Tag Archives: Legislation

Social media companies accelerate removals of online hate speech

A man reads tweets on his phone in front of a displayed Twitter logo in Bordeaux, southwestern France, March 10, 2016. REUTERS/Regis

By Julia Fioretti

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Social media companies Facebook, Twitter and Google’s YouTube have accelerated removals of online hate speech in the face of a potential European Union crackdown.

The EU has gone as far as to threaten social media companies with new legislation unless they increase efforts to fight the proliferation of extremist content and hate speech on their platforms.

Microsoft, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube signed a code of conduct with the EU in May 2016 to review most complaints within a 24-hour timeframe. Instagram and Google+ will also sign up to the code, the European Commission said.

The companies managed to review complaints within a day in 81 percent of cases during monitoring of a six-week period towards the end of last year, EU figures released on Friday show, compared with 51 percent in May 2017 when the Commission last examined compliance with the code of conduct.

On average, the companies removed 70 percent of the content flagged to them, up from 59.2 percent in May last year.

EU Justice Commissioner Vera Jourova has said that she does not want to see a 100 percent removal rate because that could impinge on free speech.

She has also said she is not in favor of legislating as Germany has done. A law providing for fines of up to 50 million euros ($61.4 million) for social media companies that do not remove hate speech quickly enough went into force in Germany this year.

Jourova said the results unveiled on Friday made it less likely that she would push for legislation on the removal of illegal hate speech.

‘NO FREE PASS’

“The fact that our collaborative approach on illegal hate speech brings good results does not mean I want to give a free pass to the tech giants,” she told a news conference.

Facebook reviewed complaints in less than 24 hours in 89.3 percent of cases, YouTube in 62.7 percent of cases and Twitter in 80.2 percent of cases.

“These latest results and the success of the code of conduct are further evidence that the Commission’s current self-regulatory approach is effective and the correct path forward.” said Stephen Turner, Twitter’s head of public policy.

Of the hate speech flagged to the companies, almost half of it was found on Facebook, the figures show, while 24 percent was on YouTube and 26 percent on Twitter.

The most common ground for hatred identified by the Commission was ethnic origin, followed by anti-Muslim hatred and xenophobia, including expressions of hatred against migrants and refugees.

Pressure from several European governments has prompted social media companies to step up efforts to tackle extremist online content, including through the use of artificial intelligence.

YouTube said it was training machine learning models to flag hateful content at scale.

“Over the last two years we’ve consistently improved our review and action times for this type of content on YouTube, showing that our policies and processes are effective, and getting better over time,” said Nicklas Lundblad, Google’s vice president of public policy in EMEA.

“We’ve learned valuable lessons from the process, but there is still more we can do.”

The Commission is likely to issue a recommendation at the end of February on how companies should take down extremist content related to militant groups, an EU official said.

(Reporting by Julia Fioretti; Additional reporting by Foo Yun Chee; Editing by Grant McCool and David Goodman)

Macron wants anti-‘fake news’ law in 2018

French President Emmanuel Macron delivers his New Year wishes to the members of the press corps at the Elysee Palace in Paris, France, January 3, 2018.

PARIS (Reuters) – President Emmanuel Macron said on Wednesday he would overhaul French media legislation this year to fight the “fake news” spread on social media which he said threatened liberal democracies.

Since he was elected last year, Macron has criticized Russian media in particular, openly accusing TV channel RT of sowing disinformation about him via its website and social media during the presidential election.

“If we want to protect liberal democracies, we must have strong legislation,” Macron told a news conference.

Macron said the legislation would concern social media platforms, especially during election periods, and deeply change the role of France’s media watchdog CSA.

(Reporting by Michel Rose; Editing by Ingrid Melander)

As Syrian couples say ‘I do,’ Lebanon says ‘No, not quite’

A Syrian refugee woman holds a child in Ain Baal village, near Tyre in southern Lebanon, November 27, 2017. Picture taken November 27, 2017.

