(WASHINGTON) — The Senate voted on Thursday to pass an additional $40 billion in new aid for Ukraine, after President Joe Biden called on Congress last month to deliver the additional funding, to help counter Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion over the long term.
In his floor remarks before the 86 -11 vote, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer noted the significance of the package.
“By passing this aid package the Senate can now say to the Ukrainian people help is on the way: real help, significant help, help that could ensure the Ukrainian people are victorious,” he said.
With the House having passed the aid package earlier this month, it will now head next to Biden’s desk.
The aid package got broad bipartisan support with some Republican holdouts. It had been stalled for several days after Republican Sen. Rand Paul’s refusal to expedite to process.
In floor remarks before Thursday’s vote, Republican Leader Mitch McConnell promised a “big bipartisan landslide” and seemed to thumb his nose at concerns from Paul and other deficit hawks about the cost of the Ukraine bill.
“Anyone concerned about the cost of supporting a Ukrainian victory should consider the much larger cost should Ukraine lose,” McConnell said as he encouraged all members to join the “big bipartisan supermajority” voting to advance the aid package.
But Schumer went further, calling out the group of Republicans who he expects will vote against the aid package.
“It appears more and more MAGA republicans are on the same soft on Putin playbook that we saw used by former President Trump,” Schumer said.
“The MAGA influence on the Republican party is becoming all too large and all too dominant. We Americans all of us Democrats and Republicans cannot afford to stick our heads in the sand while Vladimir Putin continues his vicious belligerence against the Ukrainian people while he fires at civilian hospitals and targets and kills children and innocent people,” he said.
“But when Republicans — in significant number — oppose this package that is precisely the signal, we are sending to enemies abroad,” Schumer said.
(SANTA FE, N.M.) — Two national forests in New Mexico are fully closed to the public due to extreme fire danger as several wildfires, including the largest in the state’s history, also burn.
The Carson National Forest and the Santa Fe National Forest in northern New Mexico are barring visitors, effective Thursday, due to fire risk that is only expected to get worse due to drought conditions.
“The hot and dry conditions we’re experiencing pose a dire risk for wildfires to quickly ignite and spread rapidly,” Carson National Forest supervisor James Duran said in a statement. “Community compliance will be essential for our success in protecting the forest amid these conditions.”
Campgrounds, trails and National Forest System roads in the forests are closed until conditions improve and there is “significant moisture,” forest officials said. The restrictions are currently scheduled to last until July 18.
Those who violate the closure order — a misdemeanor — could face a fine upwards of $5,000 or imprisonment.
The decision comes as over 2,100 fire personnel battle the massive Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon Fire east of Santa Fe, which this week became the largest fire in the state’s history. As of Thursday morning, the fire had burned over 303,000 acres and was 34% contained, state fire officials said. A red flag warning is in effect Thursday for hot, dry and windy conditions.
“Right now with the conditions as dry as they are, all it takes is a spark from an exhaust and you can have another huge fire happen,” Stefani Spencer of the Carson National Forest told Albuquerque ABC affiliate KOAT.
A third national forest in New Mexico — the Cibola National Forest and National Grasslands, west of Albuquerque — is also partially closed to the public due to extreme fire danger.
Additionally, state officials announced on Wednesday that Pecos Canyon State Park in north central New Mexico is closed until further notice due to extreme fire danger.
“The ongoing and adjacent Calf Canyon and Hermits Peak Fires have demonstrated the severity of current fire conditions,” the state’s Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department State Parks Division said in a statement.
New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham declared a state of emergency in several counties last month as multiple wildfires burned, including the Hermits Peak-Calf Canyon Fire.
Biden approved a disaster declaration earlier this month for New Mexico that brings financial resources to the areas battling the fires.
Foals has released a new song called “2001,” a track off the band’s upcoming album, Life Is Yours.
In a statement, frontman Yannis Philippakis describes “2001” as a “postcard from the past.”
“We moved to Brighton around that time, we were a young band, and there was the feeling of the first taste of independence,” Philippakis says. “The moment you get those freedoms, you’re surrounded by temptation. The references to beachside candy and Brighton rock are symbols for drugs and hedonism.”
