PORTLAND, Ore. — Two weeks of storms that have turned roads into icy death traps, frozen people to death from Oregon to Tennessee and caused power outages that could take weeks to fix continued to sock both coasts with another round of weather chaos on Friday.

The rain, snow, wind and bitterly cold temperatures have been blamed for at least 50 deaths in the U.S. over the past two weeks as a series of storms moved across the country. Schools and roads have closed and air traffic has been snarled

There is hope. The forecast for next week calls for above average temperatures across almost the whole country, according to the National Weather Service.

Snow was falling in New York City, Baltimore and Washington, D.C., on Friday. But the biggest problems remained in places hit hard by storms earlier in the week.

On the West Coast, Oregon’s governor declared a statewide emergency Thursday night, nearly a week after the start of a crippling ice storm.

Thousands of residents have been without power since last weekend in parts of Oregon’s Willamette Valley because of the freezing rain.

“We lost power on Saturday, and we were told yesterday that it would be over two weeks before it’s back on,” said Jamie Kenworthy, a real estate broker in Jasper in Lane County.

More than 100,000 customers remained without electricity Friday morning in the state after back-to-back storms, according to poweroutage.us.

Portland Public Schools canceled classes for the fourth straight day amid concerns about icy roads and water damage to buildings, and state offices in Portland were also ordered closed Friday.

Ice was also a problem in the South. Snow and freezing rain added another coat of ice in Tennessee on Thursday. More than 9 inches of snow has fallen around Nashville since Sunday, nearly twice the yearly average.

Authorities blamed at least 17 deaths on the weather in Tennessee. Several were from traffic wrecks. In Washington County, a patient in an ambulance and someone in a pickup were killed in a head-on crash when the truck lost control on a snowy road.

Exposure to cold was deadly, too. A 25-year-old man was found dead in a mobile home in Lewisburg after a space heater fell over and turned off.

“There was ice on the walls in there,” Marshall County Chief Deputy Bob Johnson said.

The cold broke so many water mains in Memphis that the entire city was placed on a boil water notice because the water pressure was so low, Memphis, Light, Gas and Water said.

Bottled water was being given out in at least two locations in the city Friday.

A significant drop in blood donations led Chattanooga, Tennessee-based Blood Assurance to recommend that more than 70 hospitals in five states halt elective surgeries until Wednesday to let the organization rebuild its inventory. In a news release Thursday, the group cited the weather and several massive blood transfusions in the previous 24 hours in its plea to the hospitals in Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina and Tennessee.

The cold in Washington state was blamed for five deaths. The people — most of them presumed homeless — died from exposure to cold in just four days last week in Seattle as temperatures plummeted to well below freezing, the medical examiner’s office said.

Two people died from exposure as far south as Louisiana, where temperatures in part of the state stayed below freezing for more than two days.

On Thursday, Will Compton of the nonprofit Open Table Nashville, which helps homeless people, stopped his SUV outside the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum to hand out warm hats, blankets, protein drinks and socks as icy rain fell.

“People who are poor and people who are homeless are getting hit the hardest,” Compton said.

Aaron Robison, 62, has been staying at one of Nashville’s warming centers and said the cold wouldn’t have bothered him when he was younger. But now with arthritis in his hip and having to rely on two canes, he needed to get out of the cold.

“Thank God for people helping people on the streets. That’s a blessing,” he said.

On Friday, more bitterly cold air was spilling into the Midwest from Canada. Several states were under an advisory as forecasters warned wind chills dipping to minus 30 degrees Fahrenheit could be common through Sunday morning.

Since extreme cold weather set in last week, more than 60 oil spills and other environmental incidents have been reported in North Dakota’s Bakken oil fields. Wind chills dipped as low as minus-70 degrees F have strained workers and equipment and regulators said the extreme weather strained workers and made accidents more likely.

Lake-enhanced snow finally moved out of Buffalo, New York, late Thursday after burying parts of the city and some suburbs in five feet of snow in five days. The Buffalo Bills renewed their call for snow shovelers Friday, offering $20 an hour for help digging out Highmark Stadium before this Sunday’s divisional playoff game against the Kansas City Chiefs.

The West Virginia Legislature left after a brief session Friday because not enough lawmakers could get through snow-covered highways to the Capitol to vote on bills.

In Washington, D.C., snow fell softly and the streets around the U.S. Capitol were silent. Schools closed again for the second time in a week and the government was on a two-hour delay. President Joe Biden still planned to host mayors from around the country on Friday, though, and was still heading to his Delaware beach home for the weekend.

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Associated Press journalists Jonathan Mattise and Kristin M. Hall in Nashville; Adrian Sainz in Memphis; Carolyn Thompson in Buffalo, New York; Colleen Long in Washington, D.C.; and Jeffrey Collins in Columbia South Carolina, contributed.

SANTA FE, N.M. — A grand jury indicted Alec Baldwin on Friday on an involuntary manslaughter charge in a 2021 fatal shooting during a rehearsal on a movie set in New Mexico, reviving a dormant case against the actor.

Special prosecutors brought the case before a grand jury in Santa Fe this week, months after receiving a new analysis of the gun that was used. They declined to answer questions after spending about a day and a half presenting their case to the grand jury.

Defense attorneys for Baldwin indicated they’ll fight the charge.

