Terror threat in N. Ireland up to ‘severe’ ahead of expected Biden trip
The British government raised its terrorism threat level assessment in Northern Ireland to “severe” on Tuesday, two weeks before an expected visit to Belfast by President Joe Biden.
Biden said last month he would visit Northern Ireland for the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday peace accord that stemmed three decades of bloody sectarian conflict in the province. Dates have not yet been announced.
MI5, Britain’s domestic security service, raised the terror threat due to the “very latest intelligence and analysis of factors,” according to Britain’s Northern Ireland secretary, Chris Heaton-Harris.
The province has made major progress toward peace since the Troubles, a low-level civil war between largely Catholic Irish nationalists and largely Protest unionists that lasted from about 1968 to 1998.
But hostilities have simmered since, with Britain’s decision to exit the European Union three years ago worsening tensions. “Brexit” created new trade barriers between Northern Ireland, a plurality Catholic part of U.K., and the rest of Britain.
—New York Daily News
Lawmakers: Expand federal aid for hungry servicemembers, families
WASHINGTON — House members from both parties have signed on to two bills filed late last week aimed at expanding federal aid to hungry American troops and their families, and a similar push is underway in the Senate.
The legislative moves come as Pentagon figures show some 286,800 personnel in the active-duty force, or nearly 1 in 4 military servicemembers, experience “low food security.” Of those, an estimated 120,000 are faced with “very low food security,” meaning they periodically eat less, miss meals or lose weight, the Defense Department has found.
The recently filed bills, both sponsored by Rep. Jimmy Panetta, D-Calif., would rewrite the rules for federal assistance to military personnel.
One House measure would alter a Pentagon income supplement called the basic needs allowance. The other House bill would change the Agriculture Department’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
In both programs, housing allowances for military personnel, which can amount to thousands of dollars per year, are counted as income. As a result, some experts say, thousands of troops are unable to qualify for either Pentagon or SNAP aid. The newly filed House bills would exclude housing payments from the income calculations.
The Pentagon program will come up in the debate over the National Defense Authorization Act, while the SNAP program will be part of this year’s farm bill debate.
—CQ-Roll Call
Sam Bankman-Fried charged in US with bribing Chinese officials
Sam Bankman-Fried was charged with bribing Chinese officials, adding a new dimension to the U.S. government’s case against the FTX co-founder.
The new charge was unsealed Tuesday in a revised indictment by federal prosecutors in Manhattan. Bankman-Fried is accused of authorizing the payment of $40 million to get Chinese officials to unfreeze accounts at Alameda Research, a Hong Kong-based trading firm affiliated with FTX, holding more than $1 billion.
According to prosecutors, the Alameda accounts were frozen in 2021 as part of a Chinese government investigation into two cryptocurrency exchanges in that country. Those exchanges were OKX and Huobi Capital, according to people familiar with the matter.
A spokesman for Bankman-Fried declined to comment.
With the charge of conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, Bankman-Fried now faces 13 criminal counts. He has already pleaded not guilty to several fraud charges for allegedly funneling billions of dollars from now-bankrupt FTX to Alameda and for personal expenses.
Three of his close associates, Gary Wang, Caroline Ellison and Nishad Singh, have already pleaded guilty to fraud and are cooperating with the government.
Bankman-Fried is currently free on a $250 million bail package and is due to face trial in October. He was arrested in the Bahamas, where his cryptocurrency empire FTX was based, in December and extradited back to the United States.
—Bloomberg News
Delaware marijuana legalization bills head to governor's desk
The Delaware state Senate voted in favor of two marijuana legalization bills on Tuesday, sending the legislation to the desk of Gov. John Carney, whose veto blocked similar legislation last year.
One of the bills legalizes possession of up to one ounce of marijuana for adults 21 and older (as well as equivalent amounts in other forms, such as concentrates). Under the bill, underage possession would result in fines, and public marijuana use remains illegal. That bill passed the state Senate by a vote of 16-4, with one abstention.
The other bill, known as the Delaware Marijuana Control Act, creates a regulatory framework for a legal recreational marijuana industry in the state. It would allow up to 30 retailers, and a 15% tax on sales in a system that the bill’s synopsis compares to alcohol sales. It passed the Senate by a vote of 15-5 with one abstention, surpassing the three-fifths majority it needed to advance.
The bills head to Carney’s desk, and they will need to be signed to become law. Following Tuesday’s vote, Carney’s office issued a statement saying that the governor remains concerned about marijuana legalization.
“The governor continues to have strong concerns about the unintended consequences of legalizing marijuana for recreational use in our state, especially about the impacts on our young people and highway safety,” said Emily Hershman, Carney’s director of communications.
—The Philadelphia Inquirer
———
