Tag Archives: federal funding

Trump threatens U.C. Berkeley after protests stop far-right speech

A worker surveys the damage to a vandalized Starbucks after a student protest turned violent at UC Berkeley during a demonstration over right-wing speaker Milo Yiannopoulos, who was forced to cancel his talk, in Berkeley, California.

By David Ingram

(Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump threatened on Thursday to cut funding to the University of California at Berkeley after protesters smashed windows and set fires at the liberal-leaning school, forcing the cancellation of an appearance by a far-right Breitbart News editor.

“If U.C. Berkeley does not allow free speech and practices violence on innocent people with a different point of view – NO FEDERAL FUNDS?” Trump wrote on Twitter at 6:13 a.m. EST (1113 GMT). He did not elaborate.

Representatives for the university, which has 38,000 students and a long history of activism, could not immediately be reached for comment outside of the school’s business hours.

Like other major U.S. research universities, Berkeley depends on federal agencies for scientific grants and other support. It was not immediately clear, however, what action Trump could take without authorization from Congress, or without risking legal action.

Trump’s chief White House strategist, Steve Bannon, previously headed Breitbart News.

Hours before Breitbart’s Milo Yiannopoulos was to give a speech at Berkeley’s student union on Wednesday, hundreds of protesters clashed with police at the campus.

Demonstrators tossed metal barricades and rocks through the building’s windows and set a generator on fire near the entrance, footage from news outlets showed. Police ordered the crowds to disperse, and the school was put on lockdown.

“We shut down the event,” one protester told CNN. “It was great. Mission accomplished.”

In a statement, the university blamed about 150 “masked agitators” for the violence during the otherwise mostly peaceful demonstration by about 1,500 people.

The school “is proud of its history and legacy as home of the free speech movement” in the 1960s, the statement said.

Many of the protesters voiced opposition to Trump, CNN reported. The president’s executive orders and proposed policies, including his suspension of the U.S. refugee program and temporary ban on travelers from seven Muslim-majority countries, have triggered largely peaceful demonstrations by tens of thousands of people across the United States.

Yiannopoulos, whose Twitter account was suspended last year after he was accused of participating in the online harassment of a black actor, told Fox News he was rushed to safety by his security guards and police after protesters began throwing rocks.

“Obviously it’s a liberal campus so they hate any libertarians or conservatives who dare to express an opinion on their campuses,” he said. “They particularly don’t like me.”

(Additional reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles and Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Lisa Von Ahn)

U.S. lawmakers seek compromise on Zika virus funding

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell speaks at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland

By Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. lawmakers sought on Wednesday to break a logjam over $1.1 billion in funding to combat the Zika virus, with the Senate possibly considering legislation as soon as next week, even as one congressman toted a jar full of mosquitoes to the House floor to condemn congressional inaction.

“Can you imagine the fears and anxieties if the mosquitoes were not in this jar?” Florida Republican David Jolly told his colleagues as he brandished the container holding about 100 of the insects in the House of Representatives chamber.

“Members of Congress would run down the hall to the physician’s office to be tested,” added Jolly, whose state is the first in the nation with local transmission of the mosquito-borne virus that has spread through the Americas.

The potential Senate Zika measure could advance as part of a broader legislative effort to temporarily keep federal agencies operating in the 2017 fiscal year that begins Oct. 1.

Republicans and Democrats huddled separately in closed meetings in both the Senate and House to see if they could reach a compromise during a 19-day work session this month, before lawmakers break for a recess in the weeks before the Nov. 8 U.S. election. Lawmakers returned to work this week after a seven-week summer recess.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters he was in talks with Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid.

“We’re looking for a way forward. And I’m hopeful and optimistic that we’ll be able to do that,” McConnell, a Republican, said of both a temporary agency funding bill and Zika money.

In February, President Barack Obama asked Congress to approve $1.9 billion in emergency funds to deal with the Zika virus, which can cause severe birth defects when pregnant women become infected.

Since then, both parties have backed $1.1 billion as the funding figure. But fights over side issues related to abortion and Obama’s signature healthcare law have bitterly divided the two parties.

One of the biggest controversies involves Democrats’ opposition to language, backed by Republicans, that they say would prevent Zika funds for abortion providers like Planned Parenthood, mainly in Puerto Rico.

The Miami Herald on Tuesday quoted Senators Marco Rubio of Florida and Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri, who chairs a Senate panel overseeing healthcare funding, suggesting the Planned Parenthood language might have to be dropped in order to reach a deal.

Aides to both senators declined to confirm or deny the accuracy of the quotes.

Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine, asked by Reuters whether she thought Planned Parenthood funding restrictions should be eliminated from Zika legislation, said: “That would be my preference.”

Still, some Republicans were resisting a deal that would abandon the Planned Parenthood language in the Zika bill.

(Reporting by Richard Cowan and Susan Cornwell; Editing by Will Dunham)