By Sarah Dadouch

BEKAA, Lebanon (Reuters) – In a tent in Lebanon surrounded by snow, Syrian refugees Ammar and Khadija were married by a tribal leader from their homeland in a wedding they would soon come to regret.

What they had hoped would be a milestone on the path back to normal life became the start of a bureaucratic nightmare.

One year on, it shows no sign of ending for them, their newly born son or for many other refugees from Syria, whose misery at losing their homes has been compounded by a new fear they may never be able to return.

It is a dilemma with knock-on effects for stability in Lebanon, sheltering more than a million Syrian refugees, and potentially for other countries in the Middle East and Europe they may flee to if tension spills over.

After they had agreed their union with the sheikh in the insulated tent that had become home to Khadija’s family, the newlyweds both spent months digging potatoes in the Bekaa valley, one of Lebanon’s poorest districts, to make ends meet.

Only after they had a baby boy, Khalaf, did they realize the wedding had been a mistake.

When the couple went to register his birth at the local registry, they were told they could not because they had no official marriage certificate.

Without registration, Khalaf is not entitled to a Syrian passport or other ID enabling him to go there. Without proper paperwork, he also risks future detention in Lebanon.

Asked why they did not get married by an approved religious authority, Ammar and Khadija looked at each other before answering: “We didn’t know.”

CATCH 22

Laws and legislation seem very remote from the informal settlements in the northern Bekaa Valley, where Syrian refugee tents sit on the rocky ground amongst rural tobacco fields. Marriages by unregistered sheikhs are common but hard to quantify because authorities often never hear of them.

For whereas in Syria, verbal tribal or religious marriages are easy to register, Lebanon has complex and costly procedures.

You first need to be married by a sheikh approved by one of the various religious courts that deal with family matters, who gives you a contract. Then you have to get a marriage certificate from a local notary, transfer it to the local civil registry and register it at the Foreigners’ Registry.

Most Syrians do not complete the process, as it requires legal residency in the country, which must be renewed annually and costs $200, although the fee was waived for some refugees this year. Now they have had a child, Ammar and Khadija also need to go through an expensive court case.

The casual work Ammar depends on — picking potatoes, onions or cucumbers in five hour shifts starting at 6 am — pays 6,000 LBP ($4) a day, not enough to live on, let alone put aside.

“One bag of diapers costs 10,000 liras,” he said.

Sally Abi Khalil, Country Director in Lebanon for UK-based charity Oxfam, said 80 percent of Syrian refugees do not have valid residency, one of the main reasons why they do not register their marriages, alongside the issue of the sheikhs.

“Babies born to couples who didn’t register their marriage risk becoming stateless,” she said.

Refugees can only legally make money if they have a work permit, which requires legal residency, a Catch 22 situation partially tackled in February when the fee was waived for those registered with the UNHCR prior to 2015 and without a previous Lebanese sponsor.

Lebanon’s Directorate General of Personal Status took another step to help the refugees on September 12, when it issued a memo which waived the parents’ and child’s residency prerequisite for birth registration, it said.

But if you are married by an unauthorized sheikh, which includes all Syrian sheikhs, the process is more complicated, made worse by a clock ticking over the fate of your offspring, whose birth has to be registered within a year.

“In registering marriages, the biggest problem we faced was the sheikh,” said Rajeh, a Syrian refugee, speaking for his community in a village in southern Lebanon. “In Syria, the child would be ten years old and you can register him in one day.”

POLITICAL PRESSURE

If the one-year deadline is missed in Lebanon, parents have to open a civil court case estimated to cost more than one hundred dollars and still requiring legal residency, which Ammar and Khadija, who met in the informal settlement, do not have.

Legal residency becomes a requirement in Lebanon at the age of 15. At that point, many Syrians pull their children from school and do not let them stray far from the house or neighborhood for fear they will be stopped and detained.