“We look forward to our day in court,” said Luke Nikas and Alex Spiro, defense attorneys for Baldwin, in an email.

While the proceeding is shrouded in secrecy, two of the witnesses seen at the courthouse included crew members — one who was present when the fatal shot was fired and another who had walked off the set the day before due to safety concerns.

Baldwin, the lead actor and a co-producer on the Western movie “Rust,” was pointing a gun at cinematographer Halyna Hutchins during a rehearsal on a movie set outside Santa Fe in October 2021 when the gun went off, killing her and wounding director Joel Souza.

Baldwin has said he pulled back the hammer, but not the trigger, and the gun fired.

The charge has again put Baldwin in legal trouble and created the possibility of prison time for an actor who has been a TV and movie mainstay for nearly 40 years, with roles in the early blockbuster “The Hunt for Red October,” Martin Scorsese’s “The Departed” and the sitcom “30 Rock.”

The indictment provides prosecutors with two alternative standards for pursuing an involuntary manslaughter charge against Baldwin in the death of Hutchins. One would be based on negligent use of a firearm, and the other alleges felony misconduct “with the total disregard or indifference for the safety of others.”

Judges recently agreed to put on hold several civil lawsuits seeking compensation from Baldwin and producers of “Rust” after prosecutors said they would present their case to a grand jury. Plaintiffs in those suits include members of the film crew.

Los Angeles-based attorney Gloria Allred, who is representing the slain cinematographer’s parents and younger sister in a civil case, said Friday that her clients have been seeking the truth about what happened the day Hutchins was killed and will be looking forward to Baldwin’s trial.

Neama Rahmani, a former federal prosecutor and president of the West Coast Trial Lawyers firm in Los Angeles, pointed to previous missteps by prosecutors, saying they will need to do more than present ballistics evidence to make a case that Baldwin had a broader responsibility and legal duty when it came to handling the gun on the set.

Special prosecutors dismissed an involuntary manslaughter charge against Baldwin in April, saying they were informed the gun might have been modified before the shooting and malfunctioned. They later pivoted and began weighing whether to refile a charge against Baldwin after receiving a new analysis of the gun.

The analysis from experts in ballistics and forensic testing relied on replacement parts to reassemble the gun fired by Baldwin, after parts of the pistol were broken during testing by the FBI. The report examined the gun and markings it left on a spent cartridge to conclude that the trigger had to have been pulled or depressed.

The analysis led by Lucien Haag of Forensic Science Services in Arizona stated that although Baldwin repeatedly denied pulling the trigger, “given the tests, findings and observations reported here, the trigger had to be pulled or depressed sufficiently to release the fully cocked or retracted hammer of the evidence revolver.”

The weapons supervisor on the movie set, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, has pleaded not guilty to involuntary manslaughter and evidence tampering in the case. Her trial is scheduled to begin in February.

“Rust” assistant director and safety coordinator David Halls pleaded no contest to unsafe handling of a firearm last March and received a suspended sentence of six months of probation. He agreed to cooperate in the investigation of the shooting.

An earlier FBI report on the agency’s analysis of the gun found that, as is common with firearms of that design, it could go off without pulling the trigger if force was applied to an uncocked hammer, such as by dropping the weapon.

The only way the testers could get it to fire was by striking the gun with a mallet while the hammer was down and resting on the cartridge, or by pulling the trigger while it was fully cocked. The gun eventually broke during testing.

The 2021 shooting resulted in a series of civil lawsuits, including wrongful death claims filed by members of Hutchins’ family, centered on accusations that the defendants were lax with safety standards. Baldwin and other defendants have disputed those allegations.

The Rust Movie Productions company has paid a $100,000 fine to state workplace safety regulators after a scathing narrative of failures in violation of standard industry protocols, including testimony that production managers took limited or no action to address two misfires on set before the fatal shooting.

The filming of “Rust” resumed last year in Montana, under an agreement with the cinematographer’s widower, Matthew Hutchins, that made him an executive producer.

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Associated Press journalist Susan Montoya Bryan reported from Albuquerque.

Within two years, a new federal rule will force oil- and gas-producing states to crack down on methane gas emissions — a major driver of climate change.

A handful of states already have rules that force drillers to increase monitoring and upgrade equipment, which advocates say provided an effective template for the federal action.

But many other states will be starting from scratch. In those states, some officials and oil industry leaders say the burden on regulators and fossil fuel producers may outweigh the benefits of reduced emissions.

“Is creating more paperwork going to have the effect the EPA hopes it will have in reducing methane?” said Matthew Bingert, manager of the oil and gas program in North Dakota’s Division of Air Quality.

While carbon dioxide is emitted in far higher quantities, methane is a much more potent greenhouse gas — making it responsible for more than a quarter of the warming that the planet is currently experiencing. It also breaks down much faster in the atmosphere, meaning reducing methane emissions can have a more immediate impact than reducing carbon dioxide, which lingers for longer.

“That makes it a huge opportunity,” said Jon Goldstein, senior director of regulatory and legislative affairs with the Environmental Defense Fund, a legal advocacy group. “If we can get after those emissions quickly, we can start to bend the curve on the climate problem quickly.”

Oil and gas operations are the largest industrial emitter of methane. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that its new rule will prevent 58 million tons of methane emissions by 2038 — equivalent to the carbon emissions produced by the entire power sector in 2021.

