Tag: Vote

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Business

Pelosi Says Invoice on Investing Guidelines for Lawmakers Will Face Vote This Month

Pelosi Says Bill on Investing Rules for Lawmakers Will Face Vote This Month

Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Wednesday that Democrats would bring legislation into the House this month that would impose new restrictions on lawmakers’ ability to buy and sell stocks.

Her announcement comes after months of negotiations over whether and how to limit personal financial activities by members of Congress that could create real or perceived conflicts of interest with their public duties. And it came a day after the New York Times published an analysis showing that between 2019 and 2021, 97 congressmen and senators or their immediate family members reported trading in stocks, bonds or other financial assets mandated by committees, who they were could have been influenced serve on.

Ms Pelosi declined to give details of the proposed legislation other than calling it “very strong”.

“We believe we have a product to launch this month,” Ms. Pelosi said during her weekly news conference at the Capitol.

In the seven months since Ms Pelosi first signaled her support for legislation to tighten stock trading in Congress, there have been few signs of legislative progress likely to pass the House. A number of slightly different bills have been proposed in both the House and Senate, some with bipartisan support.

The slump in equity and bond markets this year has been painful and it remains difficult to predict the future.

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  • Junk Bonds: Companies with poor credit ratings, whose debt is often labeled “junk,” are now taking the opportunity to borrow more money.

“For months, House and Senate leaders have promised action,” said Rep. Abigail Spanberger, a Virginia Democrat and the main sponsor of a bipartisan trade curb proposal by the Legislature. “It’s long past time to move forward.”

One version of a legal framework in the House of Representatives, outlined in a late August memo reviewed by The Times, would effectively ban lawmakers, their spouses and dependent children from trading in individual stocks, bonds, cryptocurrencies and other financial assets that are tied to specific companies.

Under the framework that forms the basis of current negotiations for a proposed law, congressmen would either have to divest these assets or place them in a blind trust in which they would have no visibility or interest. Legislators would still be allowed to invest in mutual funds, exchange-traded funds, and some other categories.

According to the memo, the new legislation would also require more detailed transaction disclosures for permitted investments — for example, by narrowing published value ranges of assets — and toughen penalties for those who evade or break the law.

“Congress can add some bite to these penalties, which will encourage compliance and result in harsher penalties for violations,” the memo said.

According to the memo, members of the Supreme Court would be subject to the same restrictions. So would senior congressional officials, according to a Democratic official in the House of Representatives.

Congressional leaders have faced increasing pressure in recent months to crack down on their peers’ financial activities. An ongoing investigation by website Insider that began last year has found 72 examples of lawmakers who have violated applicable laws by late, inaccurate or not filing transaction reports.

A poll conducted earlier this year showed that nearly two-thirds of respondents supported a blanket ban on members of Congress from trading in individual stocks. And with public confidence in Congress down to just 7 percent in June, many lawmakers are reluctant to ignore voters’ demands.

“Congress is mired in a crisis of institutional legitimacy, caused in part by reports by members of both parties who appear to be benefiting from their public trust,” wrote Noah Bookbinder, president of Washington nonprofit group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, in a letter on Wednesday calling for sweeping restrictions on trade by members of Congress.

In a separate news conference on Tuesday, other senior House Democrats signaled confidence that progress was being made on new trade restrictions.

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, leader of the House Democrats, said he expects legislation “soon” from Rep. Zoe Lofgren, the California Democrat who has commissioned Ms Pelosi to draft a bill that has broad support can.

It’s not clear if the Senate will pass legislation on the issue this year. A number of senators have been working on proposals, but none appear to have garnered the 60 votes required for passage by the Senate.

Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley, who is working on one of the proposals, said Wednesday, “I am committed to getting the stock trading ban in Congress across the finish line. I’ve carried this fight for a decade and I will not let it die.”

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World News

Home delays vote on infrastructure, funds plans

House delays vote on infrastructure, budget plans

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) takes questions as she holds her weekly news conference with Capitol Hill reporters at the Capitol in Washington, July 22, 2021.

Elizabeth Frantz | Reuters

The House scrapped a planned Monday vote to advance two key economic proposals as centrist Democrats and party leaders failed to break a stalemate over how to proceed with President Joe Biden’s sprawling economic agenda.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has pushed to pass a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill and her party’s separate $3.5 trillion spending plan at the same time. The process could take months, as the House needs to join the Senate in passing a budget resolution before lawmakers write a final proposal.