More than half of those who escaped the Syrian conflict that began in 2011 are under 18 years old, and around one in six are babies and toddlers, said Tina Gewis, a legal specialist from the Norwegian Refugee Council.

Politicians pressured by some Lebanese saying the country has carried too much of the burden of the refugee crisis are pushing harder for the return of the displaced to Syria, raising the stakes since documentation is required for repatriation.

If they have used an unauthorized sheikh, couples are encouraged to redo their marriages, said Sheikh Wassim Yousef al-Falah, Beirut’s sharia (Islamic law) judge, who said the court’s case load had tripled with the influx of Syrian refugees.

But that is not an option for Ammar and Khadija because a pregnancy or the birth of a child rules that option out.

Gewis said that in any case new marriages risked complicating future inheritance or other legal issues and costs were prohibitive, with courts charging up to $110 to register even straightforward marriages by an approved sheikh.

Ziad al Sayegh, a senior advisor in Lebanon’s newly-formed Ministry of State for Displaced Affairs said Beirut was keen to help the refugees overcome their difficulties.

“We don’t want them to be stateless, because if you’re stateless you have a legal problem that will affect the child and affect the host country,” he said.

(Editing by Philippa Fletcher)

Long-awaited U.S. Republican legislation calls for deep tax cuts

A congressional aide places a placard on a podium for the House Republican's legislation to overhaul the tax code on Capitol Hill.

By David Morgan and Amanda Becker

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump’s drive for the deep tax cuts that he promised as a candidate reached a major milestone on Thursday, with his fellow Republicans in the House of Representatives unveiling long-awaited legislation to overhaul the tax code.

The bill called for slashing the corporate tax rate to 20 percent from 35 percent and cutting tax rates on individuals and families by consolidating the current number of tax brackets to four from seven: 12 percent, 25 percent, 35 percent and 39.6 percent, which is now the top rate and would be retained.

Largely in line with expectations for the tax-cut plan they have been developing behind closed doors for weeks, the House tax-writing Ways and Means Committee proposed roughly doubling the standard deduction for individuals and families.

It also called for preserving the home mortgage interest deduction for existing mortgages and for newly purchased homes up to $500,000, as well as continuing the deduction for state and local property taxes, capped at $10,000. It would retain the tax benefits of popular retirement savings programs including 401(k) and IRA.

The bill is the starting gun for a frantic race toward what Trump and Republicans in the House and Senate hope will be their first major legislative victory since he took office in January: the enactment this year of a package of deep tax cuts.

“This is the beginning of the end of this horrible tax code,” House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Brady told reporters on Thursday as he entered a meeting with Republican lawmakers ahead of the bill’s release.

The bill would create a new family tax credit, double exemptions for estate taxes on inherited assets and repeal the estate tax over six years, while also allowing small businesses to write off loan interest, according to the document.

The bill would cap the maximum tax rate on small businesses and other non-corporate enterprises at 25 percent, down from the present maximum rate on “pass-through” income of 39.6 percent. It would also set standards for distinguishing between individual wage income and actual pass-through business income to prevent tax-avoidance abuse of the new, lower tax level.

It would create a new 10-percent tax on U.S. companies’ high-profit foreign subsidiaries, calculated on a global basis, in a move to prevent companies from moving profits overseas, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Foreign businesses operating in the United States would face a tax of up to 20 percent on payments they make overseas from their American operations, the Journal added.

 

MARKET REACTION

U.S. equities have rallied in 2017 to a series of record highs, partly on expectations of deep corporate tax cuts. They were down slightly on Thursday as initial details of the Republican plan emerged. Housing stocks fell; bank stocks initially fell but then cut their losses.

Investors cautioned the tax plan was preliminary and it was too soon to gauge the effect on specific industries and asset classes. Long-dated bond yields and the U.S. dollar were down.

“This was what the market has been waiting for,” said Sean Simko, head of fixed-income management at Sei Investments Co in Pennsylvania. “It’s pretty much what the market has heard and priced in for. We are also waiting for the Fed chair nominee announcement and the payrolls number (Friday). Until then, the markets are going to be pretty contained.”