Federal officials say the rule also will limit toxic pollutants that affect human health in the neighborhoods surrounding drilling operations and refineries.

While some Democratic-led states have gotten a head start on methane regulations, other oil-producing states, many under GOP control, say the new requirements are going to require massive amounts of data collection and analysis for both companies and regulators — and it’s unclear how that work will be funded.

Attorneys general from 24 states sent a letter to the EPA last year saying the rule would impose excess costs on industry and overstep the agency’s authority.

Last month, the federal agency published a final rule giving state agencies two years to draft plans that include regular industry monitoring for leaks at oil and gas operations. The rule also mandates new technologies that limit emissions and venting or “flaring” — burning off — of methane.

With the expansion of their Clean Air Act responsibilities, state agencies without existing methane programs say they’ll likely need to add more staff, which would be funded by taxpayers or additional fees on the oil and gas industry.

The EPA did not make officials available for an interview. Law experts told ALM, a legal publication, that the rule is likely to face challenges in court.

State action

Climate advocates say the federal agency was spurred to act by the success of state-level methane rules, starting with regulations in Colorado in 2014. Over nearly a decade, Colorado has passed a series of rules to increase methane emissions monitoring, require infrastructure upgrades and crack down on flaring.

“Colorado has formed the basis for many of the EPA rules,” said David McCabe, senior scientist with the Clean Air Task Force, a Boston-based environmental advocacy group.

State officials in Colorado denied a Stateline interview request, but oil and gas operators in the state say they’ve been able to meet the state’s requirements.

“We produce some of the cleanest energy molecules in the world,” said Christy Woodward, senior director of regulatory affairs with the Colorado Oil & Gas Association, a trade group. “We’re not only on target to meet [Colorado’s emissions reduction targets] but exceed them.”

Some environmental advocates have a more mixed response. They praise both the Colorado and EPA rules requiring oil and gas drillers to upgrade to equipment that produces fewer leaks, along with strict rules on venting and flaring. But both programs rely on operators — rather than state inspectors — to monitor their own emissions and report leaks.

“There’s not a lot of oversight to ensure that every operator is doing what they’re claiming they’re doing,” said Andrew Klooster, Colorado field advocate with the nonprofit advocacy group Earthworks, which conducts its own inspections with imaging devices that can detect leaks.

Klooster noted that the rules, even with few state-run inspections, give watchdogs such as his team a mechanism to look for violations and hold polluters accountable.

Some environmental groups have been pushing the state to hire more staffers to conduct inspections, said Ean Tafoya, Colorado state director with GreenLatinos, an environmental justice organization.

“We know these companies are violating [emissions standards] in their reporting, and we want to see more enforcement,” he said. “We have more to do.”

Despite the concerns, advocates acknowledge the program likely has curtailed emissions. It also has given Colorado a head start toward meeting the new federal standards.

New Mexico regulators also established methane rules in recent years, requiring companies to capture 98% of the gas they produce by 2026. State officials say emissions have decreased since the rules were passed, estimating the current capture rate at around 60%.

“On net, emissions are down, and we have seen significant reductions in routine venting and flaring,” said Dylan Fuge, deputy secretary of New Mexico’s Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department. “Operators and the state are going to be well positioned to comply [with the federal rule].”

While the state’s new standards have required significant infrastructure investments from oil and gas operators, state officials say it hasn’t slowed the industry’s expansion.

“Profits are higher than they’ve ever been; production numbers are higher than they’ve ever been,” said Commissioner of Public Lands Stephanie Garcia Richard. “This is the time to increase oversight, when companies can afford it.”

California regulators also have moved to restrict methane emissions from oil and gas operations, with mandates for leak detection, reporting and infrastructure upgrades. The state Air Resources Board did not respond to an interview request. Meanwhile, Pennsylvania last month began its own rulemaking on methane emissions, in anticipation of the EPA action.

Economic concerns

In other oil-producing states, officials say the new rules will pose a challenge. Bingert, of the North Dakota agency, said the federal standards are likely to double the number of wells his agency is obligated to oversee.

“It’s going to be an increased burden on not only industry but on us as a state agency,” he said. “There’s no talk of funding for these new regulations. Obviously more work is going to be going into it, so that’s definitely a concern of ours.”

Bingert said the agency might need to ask state lawmakers for more money to add positions to carry out the federal requirements.

In Wyoming, state officials fear that smaller companies will struggle to make the infrastructure upgrades required by the new rule.

“The cost to implement and the impact to those operations will be significant,” said Tom Kropatsch, supervisor of the Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. “It really impacts local communities if those operations go out of business, because the majority of the operators in Wyoming are small operators.”

Industry officials in the state shared the same concern.

“That’s a hard lift for some of these companies that are one or two people that don’t have full regulatory departments,” said Ryan McConnaughey, vice president and director of communications for the Petroleum Association of Wyoming, a trade group. “This is going to force smaller operators to shut down.”

McConnaughey also said the requirements could strain the capacity of the state’s Department of Environmental Quality. The agency, which did not grant Stateline an interview, cited that concern in a letter to the EPA.

“Conducting the compliance inspections, reports, and emissions inventories work commensurate with the requirements of the proposed rule places an overwhelming strain on agency staff and financial resources,” agency Director Todd Parfitt wrote to the EPA.

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a national nonprofit news organization focused on state policy.

