden on Monday urged Republican senators to “get out of the way” and let Democrats suspend the nation’s debt limit, hoping to keep the U.S. government from bumping dangerously close to a credit default as Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell refuses to lend his party’s help.

Biden’s criticism came with Congress facing an Oct 18 deadline to allow for more borrowing to keep the government operating after having accrued a total public debt of $28.4 trillion. The House has passed a measure to suspend the debt limit, but McConnell is forcing Senate Democrats into a cumbersome process that could drag on and approach the deadline with little margin for error.

Both Biden and McConnell have promised that the country will avoid default, yet the public fight and political posturing risks an economic meltdown. The global economy relies on the stability of U.S. Treasury notes, and unpaid debt could crush financial markets and hurl America into recession. Biden noted that the debt limit applies to borrowing that has already occurred, including under former President Donald Trump, and said Republicans are hurting the country by blocking the limit's suspension.

“They need to stop playing Russian roulette with the U.S. economy,” Biden said at the White House. “Republicans just have to let us do our job. Just get out of the way. If you don’t want to help save the country, get out of the way so you don’t destroy it.”

Unmoved, McConnell said Republicans had given the Democrats a roadmap for dealing with the debt ceiling with months of warning.

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Did ship's anchor cause California oil spill? Maybe

HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif. (AP) — Officials investigating one of California’s largest recent oil spills are looking into whether a ship's anchor may have struck an oil pipeline on the ocean floor, causing heavy crude to leak into coastal waters and foul beaches, authorities said Monday.

The head of the company that operates the pipeline said company divers were inspecting the area of the suspected leak that was discovered Saturday, and he expected that by Tuesday there would be a clearer of what caused the damage.

A anchor from a cargo ship striking the pipeline is “one of the distinct possibilities” behind the leak, Amplify Energy CEO Martyn Willsher told a news conference. He said divers have examined more than 8,000 feet (2,438 meters) of the pipeline and were focusing on “one area of significant interest.”

Cargo ships entering the twin ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach routinely pass through the area, Coast Guard officials said. Backlogs have plagued the ports in recent months and several dozen or more of the giant vessels have regularly been anchored as they wait to enter the ports and unload.

“We’re looking into if it could have been an anchor from a ship, but that’s in the assessment phase right now,” Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Jeannie Shaye said.

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Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram suffer worldwide outage

The massive global outage that plunged Facebook, its Instagram and WhatsApp platforms and many people who rely heavily on these services — including Facebook’s own workforce — into chaos Monday is gradually dissipating.

Facebook said late Monday that it's been working to restore access to its services and is “happy to report they are coming back online now." The company apologized and thanked its users for bearing with it. But fixing it wasn't as simple as flipping a proverbial switch. For some users, WhatsApp was working for a time, then not. For others, Instagram was working but not Facebook, and so on.

Facebook did not say what might have caused the outage, which began around 11:40 a.m. ET and was still not fixed more than six hours later.

Facebook was already in the throes of a separate major crisis after whistleblower Frances Haugen, a former Facebook product manager, provided The Wall Street Journal with internal documents that exposed the company’s awareness of harms caused by its products and decisions. Haugen went public on CBS’s “60 Minutes” program Sunday and is scheduled to testify before a Senate subcommittee Tuesday.

Haugen had also anonymously filed complaints with federal law enforcement alleging Facebook’s own research shows how it magnifies hate and misinformation and leads to increased polarization. It also showed that the company was aware that Instagram can harm teenage girls’ mental health.

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Biden lifts abortion referral ban on family planning clinics

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration on Monday reversed a ban on abortion referrals by family planning clinics, lifting a Trump-era restriction as political and legal battles over abortion grow sharper from Texas to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Department of Health and Human Services said its new regulation will restore the federal family planning program to the way it ran under the Obama administration, when clinics were able to refer women seeking abortions to a provider. The goal is to “strengthen and restore” services, said HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra.

Groups representing the clinics said they hope the Biden administration action will lead some 1,300 local facilities that left in protest over Trump's policies to return, helping to stabilize a longstanding program shaken by the coronavirus pandemic on top of ideological battles.

“I have heard that almost everywhere in the country people have made the decision that conditions will be good for them to return to the program,” Clare Coleman, president of the umbrella group National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association, said in an interview. “My sense is that people have been waiting for the rule.”

Planned Parenthood, the biggest service provider, said on Twitter its health centers look forward to returning. But the group criticized part of the Biden administration rule that allows individual clinicians who object to abortion not to provide referrals. The administration said that's “in accordance with applicable federal law.”

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Refugee admissions hit record low, despite Biden's reversal

SAN DIEGO (AP) — Refugee admissions to the United States fell to a record low during the 2021 budget year, despite President Joe Biden's pledge to reverse the sharp cuts made by the Trump administration, according to figures obtained by The Associated Press.

A total of 11,445 refugees were allowed into the United States during the budget year that ended on Thursday, according to a person with access to the information who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the figure.

That number does not include the tens of thousands of Afghans brought to the United States as American troops withdrew from Afghanistan, ending the 20-year war there. Many of those Afghans were allowed into the country under a different legal status known as humanitarian parole, which is why they are not included in the refugee tally.

Still the number highlights Biden's challenges in reversing the restrictive refugee policies set by former President Donald Trump's administration, which targeted the program as part of a broader campaign to slash both legal and illegal immigration to the United States.

The U.S. president determines the cap on refugee admissions each budget year, which runs from Oct. 1 to Sept. 30. Biden didn't take office until almost four months after the last fiscal year began.