Congress has not succeeded with comprehensive tax changes since 1986, when Republican Ronald Reagan was in the White House and Democrats controlled the House. Bipartisan cooperation led to the passage of that plan, but Republicans have frozen Democrats out of the process of developing this legislation and passed a budget plan that would enable them to pass it with no Democratic votes.

Independent analysts have said that, based on an outline of the plan previously made public, corporations and the wealthiest Americans would benefit the most, and the federal deficit would be greatly expanded over the next decade because of a loss of tax revenue.

Trump said at the White House this week that he wanted Congress to pass the tax overhaul by the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday on Nov. 23.

Trump, House Republican leaders and Republican members of Brady’s panel will then meet at the White House on Thursday afternoon. Trump is also meeting separately with Republican senators, who must also unite to pass the tax plan.

“We’re going to get it done,” added House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy.

Brady himself predicts the initial legislation will change next week, when his panel is due to begin preparing it for an eventual House vote.

While Republicans control the White House and both chambers of Congress, intra-party differences have prevented them from passing major legislation sought by Trump, as exemplified by the collapse of their effort to dismantle the Obamacare law. Any failure to pass tax cuts legislation would call into question Republicans’ basic ability to deliver on promises.

The bill must also pass the Senate, where Republicans hold a slimmer 52-48 majority and earlier this year failed to garner enough votes to pass a major healthcare overhaul. Senate Republican leaders have said they aim to finish their work on taxes by year-end.

Democrats have criticized the proposed tax cuts as a giveaway to corporations and the wealthy that would harm workers and middle-class Americans.

 

 

(Reporting by Amanda Becker and David Morgan; Additional reporting by Richard Leong, Susan Heavey and Susan Cornwell; Writing by Will Dunham; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn and Nick Zieminski)

 

U.S. pressure delays Israel’s ‘Greater Jerusalem’ bill

An ultra-Orthodox Jewish man walks on a road in the Israeli settlement of Beitar Illit in the occupied West Bank

By Jeffrey Heller

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – U.S. pressure delayed an Israeli ministerial vote on Sunday on a proposed bill that Washington fears entails annexation of Jewish settlements near Jerusalem, an Israeli lawmaker said.

The “Greater Jerusalem” legislation would put some settlements in the occupied West Bank, built on land Palestinians seek for a future state and viewed as illegal by most countries, under the jurisdiction of Jerusalem’s municipality.

The bill, proposed by a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party, was to have been submitted for approval on Sunday to a ministerial committee on legislation, a first step before a series of ratification votes in parliament.

But Likud lawmaker David Bitan, chairman of Netanyahu’s coalition in parliament, said a vote by the cabinet committee would be delayed because Washington told Israel the bill’s passage could impede U.S. efforts to revive peace talks that collapsed in 2014.

“There is American pressure that claims this is about annexation and that this could interfere with the peace process,” Bitan told Army Radio.

“The prime minister doesn’t think this is about annexation. I don’t think so either. We have to take the time to clarify matters to the Americans. Therefore, if the bill passes in a week, or in a month, it’s less problematic,” he said.

Proponents of the legislation say it falls short of formal land annexation to Israel but will enable some 150,000 settlers to vote in Jerusalem city elections. Intelligence Minister Israel Katz, a supporter of the bill, has said this would “ensure a Jewish majority in a united Jerusalem”.

Israel’s claim to all of Jerusalem as its capital, including the eastern sector it captured along with the West Bank and Gaza Strip in a 1967 Middle East war, has not won international recognition. Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of a state they seek to establish in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Israeli media reports said the U.S. ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, had conveyed misgivings about the legislation, under which the large Maale Adumim and Beitar Illit settlements would become part of a Greater Jerusalem municipality.