Nine members of Pelosi’s caucus urged the California Democrat to approve the Senate-passed infrastructure legislation this week and send it to Biden’s desk. Pelosi wants to pair the bills to ensure the centrists wary of a $3.5 trillion price tag and progressives who consider the infrastructure plan inadequate back both measures.

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Democratic leaders have a tiny margin for error as they try to pass their plan to expand the social safety net without a Republican vote. They will need to win over all 50 members of their Senate caucus and all but three Democrats in the House.

In a letter over the weekend, Pelosi told Democrats she aims to pass both the infrastructure bill and Democrats’ spending plan before Oct. 1.

This story is developing. Please check back for updates.

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Politics

North Carolina Should Enable Former Felons to Vote, Panel Guidelines

North Carolina Must Allow Former Felons to Vote, Panel Rules

North Carolina must immediately allow offenders who are on parole, parole, or supervised release to register for election, a three-person panel in a state court said Monday.

The 2: 1 ruling in a State Superior Court in Raleigh restores the voting rights to a disproportionately black group of approximately 56,000 people who are not in prison but are under some sort of supervision. Black North Carolinians make up 21 percent of the state’s population, but 42 percent of those released on parole or under custody.

The judges said they would later issue a formal decision explaining their decision. Both the Republican-controlled state general assembly and the state electoral committee, which had defended the law in court, said they would await the court’s written opinion before deciding whether to appeal the decision.

The North Carolina State Conference of the NAACP and Forward Justice, a group that campaigns for the equal treatment of minorities in the judicial systems of the South, had overturned the law with three local groups working with former felons.

The judgment “provides a pledge of justice from the North Carolina NAACP half a century ago that all people who live in communities across the state deserve their votes to be heard in elections,” said Stanton Jones of the Arnold & Porter law firm. the senior attorney of the plaintiffs. “And now, 50 years later, the voices of these 56,000 people are finally being heard.”

But State Senator Warren Daniel, Republican chairman of the Senate Electoral Committee, said the judges were ignoring a clause in the state constitution that would bar convicted felons from voting unless their rights were restored under state law. “These judges may think they are doing the right thing by rewriting laws at their own discretion (without bothering to explain their judgment),” he said in a statement. “But each of these rulers tears away the idea that the people make laws through their legislature.”

The decision followed a process that revealed the history of the state’s disenfranchisement of blacks in sometimes shocking detail.

The law that went into effect on Monday, enacted in 1877, expanded in response to the 15. But for the previous decade, local judges had responded to the civil war’s liberation of blacks by condemning them en masse and publicly whipping them, thereby causing them they were placed under a law denying the vote to anyone convicted of a crime for which whipping was a punishment.

A handful of black MPs in the General Assembly attempted to repeal the 1877 Act in the early 1970s, but only achieved procedural changes such as restricting judges’ discretion to extend probation or judicial oversight.

In legal disputes, neither side denied the racist origins of the law. Attorneys for the General Assembly and the Electoral Committee argued, however, that the changes in the early 1970s removed that racist aftertaste, even if the consequences – the disenfranchisement of former felons – had not changed.

Mr Daniel also argued Monday that the procedural changes approved in the 1970s established the legal path for ex-offenders – who had served their sentences and no longer under any form of oversight – to regain voting rights, and that the court did not Power to change it.

Plaintiffs said the law violated parts of the state constitution that guaranteed citizens of the state essentially equal voting rights and stated that “all elections should be free”. Both clauses should apply to all felons who had served their sentences regardless of race, they argued. But the law’s apparent discriminatory effect on blacks, they said, was reason enough to put it down.

Monday’s verdict was not entirely unexpected. The same three-judge panel had temporarily blocked enforcement of part of the law ahead of the November general election, stating that most people who have served their sentences cannot be excluded from voting if the only reason is for theirs continued surveillance consists of owing fines or court fees. The judges said it was an unconstitutional poll tax.

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Health

CDC panel prepares to vote on Covid vaccine booster pictures for weak People

CDC panel prepares to vote on Covid vaccine booster shots for vulnerable Americans

Marilyn Lurie, who suffers from frontotemporal dementia, is being monitored in the back yard of her home by elderly caregiver Olga Lopez after receiving her first dose of COVID-19 vaccine as part of a mobile vaccination program on July 16, 2021 in Los Angeles, California.