“This was written in the depths of the pandemic winter,” he adds. “There’s an escapist desire to break out from the feeling of being cooped up, both in terms of the pandemic and adolescence.”
You can listen to “2001” now via digital outlets and watch its accompanying video streaming now on YouTube.
“2001” if the fourth song to be released off Life Is Yours, following “Wake Me Up,” “2am” and “Looking High.” The album arrives in full on June 17.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden’s administration this week took necessary — if incremental — steps to address the lack of affordable housing across the country, advocates and experts say.
The White House on Monday introduced the “Housing Supply Action Plan,” which aims through a combination of incentives, reforms, financial mechanisms and legislative lobbying to expand housing access for owners and renters amid still-soaring inflation. The administration staked a timeline on its work, saying that the plan would “help close America’s housing supply shortfall in 5 years, starting with the creation and preservation of hundreds of thousands of affordable housing units in the next three years.”
Housing and rental prices have continued to rise at the same time that the market, in many places in the U.S., has been challenged by a years-long lack of sufficient construction and inventory.
Against that backdrop, the White House’s new plan was met with praise by experts even as some of them stressed that progress would be slower than the administration had vowed.
“Our country’s facing a historic low supply of entry-level homes for sale,” said Chris Vincent, vice president of government relations and advocacy for Habitat for Humanity International. “And federal investments and administrative actions are really necessary to move this along. So we think it’s great and will have a big impact on urban, suburban and rural communities alike.”
Jeffrey Zabel, a professor of economics at Tufts University, said while the White House’s plan was a great first step, “It’s going to take a long time for any of this to have a real impact on the supply of housing.” Zabel predicted it will take at least a decade to achieve.
Prices — spurred in part by inflation — are a major pain point and are inextricably connected to issues with inventory. In April, housing costs rose 0.5%, the same as the month before, according to the Consumer Price Index (CPI). Over the last year, per the CPI, housing costs increased 5.1%.
Jerry Howard, CEO of the National Association of Home Builders, said for “potential first-time homebuyers who are the linchpin of … the housing markets, they are priced out of the market.”
It’s even more challenging for people with low incomes and for communities of color to afford housing, advocates said, highlighting the influence of historic discrimination.
“I think the [COVID-19] pandemic really unveiled the housing crisis that many Black, brown and immigrant communities have faced for a long time,” said Katie Goldstein, the director of housing campaigns for the Center for Popular Democracy. “I mean, really, we’re talking about a housing crisis where there’s been decades of racial discrimination and disinvestment by federal, state and private actors.”
A 2020 report from the National Low Income Housing Coalition found that “Black households account for 12% of all households in the United States and 19% of all renters, but they account for 26% of all renter households with extremely low incomes.” Hispanics likewise make up 12% of all households and 19% of all renter households, the report said, but are 21% of renter households with extremely low incomes.
The Biden administration aims with its new plan to help lower costs over time by increasing the amount of quality housing, the White House said in a statement on Monday: “This means building more new homes and preserving existing federally-supported and market-rate affordable housing, ensuring that total new units do not merely replace converted or dilapidated units that get demolished.”
The White House said it will incentivize states and localities to change their zoning and land-use regulations, launch new low-cost financing for new housing and preservation, improve and build upon the existing federal financing, secure the accessibility of affordable single-family houses for owner-occupants and work to fix housing materials and labor shortages.
A senior administration official told ABC News in an email that the new actions do not require additional funding. The administrative actions, the official said, include programmatic changes to programs already in place.
Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar, who separately reintroduced a bill that would help create millions of new housing units, was among the Democrats who applauded the Biden administration for its plan.
“Housing affordability is one of the biggest crises facing working families and a key driver of inflation,” Omar wrote in an email to ABC News. “I am thrilled the Biden Administration is taking steps to tackle the housing crisis, including to encourage better zoning laws, funding for manufactured housing, multifamily housing, and the construction of new single-family homes. … Housing is a human right. It’s time to treat it like one.”