Israel’s Haaretz newspaper quoted Netanyahu as telling cabinet ministers on Sunday: “The Americans turned to us and inquired what the bill was all about. As we have been coordinating with them until now, it is worth continuing to talk and coordinate with them.”

A U.S. embassy spokeswoman declined immediate comment.

Some 500,000 Israelis live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, areas home to more than 2.6 million Palestinians. Israel disputes that its settlements are illegal, citing historical, Biblical and political links to the territory, as well as security considerations.

 

 

(Editing by Catherine Evans)

 

Trump presses congressional Republicans to pass healthcare plan

By Susan Heavey and Susan Cornwell

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump on Monday prodded the Republican-led U.S. Congress to pass major healthcare legislation but huge obstacles remained in the Senate as key lawmakers in his party voiced pessimism about the chances of rolling back the Obamacare law.

The House of Representatives approved its healthcare bill in May but the Senate’s version appeared to be in growing trouble as lawmakers returned to Washington from a week-long recess.

“I cannot imagine that Congress would dare to leave Washington without a beautiful new HealthCare bill fully approved and ready to go!” Trump wrote on Twitter, referring to the seven-year Republican quest to dismantle Democratic former President Barack Obama’s signature legislative achievement.

Trump appeared to be referring to the August recess that lawmakers typically take.

Senate Republican leaders have faced a revolt within their ranks, with moderate senators uneasy about the millions of Americans forecast to lose their medical insurance under the legislation and hard-line conservatives saying the bill leaves too much of Obamacare intact.

Republican Senator Pat Toomey said a new version of the legislation is expected to be released on Monday, telling the CNBC program “Squawk Box” that “there’s a shot” of getting to the 50 votes his party needs to win passage in the 100-seat Senate, with Vice President Mike Pence casting a tie-breaking vote.

Repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act, dubbed Obamacare, was a central campaign pledge for Trump.

Obamacare expanded health insurance coverage to some 20 million people, with much of the increase due to an expansion of the Medicaid government health insurance program for the poor and disabled.

Republicans criticize the law as a costly government intrusion into the healthcare system while Democrats call the Republican legislation a giveaway to the rich that will hurt millions of the most vulnerable Americans.

“The Senate now is literally within weeks of being able to deliver on that promise to the American people,” Pence said in an interview with conservative radio host Laura Ingraham, adding there is “not yet agreement” in the Senate “but we are close.”

Some Republican lawmakers were more pessimistic, with Senator John McCain saying on Sunday the legislation is “probably going to be dead.”

Opponents of the legislation are expected to hold protests in Washington, organizing sit-ins at congressional offices, holding marches and stage vigils outside Republican senators’ homes. During last week’s recess, liberal groups organized town hall meetings and protests and ran advertisements criticizing the bill.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell faces the tricky task of crafting a bill that can attract Republican moderates and hard-line conservatives in a chamber his party controls with a slim 52-48 majority.

The Senate legislation would phase out the Medicaid expansion, drastically cut federal Medicaid spending beginning in 2025, repeal most of Obamacare’s taxes, end a penalty on Americans who do not obtain insurance and overhaul Obamacare’s subsidies to help people buy insurance with tax credits.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, which assesses the impact of legislation, has estimated 22 million people would lose health insurance over the next decade under the Senate bill.

Shares of U.S. hospital companies and health insurers, which have been particularly sensitive to developments involving the healthcare legislation, were mixed in midday trading on Monday.

Among hospital stocks, Tenet Healthcare Corp edged up 0.3 percent while HCA Healthcare Inc fell 0.5 percent.

Insurer Anthem Inc inched up 0.1 percent while Centene Corp, an insurer focused on Medicaid, was flat.

The broader S&P 500 healthcare sector was off 0.1 percent, underperforming a 0.2 percent gain for the overall S&P .SPX.