©2024 States Newsroom. Visit at stateline.org. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

WASHINGTON — The Senate voted on Thursday to extend current federal spending and keep the government open, sending a short-term measure to the House that would avoid a shutdown and push off a final budget package until early March.

The House is scheduled to vote on the measure and send it to President Joe Biden later in the day.

The stopgap bill, passed by the Senate on a 77-18 vote, comes after a bipartisan spending deal between House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., this month and a subsequent agreement to extend current spending so the two chambers have enough time to pass individual spending bills.

The temporary measure will run to March 1 for some federal agencies whose approved funds were set to run out Friday and extend the remainder of government operations to March 8.

Johnson has been under pressure from his right flank to scrap the budget agreement with Schumer, and the bill to keep the government running will need Democratic support to pass the Republican-majority House. Johnson has insisted he will stick with the deal as moderates in the party have urged him not to back out.

It would be the third time Congress has extended current spending as House Republicans have bitterly disagreed over budget levels and some on the right have demanded steeper cuts. Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., was ousted by his caucus in October after striking an agreement with Democrats to extend current spending the first time. Johnson has also come under criticism as he has wrestled with how to appease his members and avoid a government shutdown in an election year.

“We just needed a little more time on the calendar to do it and now that’s where we are,” Johnson said Tuesday about the decision to extend federal funding yet again. “We’re not going to get everything we want.”

Most House Republicans have so far refrained from saying that Johnson’s job is in danger. But a revolt of even a handful of Republicans could endanger his position in the narrowly divided House.

Virginia Rep. Bob Good, one of eight Republicans who voted to oust McCarthy, has been pushing Johnson to reconsider the deal with Schumer.

“If your opponent in negotiation knows that you fear the consequence of not reaching an agreement more than they fear the consequence of not reaching an agreement, you will lose every time,” Good said this week.

Other Republicans acknowledge Johnson is in a tough spot. “The speaker was dealt with the hand he was dealt,” said Kentucky Rep. Andy Barr. “We can only lose one vote on the majority side. I think it’s going to have to be bipartisan.”

The short-term measure comes amid negotiations on a separate spending package that would provide wartime dollars to Ukraine and Israel and strengthen security at the U.S.-Mexico border. Johnson is also under pressure from the right not to accept a deal that is any weaker than a House-passed border measure that has no Democratic support.

Johnson, Schumer and other congressional leaders and committee heads visited the White House on Wednesday to discuss that spending legislation. Johnson used the meeting to push for stronger border security measures while Biden and Democrats detailed Ukraine’s security needs as it continues to fight Russia.

Biden has requested a $110 billion package for the wartime spending and border security.

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Associated Press writers Farnoush Amiri and Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report.

A year ago, anti-abortion activists from across the U.S. gathered for their annual March for Life with reason to celebrate: It was their first march since the Supreme Court, seven months earlier, had overturned the nationwide right to abortion.

At this year’s march, on Friday, the mood will be very different — reflecting formidable challenges that lie ahead in this election year.

“We have undeniable evidence of victory — lives being saved,” said John Seago, president of Texas Right to Life. “But there is also a realization of the significant hurdles that our movement has right now in the public conversation.”

Participants at the march in Washington will salute the 14 states enforcing bans on abortion throughout pregnancy. They will proclaim that thousands of babies have been born who otherwise might have been aborted, even as studies show the total number of abortions provided in the U.S. rose slightly in the year after that enforcement began.

Moreover, anti-abortion leaders know that their side has a seven-state losing streak in votes on abortion-related ballot measures. Even in red states such as Ohio, Kansas and Kentucky, the outcomes favored keeping abortion access legal.

In this year’s election, several more states are expected to have abortion-rights ballot measures, and Democratic candidates in many tight races are likely to highlight their support for abortion access.

“We have been around for more than 50 years, and I don’t know of any year that was easy,” said Carol Tobias, president of the National Right to Life Committee.

“But it definitely got harder after Dobbs,” she added. “We have a lot of work ahead of us.”

Tobias was referring to the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling in June 2022, overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide.

The key consequence of Dobbs was to return decision-making on abortion policy to individual states. Some Democratic-governed states — such as California, New York and New Jersey — have strengthened protections for abortion access. Roughly 20 states with Republican-controlled legislatures have either banned abortion or sought to impose new restrictions.

After Dobbs, “I didn’t want anyone to get the false sense that we were at the end of our work,” said Brent Leatherwood, an abortion opponent who heads the Southern Baptist Convention’s public policy wing.

“We’ve gone from a focal point at the federal level to 50 different focal points,” he said. “It may be another 50 years before we truly establish a culture of life, where preborn lives are saved and mothers are supported.”

Even the current claims of lives being saved due to the Dobbs decision are subject to question. While abortions have decreased to nearly zero in states with total bans, they have increased elsewhere – notably in states such as Illinois, Florida and New Mexico, which are near those with more restrictions.

Anti-abortion leaders are keenly aware that their opponents in the abortion debate depict the wave of state bans as an infringement on women’s rights and a potential danger to their health.

Thus the theme of this year’s March for Life strives to convey support for women facing unexpected pregnancies: “Pro Life: With Every Woman, For Every Child.”

“ Pregnancy care centers and maternity homes are the very backbone of our movement,” March for Life president Jeanne Mancini wrote in a recent opinion piece.