Mario Tama | Getty Images News | Getty Images

A key advisory group from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is preparing to vote on Friday on distributing Covid-19 vaccine booster shots to Americans with compromised immune systems.

The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices is due to meet on Friday to consider Covid booster vaccinations for such people, including cancer and HIV patients. On Thursday, the CDC updated their website to indicate that a vote is scheduled for the meeting on Friday around 1 p.m. ET.

The Food and Drug Administration is expected to approve a third Covid vaccination for immunocompromised populations on Thursday, a highly anticipated move designed to protect some of the most vulnerable Americans from the highly contagious Delta variant.

However, the FDA’s OK is not the final go-ahead. The CDC Advisory Committee must then make a recommendation on how to distribute the booster shots. If the CDC accepts the advisory group’s recommendation as expected, third shots could begin immediately.

Immunocompromised populations would be the first group in the US to receive a booster vaccination. Federal health officials are not currently recommending additional doses for the general public.

People with compromised immune systems make up only about 2.7% of the adult US population. Still, they account for around 44% of hospitalized breakthrough Covid cases, according to recent data from the CDC group. A breakthrough case is infection in a fully vaccinated person.

The Senior Medical Advisor to the White House, Dr. Anthony Fauci said last week that new data suggests that immunocompromised people are not generating an adequate immune response after receiving two doses of a Covid vaccine.

CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the FDA has worked closely with Pfizer and Moderna to give these vulnerable groups the opportunity to receive booster vaccinations.

“An extra dose could help increase protection for these people, which is especially important as the Delta variant is spreading,” she said during a Covid briefing at the White House. “This action is about ensuring that our most vulnerable, who may need an extra dose to improve their biological responses to the vaccines, are better protected from Covid-19.”

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Politics

Moderates Threaten Stalemate Over Price range Vote and Infrastructure

Moderates Threaten Stalemate Over Budget Vote and Infrastructure

WASHINGTON – Nine moderate House Democrats told Spokeswoman Nancy Pelosi on Friday that they will not vote for a budget decision that will pave the way for a $ 3.5 trillion social package to be passed later this year, until one dated Senate-approved infrastructure law passed the house and is legally signed.

The commitment in a letter early Friday is a major rift that threatens the carefully choreographed, two-pronged efforts of the Democrats in Congress and the Biden administration, both a trillion-dollar non-party infrastructure deal and an even more ambitious – but partisan one – To adopt the contract. social policy measure. The nine members of the House of Representatives are more than enough to block scrutiny of the draft budget in a house where Democrats have a three-seat majority.

The Senate passed the infrastructure bill on Tuesday with 69 votes, including 19 Republicans. It then approved a $ 3.5 trillion budget resolution in a party line vote early Wednesday that would allow Democrats in both houses to pass the social policy bill this fall without fear of a Republican Senate filibuster say goodbye.

To reassure more liberal Democrats who are more interested in the social policy law, Ms. Pelosi promised that she would not put the infrastructure law to the vote in the House of Representatives until the Senate passes the social policy law.

Given the 50-50 partisan split in the Senate, this may not happen well into the fall. And moderate Democrats in the House of Representatives say delaying an infrastructure vote runs the risk of unforeseen events derailing them.

“With the livelihoods of hard-working American families at stake, we simply cannot afford months of unnecessary delays and risk wasting this century’s bipartisan infrastructure package,” the letter submitted to and submitted to the New York Times reads Josh Gottheimer, Democrat of New Jersey, as lead author. “It’s time to shovel shovels in the ground and get people to work.”

Complicating the situation is that more than half of the nearly 100-strong Progressive Caucus in Congress take the opposite position, saying they won’t vote for the Infrastructure Bill until they have a sociopolitical measure that funds their priorities: climate change , Education, healthcare, family vacations, childcare and elderly care.

With the promised defectors from the Progressive Caucus, it appears that Ms. Pelosi is facing a stalemate as she does not have the votes to either get the infrastructure bill to President Biden’s desk or move forward the budgetary resolution needed to bring final Republican legislation forward Protect disability.

So far, most Democrats in Congress have been optimistic that both measures will find enough support.

“This is President Biden’s agenda, this is the Democrats’ agenda, this is what we walked on and what we need to deliver,” Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Progressive Caucus leader, said of the social policy bill. “It is important for us not to miss the target and I see no conflict.”

But their moderate counterparts do. “We will not consider voting for a budget decision until the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Bill is passed by the House of Representatives and comes into effect,” they wrote.