(For a graphic on who’s covered under Medicaid, click http://bit.ly/2u3O2Mu)

 

(Additional reporting by Doina Chiacu; Writing by Will Dunham; Editing by Tom Brown)

 

Texas committee passes bill to curb transgender bathroom access

FILE PHOTO - A bathroom sign welcomes both genders at the Cacao Cinnamon coffee shop in Durham, North Carolina, U.S. on May 3, 2016. REUTERS/Jonathan Drake/File Photo

By Jon Herskovitz

AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) – A bill that would restrict access to public bathrooms by transgender people was approved by a Texas Senate committee on Wednesday after hundreds of people lined up for a nearly 21-hour session on that legislation, which critics said promotes discrimination.

The bill would require people to use restrooms that correspond with the gender on their birth certificate, not the gender with which they identify.

It will now go to the Republican-controlled Senate where it is expected to pass. Republican Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, who guides the Senate agenda, has said the legislation is a priority.

Analysts do not expect the bill to make it through the state House of Representatives, where there is more concern about the potential economic impact of such legislation.

The bill, which focuses on a heated political issue in the United States, is similar to one enacted last year in North Carolina. That law prompted economic boycotts and the loss of sporting events that were estimated to have cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars.

The Texas Association of Business released a study in January in which it said that if the legislation were enacted it could cost Texas as much as $8.5 billion in the state’s gross domestic product and the loss of more than 185,000 jobs in the first year alone.

Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick has challenged the survey and brought North Carolina Republican Lieutenant Governor Dan Forest to Texas to rally support for the bill.

Nearly 70 businesses, including some of the state’s biggest employers such as American Airlines, sent a letter to Republican leaders this month asking them to reject the bill on the grounds that it would “legalize discrimination.”

THIRD-GRADER TESTIFIES

Hundreds registered to testify, and more than 250 people addressed the committee. Some waited more than 12 hours while many bill opponents lined the corridors in the Capitol’s dome.

“At the core of this bill is privacy,” Republican state Senator Lois Kolkhorst, the bill’s sponsor, told the committee.

Almost all the testimony was against the bill while supporters said it would help prevent sexual predators from targeting women and children.

Chelsa Morrison, whose 8-year-old daughter Marilyn started third grade at a suburban Dallas school after a gender transition, choked back tears as she told the committee that her daughter was bullied and if the legislation was enacted it would be devastating.

Marilyn told lawmakers, “Trans people are real. You are looking at one right now. This bill is horrifying to me and all of my transgender friends.”

She said it would be embarrassing if she were forced to use the boys’ bathroom. “All we got to do is tinkle and get out. That’s all.”

Her mother said later in a telephone interview that Marilyn attended school in the latter part of last year for about a month, then left because of bullying and bathroom restrictions. She is now being schooled at home.

Lieutenant Governor Patrick has called the bill common sense legislation. “North Carolina was the tip of the spear,” he told reporters this week. “We will be next to pass a bill that focuses on privacy, a person’s privacy, and public safety.”

(Reporting by Jon Herskovitz; Additional reporting by Letitia Stein in Tampa; Editing by Frances Kerry, Toni Reinhold)

U.S. Senate approves measure launching Obamacare repeal process

The federal government forms for applying for health coverage are seen at a rally held by supporters of the Affordable Care Act, widely referred to as "Obamacare", outside the Jackson-Hinds Comprehensive Health Center in Jackson, Mississippi, U.S

By Susan Cornwell

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Senate on Thursday took a first concrete step toward dismantling Obamacare, voting to instruct key committees to draft legislation repealing President Barack Obama’s signature health insurance program.

The resolution, passed in the early hours of Thursday in a 51-48 vote, now goes to the House of Representatives, which is expected to vote on it this week. Scrapping Obamacare is a top priority for Republican President-elect Donald Trump and the Republican majorities in both chambers.

Republicans have said the process of repealing Obamacare could take months, and developing a replacement plan could take longer. But they are under pressure from Trump to act fast after he said on Wednesday that the repeal and replacement should happen “essentially simultaneously.”