She and her allies have encouraged states to offer support programs for new mothers in need — helping them find housing, jobs and health insurance.

Among the scheduled speakers at the march is Jean Marie Davis, executive director of Branches Pregnancy Resource Center in Brattleboro, Vermont. Davis says a similar center in New Hampshire helped her break free several years ago after she became pregnant while ensnared in a sex-trafficking operation.

Other scheduled speakers include House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and U.S. Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., a co-chair of the Congressional Pro-Life Caucus.

Mancini said last year’s march drew tens of thousands of people; she’s hoping this year’s march will be bigger.

The participants, she said, will be in a “persevering mood.”

J.J. Straight, part of an American Civil Liberties Union team working to protect and broaden abortion access, says her side also feels determined, especially in light of the recent ballot-measure results.

“We’ve seen a tremendous pushback to the anti-abortion agenda,” she said. “There’s a huge coalition of folks, regardless of their party and other demographics, who absolutely draw the line at this kind interference in their health care.”

Among the reasons for uncertainty for all parties in the debate is the inconsistent way that federal and state courts have adjudicated abortion-related cases. There have been numerous legal challenges to the various state laws banning or restricting abortion, some failing and others succeeding at least temporarily.

There’s a pending lawsuit in Texas filed by women who say the state’s abortion ban forced them to continue pregnancies despite serious risk to their health.

In an even higher profile Texas case, Kate Cox, a mother of two, sought an abortion after learning the baby she was carrying had a fatal genetic condition. Her request for an exemption from Texas’ ban — one of the country’s strictest — was denied by the state Supreme Court, and Cox left Texas to seek an abortion elsewhere.

For abortion-rights activists, Cox’s case was a powerful illustration of how abortion bans could be dangerous for women with pregnancy complications.

“Never in our history have we had such overwhelming reaction to any case,” said Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights. “We got phone calls, emails, snail-mail. Over and over, people talked about her with awe, her courage in going public.”

Seago, the Texas Right to Life president, defended Texas’ abortion ban. He said the Cox case and the pending lawsuit simply underscored the need for Texas health authorities to clarify what doctors are and aren’t allowed to do in dealing with problem pregnancies.

Carol Tobias acknowledged there can be difficult pregnancies.

“But I don’t think hard circumstances should be used to establish state laws,” she said. In such cases, she added, “the doctors have two patients. They need to take care of both of them to best of their ability.”

All the new bans make an exception to allow abortion if deemed necessary to save the life of the mother. There are divides within the anti-abortion movement over additional exceptions — for example, in cases of rape and incest, or when severe fetal abnormalities are diagnosed.

Other divisions have surfaced over who should be criminalized by the new laws.

Among leading anti-abortion activists, there’s a general consensus that women should not be prosecuted for seeking or obtaining an abortion. But there is support for criminal penalties against doctors and others who help people get an abortion; some states, including Texas and Idaho, seek to deter people from traveling out of state to get abortions or obtaining abortion pills by mail.

Dr. Jamila Perritt, an abortion-rights supporter who is president of Physicians for Reproductive Health, worries that abortion opponents in states with bans will criminalize people who seek abortions outside the formal medical system.

“The impact of their campaign has been devastating — and it will get worse,” she said. “I’m worried about many more people being arrested and prosecuted.”

One of the biggest unknowns, heading toward to Election Day on Nov. 5, is how power in Washington will be divided between the two major parties.

Abortion-rights supporters fear a Republican sweep of Congress and the White House might trigger a bid to impose a federal abortion ban. Conversely, some abortion opponents — including Chris Smith — fear a Democratic sweep might lead to a law overriding the state abortion bans that are now in effect.

Such legislation — as modeled in the unsuccessful Women’s Health Protection Act of 2021-22 — would be “an existential threat,” Smith said.

Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., has introduced a bill proposing to ban most abortions nationwide after 15 weeks of gestation. SBA Pro-Life America, a prominent anti-abortion group, supports the bill, according to its state policy director, Katie Glenn Daniel. But the measure has vehement critics on both sides of the abortion divide.

WASHINGTON — The chairmen of the top tax policy committees in Congress announced a bipartisan agreement Tuesday to enhance the child tax credit and revive a variety of tax breaks for businesses, a combination designed to attract support from lawmakers of both political parties.

The roughly $78 billion in tax cuts would be paid for by more quickly ending a tax break Congress approved during the COVID-19 pandemic that encouraged businesses to keep employees on their payroll.

The agreement was announced by Sen. Ron Wyden, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, and Rep. Jason Smith, the Republican chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. The lawmakers have been negotiating for months on a tax package that would address an array of priorities before lawmakers turn their focus to election season.

Wyden said his goal is to gain approval for the measure in time for businesses and families to benefit during the upcoming filing season. The Internal Revenue Service will begin accepting and processing tax returns on Jan. 29, so lawmakers are looking to move the bill as quickly as possible.

Meeting that goal may prove difficult as lawmakers are already racing to finish their spending bills and are considering a bill focused on both aiding Israel, and Ukraine and stemming the flow of migrants entering the country at the U.S.-Mexico border. One option would be for leaders in the House and Senate to attach the measure to one of those top-priority bills.