The draft letter was signed by Mr. Gottheimer and representatives Filemon Vela from Texas, Henry Cuellar from Texas, Ed Case from Hawaii, Kurt Schrader from Oregon, Carolyn Bourdeaux from Georgia, Jared Golden from Maine, Vicente Gonzalez from Texas and Jim Costa from California.

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Politics

Schumer says Senate may vote to advance bipartisan invoice

Schumer says Senate could vote to advance bipartisan bill

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) speaks after the Democratic policy luncheon on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., July 27, 2021.

Joshua Roberts | Reuters

The Senate could vote as soon as Wednesday to advance the bipartisan infrastructure bill, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said.

“Senators continue to make good progress on both tracks of legislation,” the New York Democrat said, referencing both the physical infrastructure proposal and Democrats’ separate plan to invest $3.5 trillion in social programs.

Schumer’s comments signal progress toward a final agreement on infrastructure legislation after disputes over issues including transit funding prevented a deal for days. The wrangling threatened to derail a core piece of President Joe Biden’s agenda.

A spokesman for Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio, the lead Republican negotiating the deal, did not immediately respond to a request to comment on how close the lawmakers are to agreement.

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The plan is expected to invest $579 billion in new money in transportation, broadband and utilities.

Schumer failed last week to start debate on the bipartisan plan. The Republican senators working on the bill with Democrats and the White House voted against advancing it as they tried to iron out disagreements.

The Democratic leader aims to pass the bipartisan plan and a budget resolution that would kickstart his party’s legislation before the Senate leaves Washington for its recess next month. Using budget reconciliation, Democrats can pass their bill without a Republican vote.

The bipartisan plan would need 60 votes to pass. It means at least 10 Republicans would have to back it if all Democrats sign off, or one more GOP senator would have to vote for it for every Democratic defection.

The vote to advance the bill would start a heavy lift for Democratic congressional leaders. They have to keep disparate wings of their party on board with both plans while navigating efforts by some Republicans to sink them.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has stressed she will not take up either measure until the Senate passes both of them.

Democrats’ $3.5 trillion plan is expected to invest in child care, education, health care and efforts to curb climate change.

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Politics

Texas Man Who Waited Hours to Vote Is Arrested on Prices of Unlawful Voting

Texas Man Who Waited Hours to Vote Is Arrested on Charges of Illegal Voting

“He faces the possibility of an extremely harsh sentence,” he said. “Second degree crimes are usually reserved for grievous bodily harm, and to apply it to Mr. Rogers’ case, that only shows how unfair that is.”

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is under investigation for professional misconduct after challenging President Biden’s victory in court, brought charges against Mr. Rogers. He has made it his business to prosecute cases of voter fraud, which are very rare in the United States and are usually small mistakes when they happen.

“Hervis is a felon who is rightly banned from voting under TX law,” Paxton wrote on Twitter. “I pursue electoral fraud everywhere we find it!”

Republicans on battlefields in Texas and other states have been aggressively pushing to curtail electoral laws since former President Donald J. Trump made false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him. On Thursday, Republicans in the Texas legislature presented plans to overhaul the state’s electoral machinery for the second time this year. They outlined a number of proposed new restrictions on voting access that would be among the most far-reaching electoral laws to be passed this year.

For some, Mr. Rogers’ case sparked another recent indictment in the state.

In 2017, Crystal Mason was sentenced to five years in prison for casting a preliminary ballot in the 2016 presidential election while being released under custody for a federal tax fraud crime. Her preliminary ballot was not counted and her case is pending in the Texas Supreme Court of Appeals after Ms. Mason appealed.

After her conviction, Ms. Mason was held in federal prison for 10 months for violating her supervised release. If Ms. Mason loses her appeal, she will have to serve her five-year prison sentence, Ms. Grinter said.

Mr. Rogers and Ms. Mason could meet in the coming weeks, Ms. Grinter said.

“They share a bond that neither of them wanted at the time,” said Ms. Grinter. “She really feels for him and knows what it feels like to be made out of such a political sport.”

On Friday, Ms. Mason expressed her support for Mr. Rogers.

“I wish this had never happened to you,” wrote Ms. Mason on Twitter. “I’m sorry you’re going through this. Welcome to the fight. “

Michael Levenson contributed to the coverage.