Some 20 million previously uninsured Americans gained health coverage through the Affordable Care Act, as Obamacare is officially called. Coverage was extended by expanding Medicaid and through online exchanges where consumers can receive income-based subsidies.

Republicans have launched repeated legal and legislative efforts to unravel the law, criticizing it as government overreach. They say they want to replace it by giving states, not the federal government, more control.

But in recent days some Republicans have expressed concern about the party’s current strategy of voting for a repeal without having a consensus replacement plan ready.

House Speaker Paul Ryan said this week he wants to pack as many replacement provisions as possible into the legislation repealing Obamacare. But Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, also a Republican, said that could be difficult under Senate rules.

The resolution approved Thursday instructs committees of the House and Senate to draft repeal legislation by Jan. 27. Both chambers will then need to approve the resulting legislation before any repeal goes into effect.

Senate Republicans are using special budget procedures that allow them to repeal Obamacare by a simple majority so that they will not need Democratic votes. Republicans have 52 votes in the 100-seat Senate. One Republican, Senator Rand Paul, voted no on Thursday.

Democrats mocked the Republican effort, saying Republicans have never united around an alternative to Obamacare. “They want to kill ACA but they have no idea how they are going to bring forth a substitute proposal,” said Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats.

On Wednesday, Trump said he would submit a replacement plan as soon as his nominee to lead the Health and Human Services Department, Representative Tom Price, is approved by the Senate. Trump gave no details.

Trump senior adviser Kellyanne Conway praised lawmakers for clearing the way for repeal and said the replacement effort will likely tackle medication costs.

“To repeal and replace Obamacare and not have a conversation about drug pricing seems not like a very reasonable prospect and not (a) responsible prospect,” Conway told Bloomberg Television on Thursday, one day after Trump targeted the pharmaceutical industry, a traditional Republican ally.

Democrats passed the Affordable Care Act in 2010 over united Republican opposition. Democrats say the act is insuring more Americans and helping to slow the growth in healthcare spending.

But Republicans say the system is not working. The average Obamacare premium is set to rise 25 percent in 2017.

(Reporting by Susan Cornwell; Additional reporting by Susan Heavey; Editing by Nick Macfie and Bill Trott)

U.S. House votes to allow Sept. 11 families to sue Saudi Arabia

Firefighter walks amid the 9/11 rubble

By Patricia Zengerle

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation on Friday that would allow the families of victims of the Sept. 11 attacks to sue Saudi Arabia’s government for damages, despite the White House’s threat to veto the measure.

The U.S. Senate in May unanimously passed the “Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act,” known as JASTA. The bill’s passage in the House by voice vote, two days before the 15th anniversary of the attacks that killed about 3,000 people, was greeted with cheers and applause in the chamber.

“We can no longer allow those who injure and kill Americans to hide behind legal loopholes, denying justice to the victims of terrorism,” said Republican Representative Bob Goodlatte, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.

Fifteen of the 19 Sept. 11 hijackers who crashed airliners in New York, outside Washington and in Pennsylvania were Saudi nationals. The Saudi government, which strongly denies responsibility, has lobbied against the bill.

Opponents of the measure said it could strain relations with Saudi Arabia and lead to retaliatory laws that would allow foreign nationals to sue Americans for alleged involvement in terrorist attacks.

The White House on Friday reiterated that President Barack Obama would veto the bill. [nW1N12802E]

If Obama carries out that threat and the required two-thirds of both the Republican-majority House and Senate still support the bill, it would be the first time since Obama’s presidency began in 2009 that Congress had overridden a veto.

The House passed the measure by voice vote, without objections or recorded individual votes. That could make it easier for Obama’s fellow Democrats to uphold his veto later without officially changing their positions.

JASTA would remove sovereign immunity, preventing lawsuits against governments, for countries found to be involved in terrorist attacks on U.S. soil. It also would allow survivors, and relatives of those killed in them to seek damages from other countries.