In forging the agreement, Democratic negotiators were focused on boosting the child tax credit. The tax credit is $2,000 per child, but only $1,600 is refundable, which makes it available to parents who owe little to nothing in federal income taxes. The bill would incrementally increase the maximum refundable child tax credit to $1,800 for 2023 tax returns, $1,900 for the following year and $2,000 for 2025 tax returns.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal think tank and advocacy group, projected that about 16 million children in low-income families would benefit from the child tax credit expansion.

“Given today’s miserable political climate, it’s a big deal to have this opportunity to pass pro-family policy that helps so many kids get ahead,” Wyden said in a statement announcing the deal.

Republicans were focused on tax breaks for businesses that they said would help grow the economy. The extensions provided for in the bill would generally align them with other tax cuts that were approved in 2017 when then-President Donald Trump was in office.

Most notably, the bill would give companies of all sizes the ability to deduct research and development costs immediately rather than over the course of five years. It would also allow businesses to fully deduct the purchase of equipment, machinery and technology. And, the bill also provides more flexibility in determining how much borrowing can be deducted.

Smith said the agreement “strengthens Main Street businesses, boosts our competitiveness with China, and creates jobs.”

Some lawmakers have insisted that any tax extensions be paid for so as not to add to projected deficits. The authors of the agreement attempt to do that by speeding up the demise of the employee retention tax credit. Under current law, businesses had until April 15 of next year to claim the credit. The bill would bar additional claims after Jan. 31 of this year. It also would increase penalties for tax preparers failing to undertake due diligence in submitting those COVID-19-related claims.

The tax credit was designed to make it easier for businesses to keep their employees on the payroll at a time when COVID-19 was keeping people at home and away from stores, hotels and restaurants. The IRS in September announced a moratorium in processing new claims through at least the end of the year, following concerns that a substantial share of new claims from the aging program were ineligible.

WASHINGTON — Donald Trump’s iron grip on the Republican Party has been clear since the day he announced he would make another run for the White House 14 months ago. It can be seen in the party’s ideological shift even further to the right on cultural issues and, especially, on immigration policy.

Iowa Republicans were a clear reflection of that on Monday night, delivering the former president an emphatic victory. They channeled his anger, and his view that basically everything President Joe Biden has done has been a “disaster.” About 9 in 10 voters said they want upheaval or substantial change in how the government operates, according to AP VoteCast, a survey of more than 1,500 voters who said they planned to take part in the caucuses.

As clear-cut as his win was, though, Iowa has not historically played the role of kingmaker in the Republican nominating process. New Hampshire’s voters don’t take their cues from Iowa.

Here are some key takeaways:

This was the least suspenseful Iowa caucus in modern memory because Trump has essentially been running as an incumbent president. He’s convinced many Republicans he didn’t really lose the 2020 election to Biden, repeatedly making false claims, and has dominated the race the way someone still in office does.

He traveled sparingly to the state, holding a modest number of rallies. He spurned candidate debates. He chose to appear at court hearings as a defendant in his legal cases in New York and Washington rather than speak to Iowa voters in the final days before the voting.

The former president, who remains the party’s dominant favorite, clearly wants to move on to the general election as quickly as possible. But Iowa winnows the field more than it determines the winner.

Inevitable can be a dangerous word, especially in New Hampshire, which holds its primary in eight days.

New Hampshire has famously delivered upsets in both parties. Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley quipped that New Hampshire “corrects” Iowa. Bush felt New Hampshire’s sting in 2000 when Senator John McCain defeated him. So did former vice president Walter Mondale when Senator Gary Hart of Colorado scored an upset in the Democratic race in 1984.

With its more moderate, educated electorate, New Hampshire presents Trump’s rivals with possibly their best opportunity to slow his march. Haley is hoping for a win there or at least a very strong showing, as is Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who edged Haley out for second place in Iowa but trailed Trump by about 30 points.

After that comes a weird political lull — with the next major competitive race in South Carolina on Feb. 24.

But plenty can happen during that time. The U.S. Supreme Court on Feb. 8 is scheduled to hear arguments in a case challenging whether a constitutional clause banning those who “engaged in insurrection” from holding office applies to Trump. The high court may also weigh in on whether presidential immunity protects Trump from federal charges for trying to overturn his 2020 election loss.

The criminal trial, in that case, is scheduled to start on March 5 — Super Tuesday — when 14 states vote in the presidential nominating process. Trump’s strength among Republican voters is beyond dispute, but the road is long and could be bumpy.

Iowans had something on their minds, but it wasn’t jobs, taxes or business regulations.

About 4 in 10 caucus-goers said immigration was their top issue, compared to 1 in 3 picking the economy, according to VoteCast. Other priorities like foreign policy, energy and abortion ranked even lower.

Indeed, about two-thirds of caucusgoers said they felt their finances were holding steady or improving. But the voters still want major changes — 3 in 10 want a total upheaval of how the federal government runs while another 6 in 10 want substantial changes. Additionally, Trump faces multiple criminal charges, 6 in 10 caucusgoers don’t have confidence in the U.S. legal system.

It adds up to a portrait of a slice of the electorate eager to challenge core democratic institutions in the U.S.

Flush with more than $100 million in cash and fresh off a blowout reelection victory, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis entered the 2024 Republican presidential contest projecting himself as the heir to a MAGA political brand that a diminished Trump could no longer effectively carry.

Reality soon intruded.

Eight months and tens of millions of dollars later, DeSantis posed little threat to the former president in Iowa. Still, he vowed to continue his campaign and said he had “punched his ticket” out of Iowa with his second-place finish.