Last year, Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va., cosponsored legislation to reform low-income housing credit. He also praised the new housing initiative for how it would “improve and expand financing options that will support affordable housing construction, while embracing a mixed-use strategy, and providing government-owned housing to owners who will live in them,” he said in an email to ABC News.
Beyond its administrative powers, the White House called upon Congress to enact legislative solutions, largely by approving President Biden’s trillion-dollar social spending and climate package, known as the Build Back Better bill, which passed the House but was rebuffed by Republicans and moderate Democrats in the Senate.
The White House says that spending package would also make crucial investments in public housing and create more construction jobs. The administration singled out the Unlocking Possibilities program, which was included in that bill and would create a Housing and Urban Development Department competitive grant program of $1.75 billion “to help states and localities eliminate needless barriers to affordable housing production.”
Experts say a comprehensive solution will ultimately require some kind of federal legislation.
“Only through a combination of administrative and Congressional action can the country truly resolve its affordable housing crisis,” Diane Yentel, the president and CEO of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, said in an email.
Noëlle Porter, the National Housing Law Project’s director of government affairs, also urged congressional action and highlighted the need for tenant protections.
“It’s a collective effort to get something like this to really work,” she said. “As advocates we will do every piece, every part in our power to braid funding sources together … but we need a significant investment in public housing and in tenant-based rental assistance.”
In proposals to expand housing access and affordability, a focus on tenants is essential in ensuring their rights and protections, Porter said.
She emphasized the need for action which guarantees that tenants who move back onto property that was once public but was privatized have the same affordability restrictions that the public property had.
Housing is a significant portion of what people spend their income on, Porter said. “As that cost expands, it cuts out, it pinches out, everything else we need to be able to buy.”
ABC News’ Conor Finnegan contributed to this report.
An Australian bakery found viral fame thanks to a TikTok of its topical creation: a doughut made to look like a hand, middle finger extended, missing the first part of the digit.
The goodie was made to spoof the Johnny Depp trial and the gnarly injury the Pirates of the Caribbean star claims he suffered when his ex-wife, Amber Heard, threw a vodka bottle at him.
“We’re sending Amber Heard a dessert box,” a narrator says in the video, which has been liked more than 610,000 times. “We cut off the finger with a vodka bottle, and we’ll send that to her, too,” the narrator says, packing the pastry with a miniature bottle of the booze.
Showing off the severed sweet, the employee says, “And we’re sending Johnny this piece.” The video was tagged #justiceforjohnnydepp, which has trended since the former couple’s ongoing defamation case began.
The narrator clearly got a kick out of it, but making light of the alleged domestic abuse struck some flat. “Tone deaf,” one viewer said. “Jokes about dv have never been funny,” another commented.
Still, many more had a laugh about it, with one pro-Johnny commenter adding darkly, “missed the perfect opportunity to poison the donut.”
The long-rumored collaboration between Diana Ross and alt-rockers Tame Impala has finally arrived.
The Motown legend/R&B icon has teamed up the Australian psychedelic outfit for a new song called “Turn Up the Sunshine.” As previously reported, the track will appear on the ’70s-inspired soundtrack to the upcoming Minions sequel movie, Minions: The Rise of Gru.
You can listen to “Turn Up the Sunshine” now via digital outlets.
In addition to the Ross-Tame Impala collab, the Minions 2 soundtrack includes contributions from Earth, Wind & Fire‘s Verdine White,as well as from a host of big-name alternative artists, including St. Vincent, Phoebe Bridgers, Bleachers and Alabama Shakes‘ Brittany Howard. The album was produced by Bleachers’ Jack Antonoff.
The whole soundtrack will be released on July 1, the same day that Minions 2 hits theaters, and the album can be preordered now.
Variety has debuted an exclusive clip from the new film Spinning Gold, a biopic about late Casablanca Records founder Neil Bogart, that features actors portraying KISS delivering a performance of the band’s classic song “Rock and Roll All Nite.”
Spinning Gold, which went into production in 2019, is being screened this week for buyers at the Cannes Film Festival market.
The movie, which was directed by Bogart’s son, Tim, tells the story of how Neil founded the Casablanca Records label, which helped launch the careers of KISS and other well-known artists, including Donna Summer, Parliament Funkadelic and Village People.