In this case, it would allow suits to proceed in federal court in New York as lawyers try to prove that the Saudis were involved in the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

Backers say passage is long overdue. They argue that if Saudi Arabia, or any other government, is innocent of involvement in attacks, they have nothing to fear from the legislation.

A member of the French parliament, Pierre Lellouche, said he would consider such legislation in France, and would anticipate it elsewhere, if the final version of JASTA does not include waivers for countries that are U.S. allies and actively involved in fighting terrorism.

“It may trigger similar acts all over the place, and then you enter into a ‘state of jungle’ where everybody sues everybody,” Lellouche, who runs a parliamentary committee on international law, told reporters on a conference call on Friday.

(Additional reporting by Timothy Gardner and Ayesha Rascoe; Editing by Grant McCool and Will Dunham)

Senators working to craft new gun control compromise

A gun rights supporter openly carries two pistols strapped to his leg during a rally in support of the Michigan Open Carry gun law in Romulus

By Susan Cornwell and Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A group of Republican senators on Friday were trying to craft compromise gun control legislation that could attract both Republicans and Democrats and have a hope of passing the U.S. Senate, unlike several measures that are expected to be voted on next week for which prospects appear dim.

Congress is under pressure to act after the massacre last Sunday of 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history. But the gun control issue is deeply divisive and there have been no restrictions passed since 1994, when Congress imposed a ban on semi-automatic assault weapons. That expired after 10 years.

The new effort, led by Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine, would aim to close a loophole in U.S. law that allows people on terrorism watch lists to buy weapons and explosives.

Both the gunman in the Orlando attack and the married couple who carried out a mass shooting that killed 14 people in San Bernardino, California, last December were thought to have been inspired by militant Islamist groups abroad.

Collins’ proposal likely would be offered in the divided, Republican-controlled Senate sometime next week – assuming that four other gun-control proposals set for votes on Monday fail, as expected.

Collins’ office declined to provide a detailed account of legislation she is working on with Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona and Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire.

But Collins discussed the project with journalists outside the Senate on Thursday, noting that barring people on terrorism watch lists from weapons purchases carried with it the risk of affecting people who have been swept onto the lists without good cause.

“What we’re trying to do is not deny constitutional rights to a large group of individuals” who find themselves on watch lists despite the fact that there might not be credible evidence of potential criminal intentions, Collins said.

At least one Senate Democrat, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, has been involved in the talks, according to a spokeswoman.

A Senate Republican aide who asked not to be identified, said the bill “will aim to have teeth on preventing terrorists from getting guns and contain protections for due process” for those who should not be denied their rights to buy weapons.

It will not be known whether a Collins bill would attract wide bipartisan support until the measure is unveiled.

On Monday evening, senators are scheduled to vote on two Republican and two Democratic amendments dealing with expanded background checks for gun buyers and denying sales to those on watch lists.

Democrats have criticized the Republican measures as being ineffective and Republicans have accused Democrats of crafting bills that would trample constitutional rights to bear arms.

The competing watch-list proposals were defeated in the Senate last December, following the shooting in San Bernardino.

“Rather than doing Ground Hog Day, I think its time for a new approach and a more targeted one,” Collins said in an apparent reference to a 1993 film in which the main character is doomed to relive the same unpleasant day over and over again.

Lawmakers are looking at whether to ban guns to prospective buyers who are on a broad terrorist watch list that is run by the FBI, but not on one of the subset lists such as the “no-fly” list, she said, adding that there could still be an “alert” to law enforcement officials that the purchase was being made.

U.S. authorities maintain several watch lists – the FBI maintains three and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence runs one database. People are placed on such a list according to the threat level they are believed to pose.

The Orlando shooter, Omar Mateen, had been on a government watch list at one point when he was being investigated by federal authorities in 2013 and 2014, but was not on it at the time of his weapons purchase. The couple who carried out the San Bernardino shooting were not on watch lists.

(Reporting by Susan Cornwell and Richard Cowan; Editing by Frances Kerry)