Despite more than $55 million in pro-DeSantis advertising spending, the Florida governor only narrowly bested Haley.

DeSantis has been dogged by negative stories about profligate spending, including DeSantis’ preference for flying private planes.

His next challenge will be whether donors will continue to support him.

More than half of Haley’s voters had at least a college degree and roughly half of DeSantis’ did, according to VoteCast. But only about 2 in 10 of Trump’s did.

Education has been a major dividing line among white voters during the Trump era. Iowa confirms what polling has indicated during the primary — that the education divide is also splitting the GOP.

That hints at a possible weakness for Trump in November, should he be the nominee. A greater share of the voting public has at least a bachelor’s degree now than in 2016, and that share rises every year as degrees become more popular.

Another indication of vulnerability for Trump came in the suburbs, which tend to have the highest levels of education. Only about 4 in 10 caucusgoers there supported him. The suburbs were pivotal in Biden’s 2020 victory over Trump.

Abrasive, often grating and very online — Vivek Ramaswamy’s quixotic bid for the White House has come across as a millennial distillation of Trump’s Make America Great Again political movement.

Ramaswamy rapped along to verses of Eminem, delighted in trolling his rivals and often sought to out-Trump Trump with his brash rhetoric. That performative aspect helped the wealthy 38-year-old entrepreneur gain considerable attention in the early days of the Republican White House contest.

But it also proved to wear thin, perhaps summed up best when former New Jersey governor Chris Christie called him the “most obnoxious blowhard in America” during a debate.

As returns from Iowa’s caucus posted, Ramaswamy seemed unlikely to reach double digits, and he suspended his campaign.

ATLANTA — Communities across the nation celebrated the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday on Monday with acts of service, prayer services and parades. But with the November presidential election as a backdrop, some events took on an overtly political turn.

In King’s hometown of Atlanta, several speakers at the 56th annual commemorative service at the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, where King served as pastor, touched on the divisive partisan climate in the United States.

Former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, who served on the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection at the Capitol, had harsh words for Trump, whom she did not mention by name. On that day, Trump’s supporters tried to block Congress from counting the Electoral College votes that would affirm Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential race.

“A former president refuses to acknowledge that he lost, and he has convinced millions that our elections and our democracy no longer work,” she said. “He threatens the foundations of our nation and everything Dr. King persevered to save.”

She also criticized some religious leaders in the way they seemed to worship Trump, not God.

U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, the longtime senior pastor of Ebenezer, told the audience, “You better stand up and vote!” to rousing applause. “If your vote didn’t count, why are folks trying so hard to keep you from voting? Stand and use your voice. Stand up and use your vote. Speak up!”

Bernice King, the daughter of the late civil rights leader, warned that “our humanity is literally under attack.” But she noted that her father’s legacy of nonviolence taught the world that “we can defeat injustice, ignorance and hold people accountable at the same time without seeking to destroy, diminish, demean or cancel them.”

Speaking at the MLK Day at the Dome rally at the South Carolina Statehouse, Vice President Kamala Harris said young people two or three generations removed from King have seen their freedoms shrink — from laws restricting voting to bans on abortions and the ever-present threat of gun violence, especially in schools.

“They even try to erase, overlook and rewrite the ugly parts of our past. For example, the Civil War — which must I really have to say was about slavery?” Harris said.

Harris also used her speech at the event — which started in 2000 to pressure the state to remove the Confederate flag from atop the Capitol dome — to urge the younger generation to regain those rights lost through voting and action.

“Generation after generation on the fields of Gettysburg, in the schools of Little Rock, on the grounds of this Statehouse, on the streets of Ferguson and on the floor of the Tennessee House of Representatives — we the people have always fought to make the promise of freedom real,” Harris said.

In Philadelphia, President Joe Biden marked Martin Luther King, Jr., Day by volunteering at Philabundance, a nonprofit food bank. He stuffed donation boxes with apples and struck up casual chatter with workers at the organization, where he volunteered for the third time as president or president-elect to mark the January day of service.

The 29th annual Greater Philadelphia Martin Luther King Day of Service is billed as the first and largest King day of service in the nation. Volunteer activities included preparing care packages for victims of gun violence and distributing voter information packets.

Also in the city, the Philadelphia MLK Association held its annual tapping of the Liberty Bell on Independence Mall, and the National Constitution Center offered free admission with a slate of civil rights era events and a school supply drive.

In Washington, Martin Luther King III participated in a wreath-laying event at his father’s memorial.

In Wisconsin, Gov. Tony Evers, at a noontime ceremony in the state Capitol rotunda, said the holiday is an opportunity to recommit to addressing health disparities, fully funding public schools and providing affordable housing, child care and transportation.

Doing that “we can build the sort of future we all want to see for our state,” the Democratic former educator said.

Meanwhile, a dangerously cold winter storm was limiting some planned activities. The National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis announced that it would be closed on Monday because of icy roads but would still hold a virtual celebration in honor of King’s birthday. The Great Smoky Mountains National Park on the Tennessee-North Carolina border was also closed, canceling a campground cleanup event.

Also cancelled because of weather was the Martin Luther King Gymnastics Invitational set for Monday at Vanderbilt University in Nashville.

The historic meet was to include Fisk, Brown, Iowa State, Rutgers, Talladega (Ala.) and William & Mary. The competition aimed to feature the only African American women head coaches in the sport for the first time ever.