The preview clip shows Bogart, played by Tony-nominated actor Jeremy Jordan, being led backstage at a KISS concert just as the band is playing their signature song for an enthusiastic crowd. KISS singer/guitarist Paul Stanley and drummer Peter Criss are portrayed, respectively, by X Ambassadors vocalist Sam Harris and All Time Low‘s Alex Gaskarth, while a young actor named Casey Likes plays singer/bassist Gene Simmons.
According to Variety, the Spinning Gold cast also includes Wiz Khalifa, Ledisi, Jay Pharoah, Michelle Monaghan, Jason Isaacs, Jason Derulo, Sebastian Maniscalco, Chris Redd, Michael Ian Black and Vinnie Pastore.
Ledisi plays Donna Summer, while actress-singer Tayla Parx portrays Gladys Knight. Variety reports that a special beach party celebrating the industry-only film screening will take place in Cannes Thursday night, and will feature Ledisi and Parx performing hit songs by Summers and Knight.
System of a Down frontman Serj Tankian will be featured in an upcoming video game called Metal: Hellsinger.
Described as a “rhythm FPS,” Metal: Hellsinger finds players shooting enemies to the the beat of original music sung by a variety of big-name metal artists. Tankian, for example, is contributing a song called “No Tomorrow.”
“Your ability to shoot on the beat will directly impact both the damage you deal and how awesome the music sounds,” the game’s description reads. “The more in sync you are with the rhythm, the more intense the music will become and the more destruction you will cause.”
Other artists taking part include Trivium‘s Matt Heafy, Lamb of God‘s Randy Blythe, Jinjer‘s Tatiana Shmailyuk, Refused‘s Dennis Lyxzén and Arch Enemy‘s Alissa White-Gluz.
You can watch a trailer featuring a clip of Tankian’s song streaming now on YouTube.
Metal: Hellsinger is set to be released later this year on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.
It’s been almost a decade since beloved rap group Migos hit the scene with their debut song “Versace,” taking the hip-hop world by storm. But after group members Offset, Quavo and Takeoff seemingly unfollowed one another on social media, fans started to speculate the trio might soon be breaking up.
In snapshots shared by The Neighborhood Talk on Wednesday night, it looks as if the guys hit the Instagram unfollow button for reasons unknown. It might just be a coincidence, but fans speculate that Offset initiated the unfollowing after Quavo and Takeoff announced their upcoming song “Hotel Lobby,” which is expected this Friday.
One user took to Twitter to express his belief that it’s all just a business scheme, saying, “this is marketing, they will be back together in 2 weeks after quavo and takeoff drop a video.”
Others are chalking the situation up to a family disagreement. “I argue & unfollow my uncle/cousins all the time,” one person commented on IG. “They brothers. Brothers fight. Brothers disagree. Hopefully they make it right,” another said.
We’ll just have to wait and see if the three of them drop anymore music together.
The CW Network has announced that Riverdale will end with its upcoming seventh season. The announcement came ahead of the network’s Upfront presentation to advertisers Thursday.
“I am a big believer in attempting to give series that have had long runs an appropriate sendoff,” CW Chairman and CEO Mark Pedowitz said Thursday in a network call, according to TV Line. “As a fan myself, I do want to do what is right for the show.”
The supernatural Sunday night teen drama was an unlikely adaptation of Archie comics, starring KJ Apa as Archie, Lili Reinhart as Betty, Cole Sprouse as Jughead and Camila Mendes as Veronica.
Pedowitz explained, “We had a long conversation with [executive producer] Roberto [Aguirre-Sacasa] yesterday, who is thrilled by this news, and we will treat the show in the manner it deserves …. We want to make sure it goes out the right way.” He added, “I think they, too, felt that seven years is the right amount.”
The network also announced a Supernatural prequel called The Winchesters; a Walker spinoff called Walker Independence; celebrity reality show Magic with the Stars starring Criss Angel; a legal drama called Family Law; an action series called The Professionals; and DC Comics-based series Gotham Knights.