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Politics

Historical past-Making Vote on Israel Coalition Comes With a Skinny Margin

History-Making Vote on Israel Coalition Comes With a Thin Margin

The political fate of Israel’s longest serving leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, is set to be decided on Sunday afternoon, when Parliament will hold a vote of confidence in a new government that would topple Mr. Netanyahu from power for the first time in 12 years.

Mr. Netanyahu’s opponents hope that the vote, if it passes, will ease a political stalemate that has produced four elections since 2019 and left Israel without a state budget for more than a year. It will also end, at least for now, the dominance of a politician who has shaped 21st-century Israel more than any other, shifted its politics to the right and overseen the fizzling of Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations.

Mr. Netanyahu is set to be replaced by his former chief of staff and now political rival, Naftali Bennett. A former high-tech entrepreneur and settler leader, Mr. Bennett opposes a Palestinian state and believes Israel should annex much of the occupied West Bank.

If confirmed by Parliament, Mr. Bennett would lead an ideologically diffuse coalition that is united only by its antipathy toward Mr. Netanyahu. The bloc ranges from the far left to the hard right and includes — for the first time in Israeli history — an independent Arab party.

On Sunday, one hard-right lawmaker was considering whether to resign from his party, but still vote for the coalition. And an Arab lawmaker was debating whether to abstain in the vote.

If it holds, the coalition will control just 61 of Parliament’s 120 seats, and its fragility has prompted many commentators to wonder whether it can last a full term. Should it hold until 2023, Mr. Bennett will be replaced as prime minister by Yair Lapid, a centrist former television host, for the remaining two years of the term.

The parliamentary session to confirm the new government is scheduled to begin at 4 p.m. local time. Mr. Bennett is expected to speak first, followed by Mr. Lapid and then Mr. Netanyahu.

Parliament is then expected to vote for a new speaker — likely to be Mickey Levy, from Mr. Lapid’s centrist party — and finally for the government itself. If the vote passes, the government will be sworn in immediately, formally replacing Mr. Netanyahu’s administration.

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World News

Israel’s Parliament to Vote on New Authorities on Sunday

Israel’s Parliament to Vote on New Government on Sunday

JERUSALEM — The immediate political future of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel is set to be decided on Sunday, after the speaker of Israel’s Parliament said that lawmakers would hold a vote of confidence in a new coalition government that afternoon.

If the fragile coalition can hold together until then, it will be the first time in 12 years that the country will be led by someone other than Mr. Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister.

The announcement, by the Parliament speaker, Yariv Levin, on Tuesday, clears the way for Mr. Netanyahu to be replaced by Naftali Bennett, a former high-tech entrepreneur and settler leader who opposes a Palestinian state and believes Israel should annex much of the occupied West Bank.

If confirmed by Parliament, Mr. Bennett will lead an ideologically varied alliance that ranges from the far left to the hard right and includes — for the first time in Israeli history — an independent Arab party.

The fragility of the alliance and its wafer-thin majority — if no one drops out, it will command 61 of Parliament’s 120 seats — have left many wondering whether it will last until the vote, let alone its full four-year term. If the coalition lasts until 2023, Mr. Bennett has agreed to cede the premiership to Yair Lapid, a centrist former television host.

Mr. Netanyahu and his party, Likud, have pledged to do all they can to peel off wavering hard-right members of the coalition before the confidence vote.

In a speech reminiscent of President Trump’s rhetoric after the 2020 United States election, Mr. Netanyahu accused Mr. Bennett’s alliance on Sunday of subverting the will of the people.

“We are witnessing the biggest election fraud in the country’s history,” he told lawmakers from Likud before giving his blessing to protesters pressuring Mr. Bennett’s party.

“Nobody will silence us,” Mr. Netanyahu said. “When a huge public feels that it has been deceived, when the national camp is vehemently opposed to a dangerous left-wing government, it is their right and their duty to express protest in all legal and democratic means.”

For weeks, Mr. Netanyahu and his supporters have tried to stop the formation of an alternative government by accusing its would-be members — particularly those from the political right — of betraying the country.

That rhetoric has risen significantly since Wednesday, when opposition leaders announced that they had formed a coalition, pending a confidence vote.

Over the weekend, Likud tweeted the home address of a leading opposition lawmaker. And hundreds of supporters of Mr. Netanyahu have picketed the homes of several coalition members whom they deem vulnerable to pressure.