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Jordanian king's properties undercut father figure image

JERUSALEM (AP) — Jordan’s King Abdullah II was meeting with the World Bank president, asking for more financial support for his country’s battered economy, just around the time the news broke: A trove of leaked documents revealed the king had secretly bought more than a dozen luxury homes in the U.S. and Britain for over $100 million in the past decade.

Abdullah was one of scores of public figures identified as holders of hidden offshore accounts. But perhaps nowhere was there a more evident contradiction between the public man and the private one, for the king has carefully cultivated an image as a caring father of a struggling nation, and it turns out he has amassed an empire of luxury real estate.

“Nobody’s going to turn a blind eye to this,” said Dave Harden, a former senior official at the U.S. Agency for International Development who is now running for Congress as a Democrat in Maryland. He said even a perception of misspending could lead to calls for greater oversight of future American assistance to Jordan.

Abdullah was on a long list of world leaders, politicians, billionaires, celebrities, religious leaders and drug dealers who have been hiding their investments in mansions, exclusive beachfront property, yachts and other assets for the past quarter-century, according to a report Sunday by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.

The report, based on a review of nearly 12 million files obtained from 14 firms around the world, was dubbed the “Pandora Papers.” There were no allegations of illegal activity or misuse of international aid money.

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UNICEF: Battered by pandemic, kids need mental health help

PARIS (AP) — Governments must pour more money and resources into preserving the mental well-being of children and adolescents, the U.N.'s child protection agency urged in a report Tuesday that sounded alarms about blows to mental health from the COVID-19 pandemic that hit poor and vulnerable children particularly hard.

The United Nations Children’s Fund said its “State of the World’s Children” study is its most comprehensive look so far this century at the mental health of children and adolescents globally. The coronavirus crisis, forcing school closures that upended the lives of children and adolescents, has thrust the issue of their mental well-being to the fore.

UNICEF said it may take years to fully measure the extent of the pandemic's impact on young people's mental health. Psychiatrists quickly saw signs of distress, with children and adolescents seeking help for suicidal thoughts, anxiety, eating disorders and other difficulties as lockdowns and switching to remote learning severed them from friends and routines and as COVID-19 killed parents and grandparents.

“With nationwide lockdowns and pandemic-related movement restrictions, children have spent indelible years of their lives away from family, friends, classrooms, play — key elements of childhood itself,” said UNICEF's executive director, Henrietta Fore.

“The impact is significant, and it is just the tip of the iceberg,” Fore said. “Even before the pandemic, far too many children were burdened under the weight of unaddressed mental health issues. Too little investment is being made by governments to address these critical needs.”

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Garland says authorities will target school board threats

WASHINGTON (AP) — Attorney General Merrick Garland on Monday directed federal authorities to hold strategy sessions in the next 30 days with law enforcement to address the increasing threats targeting school board members, teachers and other employees in the nation’s public schools.

In a memorandum, Garland said there has been “a disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence against school administrators, board members, teachers, and staff who participate in the vital work of running our nation’s public schools.”

To address the rising problem, Garland said the FBI would work with U.S. attorneys and federal, state, local, territorial and tribal authorities in each district to develop strategies against the threats.

“While spirited debate about policy matters is protected under our Constitution, that protection does not extend to threats of violence or efforts to intimidate individuals based on their views,” he said.

The action is in response to an urgent request last week from the National School Boards Association. The group, which represents school board members around the country, asked President Joe Biden for federal assistance to investigate and stop threats made over policies including mask mandates, likening the vitriol to a form of domestic terrorism.

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Ethiopian PM begins 2nd term saying war exacts 'heavy price'

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) — Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed was sworn in Monday for a second five-year term running a country in the grip of a nearly year-long war against Tigray forces he described as “hateful" toward the nation, while a handful of visiting African leaders urged him to hold things together.

The Tigray conflict “has made us pay a heavy price,” Abiy told a crowd in the capital, Addis Ababa. And he bristled at international pressure as concerns grow over the war's human toll, saying “there are those who showed us their true friendship and those who betrayed us.” He didn't name names.

Abiy's Prosperity Party was declared the winner of parliamentary elections earlier this year in a vote criticized and at times boycotted by opposition parties, but described by some outside electoral observers as better run than those in the past.

The prime minister, the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize winner for restoring ties with neighboring Eritrea and for pursuing sweeping political reforms, now faces major challenges as war in the Tigray region spreads into other parts of the country, deadly ethnic violence continues and watchdogs warn that repressive government practices are on the return.

Abiy said the country will start an “inclusive national dialogue that includes everyone who believes in a roundtable discussion,” led by Ethiopians.

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Hollywood’s behind-the-scenes crews vote to authorize strike

Film and television production in North America is in jeopardy of coming to a standstill after its behind-the-scenes workers overwhelmingly voted to authorize a strike for the first time in its 128-year history.

The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees said Monday that nearly 99% of registered members who participated, or 52,706 people, voted in support of a strike over the weekend.

At issue is a contract standstill over requests for more reasonable conditions for the craftspeople, technicians and laborers working for streaming companies like Netflix, Apple and Amazon, including better pay, reasonable rest periods, safer hours and guaranteed meal breaks.

“I hope that the studios will see and understand the resolve of our members,” the alliance’s president, Matthew Loeb, said in a statement. “The ball is in their court. If they want to avoid a strike, they will return to the bargaining table and make us a reasonable offer.”

The most recent three-year contract expired in July, leading to four months of negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, the group that represents studios and streamers in negotiations. But on Sept. 20, the day after streaming shows like “The Crown,” “Ted Lasso” and “The Queen’s Gambit” swept the Emmy Awards, conversations came to a halt.

News from © The Associated Press, 2021