House Democrats add child nutrition to legislative menu
WASHINGTON — The House Education and Labor Committee is making a late-session push to renew child nutrition programs and incorporate changes made to cope with the pandemic, but disagreements could slow the reauthorization of a nutrition law that expired in 2015.
Appropriators continue to provide mandatory and discretionary funding since the expiration of the previous authorization, enacted in 2010.
The committee has scheduled a markup for Wednesday at which Democrats and Republicans are expected to air differences about how large a role the federal government should play in setting policies and operating the national school lunch and breakfast program, the Women, Infants and Children supplemental nutrition program, and other child nutrition programs.
Chairman Robert C. Scott, D-Va., and Civil Rights and Human Services Subcommittee Chair Suzanne Bonamici, D-Ore., said the draft bill to be taken up at the markup addresses a basic responsibility to keep children from going hungry.
—CQ-Roll Call
UC and CSU campuses to provide cheap abortion pills amid California’s post-Roe push
LOS ANGELES — Abortion pills will soon be easily and cheaply available to students at the University of California and California State University under a state law aimed at expanding access to the medication to college students, a move that could become a flashpoint for anti-abortion groups vowing to challenge it.
The pills will be available through campus medical centers starting Jan. 1, 2023, when a 2019 law takes effect that made California the first state in the nation to require public universities to offer the pills.
The move further cements California’s effort to become a haven for abortion care — specifically servicing a population whose age group makes up the majority of terminated pregnancies. About 60% of abortion patients are in their 20s, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that supports abortion rights.
“We knew it was important then, but it’s even more important now,” said state Sen. Connie M. Leyva, D-Chino, who authored the bill. “Now, I think it offers bigger ramifications.”
—Los Angeles Times
South Carolina man charged in Jan. 6 Capitol riot had Nazi images on phone
COLUMBIA, S.C. — A South Carolina man charged in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot is back in the hot seat after federal prosecutors say the man’s cellphone included 80 Nazi and white supremacist images, according to a government sentencing memorandum in the case.
Prosecutors are seeking 30 days in jail for Elliot Bishai, 22, of Fort Mill in York County, for his participation in the riot, during which he climbed through a broken window and encouraged rioters to invade the Capitol. Inside he yelled, “Civil War 2!” according to the government memorandum.
At the time of the riot, Bishai was a member in the federally supported Civil Air Patrol, the civilian auxiliary of the U.S. Air Force.
He should have known that being part of the Capitol meant that he “betrayed his duty to keep the homeland safe,” the prosecution memo said. The Civilian Air Patrol’s mission is “devoted to public safety,” the memo said.
—The State (Columbia, S.C.)
Myanmar executes activists in first use of death penalty in decades
Myanmar’s military regime has executed four individuals, including a deposed pro-democracy lawmaker and a prominent activist, in its first use of the death penalty in more than three decades, state media reported Monday.
Kyaw Min Yu, also known as Jimmy, a leader of the activist group that opposed former dictator Ne Win, and Phyo Zeya Thaw, a civilian lawmaker overthrown in last year’s coup, were among the four. They were charged with treason and terrorism by a military tribunal this year and were executed for carrying out “brutal and inhumane terror acts such as murdering many innocent people,” according to Global New Light of Myanmar, a state-owned English daily.
The executions are the first to be carried out in the overwhelmingly Buddhist Southeast Asian nation since 1988 and follow some 2,000 extra-judicial civilian killings by military forces in less than 18 months, according to estimates last month by the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.
More than 70% of the countries in the world “have abolished capital punishment in law or practice,” according to the U.S.-based Death Penalty Information Center, an authority in the subject.
—Bloomberg News