Observed federally since 1986, the holiday occurs on the third Monday of January, which this year happens to be King’s actual birthday. Born in 1929, the slain civil rights leader would have been 95. This year also marks the 60th anniversary of the passage of the Civil Rights Act and King’s Nobel Peace Prize.

___

Collins contributed from Columbia, S.C. Reporter Seung Min Kim contributed from Philadelphia; Michael Casey contributed from Boston; Scott Bauer contributed from Madison, Wisconsin.

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was released from the hospital on Monday, after spending two weeks there to treat complications from surgery for prostate cancer he kept secret from senior Biden administration leaders and staff for weeks.

Austin will be working from home as he recovers, and his doctors said he “progressed well throughout his stay and his strength is rebounding.” They said in a statement the cancer was treated early and his prognosis is “excellent.”

In a statement, Austin expressed thanks to the medical staff and said that “as I continue to recuperate and perform my duties from home, I’m eager to fully recover and return as quickly as possible to the Pentagon.”

Austin, 70, was admitted to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on Dec. 22 and underwent surgery to treat the cancer, which was detected earlier in the month during a routine screening. He developed an infection a week later and was hospitalized Jan. 1 and admitted to intensive care.

Dr. John Maddox, the trauma medical director, and Dr. Gregory Chesnut, the director of the Center for Prostate Disease Research at Walter Reed, said that during Austin’s hospitalization he underwent medical tests and was treated for lingering leg pain. They said he has physical therapy to do but there are no plans for further cancer treatment other than regular checks.

President Joe Biden and senior administration officials were not told about Austin’s hospitalization until Jan. 4, and Austin kept the cancer diagnosis secret until Jan. 9. Biden has said Austin’s failure to tell him about the hospitalization was a lapse in judgment, but the Democratic president insists he still has confidence in his Pentagon chief.

During Austin’s time at Walter Reed, the U.S. launched a series of military strikes late last week on the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen, targeting dozens of locations linked to their campaign of assaults on commercial shipping in the Red Sea. Working from his hospital bed, Austin juggled calls with senior military leaders, including Gen. Erik Kurilla, head of U.S. Central Command, and White House meetings to review, order and ultimately watch the strikes unfold over secure video.

The lack of transparency about Austin’s hospitalization, however, has triggered administration and Defense Department reviews on the procedures for notifying the White House and others if a Cabinet member must transfer decision-making authorities to a deputy, as Austin did during his initial surgery and a portion of his latest hospital stay. And the White House chief of staff ordered Cabinet members to notify his office if they ever can’t perform their duties.

Austin’s secrecy also drew criticism from Congress members on both sides of the political aisle, and Rep. Mike Rogers, an Alabama Republican who is chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said he has opened a formal inquiry into the matter. Others openly called for Austin to resign, but the White House has said the Pentagon chief’s job is safe.

It is still unclear when Austin will return to his office in the Pentagon or how his cancer treatment will affect his job, travel and other public engagements going forward. Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks has been taking on some of his day-to-day duties as he recovers.

It is no secret that recycling in America is broken: The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that the U.S. has a combined recycling rate of only 32% for materials including glass, plastic, cardboard and paper. That figure reflects collections from industrial, commercial and residential trash.

But a new report that zeros in on residential recycling suggests that we are capturing far less material than that — at least at the household level.

The Recycling Partnership, a nonprofit that works with major corporations to improve U.S. recycling systems, says that if you look at houses and apartments alone, the national recycling rate is much closer to 21%.

It finds residential recycling rates below 10% in states including Montana (9%), Mississippi (8%), North Dakota (9%) and Alabama (9%). Even California, which has a reputation as a robust recycler, only recycles 37% of what’s possible from residences and therefore leaves 3.2 million tons a year of potentially recyclable material for landfills.

“This is the first time we’ve ever had a comprehensive picture of the US residential recycling landscape,” said Keefe Harrison, the founder and chief executive officer of the Recycling Partnership. “We are seeing a recycling rate that is less than we’d wish it was. But it is only when you have a solid baseline that you can measure progress.”

Researchers, after collecting data for more than three years, took a detailed look at 9,000 collection programs across the nation. They also worked with individual households that recycle to get a clearer picture of what exactly goes into the bin, what doesn’t and why.

The 21% rate represents the share of material that goes into households and from there gets collected and processed, sold and actually made into something else — the true meaning of recycled. There are many steps in the process, and the report measures the falloff along the way.

The first hurdle is whether a recycling service is available at all. The group found that 85% of single-family homes nationwide had access to some kind of recycling, but only 37% of multifamily homes did.

And there is wide variation around the country on what materials are accepted for recycling. On one end of the spectrum is Hawaii, which only takes about 50% of possible materials, while the District of Columbia accepts almost 100%.

Then there’s the question of whether people who have access use it. Nationally, only 59% of households that can recycle do.

From there, what happens once the trash is collected depends on the material: The best-case scenario is cardboard, with 32% of it recycled. But with rigid plastics, only about 1% of 1.5 million tons a year is captured and turned into something else.

The partnership’s solution is one that is also popular with anti-plastic crusaders: more producer responsibility laws.

If states made producers of packaging responsible for their waste through fees, it could boost recycling by 48%, the partnership found in an earlier report.

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