“It seems that Netanyahu hasn’t forgotten or learned anything since the Rabin assassination,” Nahum Barnea, a prominent columnist, wrote on Monday in Yedioth Ahronoth, a centrist newspaper.

On Saturday, the tenor of the discourse appeared to prompt Nadav Argaman, the director of the Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security service, to publicly call for restraint.

Understand Developments in Israeli Politics

    • Key Figures. The main players in the latest twist in Israeli politics have very different agendas, but one common goal. Naftali Bennett, who leads a small right-wing party, and Yair Lapid, the centrist leader of the Israeli opposition, have joined forces to form a diverse coalition to unseat Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister.
    • Range of Ideals. Spanning Israel’s fractious political spectrum from left to right, and relying on the support of a small Arab, Islamist party, the coalition, dubbed the “change government” by supporters, will likely mark a profound shift for Israel.
    • A Common Goal. After grinding deadlock that led to four inconclusive elections in two years, and an even longer period of polarizing politics and government paralysis, the architects of the coalition have pledged to get Israel back on track.
    • An Unclear Future. Parliament still has to ratify the fragile agreement in a confidence vote in the coming days. But even if it does, it remains unclear how much change the “change government” could bring to Israel because some of the parties involved have little in common besides animosity for Mr. Netanyahu.

Without mentioning any politicians by name, Mr. Argaman asked Israelis to avoid statements that are “liable to be interpreted by certain groups or by individuals as one that permits violent and illegal activity that is liable, heaven forbid, to reach mortal injury.”

Analysts and commentators have also warned that several of the circumstances that set off the recent Gaza conflict have yet to be extinguished and could boil over again before the confidence vote.

On Monday, the attorney general, Avichai Mandelblit, declined to intervene in a high-profile eviction case in a Palestinian neighborhood of East Jerusalem, Sheikh Jarrah, where Palestinian residents face expulsion from their homes in favor of Israeli settlers.

The case in Sheikh Jarrah was cited by Hamas as one of the reasons for its decision to fire rockets toward Jerusalem on May 10, at the start of the recent conflict with Israel. Mr. Mandelblit’s decision means that the eviction, currently under judicial appeal, could be finalized in the coming days — raising tensions with Hamas once more.

There are also fears of violence if a far-right Jewish march through Palestinian areas of East Jerusalem is allowed to go ahead.

The march was originally planned for May 10 and was another reason given by Hamas for firing rockets that day. It was aborted after the militants began their attack, leading its organizers to try to reschedule it for this week.

The police initially canceled the rescheduled march, but Mr. Netanyahu’s security cabinet decided Tuesday to go ahead with it on June 15, on a route to be agreed on with the police.

Myra Noveck contributed reporting.

Categories
Health

Decide Clears Purdue Pharma’s Restructuring Plan for Vote by Hundreds of Claimants

Judge Clears Purdue Pharma’s Restructuring Plan for Vote by Thousands of Claimants

“It’s not unprecedented, but it’s highly controversial” for a bankrupt company’s owners to be released from future litigation as part of a settlement, said Adam J. Levitin, a law professor specializing in bankruptcy at Georgetown University Law Center. “It’s not even clear that the bankruptcy court has the jurisdiction to do this,” as the Sacklers are not parties to the bankruptcy themselves.

Judge Drain has long urged the negotiators to work quickly, because no money can flow to the claimants until the bankruptcy case is concluded.

According to the plan, the reconstituted, as-yet unnamed company would fund about a half-dozen trusts, including separate ones for tribes, adults and children. Proceeds from the sales of the nonprofit’s overdose-reversing medications as well as from moderate quantities of OxyContin would continue to be pumped into these trusts.

But more than 100,000 individual claimants, including relatives of people who died from prescription overdoses, would receive relatively paltry compensation, ranging roughly from $3,000 to $48,000 apiece — before lawyers’ fees and costs are deducted.

Indeed, more than a half-billion dollars overall will go toward fees and costs accrued by plaintiffs’ public and private lawyers.

The oversight of the new trusts will also be expensive. The trust distribution is incredibly complex, said Lindsey Simon, an assistant professor at the University of Georgia School of Law, who has closely followed the case. “From my perspective, the biggest question is how much money will get eaten up in the administration of all those trusts,” she said.

Scott Bickford, a lawyer who represents individuals, families and babies who showed symptoms of withdrawal from drugs they were exposed to in utero, noted that the current proposal did dedicate $60 million for programs to assist these children and a fund to compensate them, an improvement from earlier versions.