Still, Justice is known to change plans suddenly. While the event is set for Thursday, he could still punt a decision to later.
In the primary, he will first have to face GOP Rep. Alex Mooney, for whom the anti-tax Club for Growth has already pledged to spend at least $10 million. But Justice, who is worth hundreds of millions, could invest some of his own funds into the race.
Mooney is a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus and would likely try to run to the right of Justice, who was elected as a Democrat before switching parties. Justice allies have signaled that they will use Mooney’s Maryland roots against him. He was a state senator there before moving across state lines ahead of his 2014 run for Congress.
Both Mooney and Justice are seeking Trump’s support.
Manchin, meanwhile, has not said whether he will run for reelection and does not expect to make a decision until the end of the year. He faces a tough road in a state that Trump carried by 39 points, and he has also left the door open on a run for president.
Burgess Everett contributed to this report.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
San Francisco: Streaming giant Netflix is finally set to crack down on password sharing in the US this summer.
Netflix originally planned to roll out “paid sharing” in the US during the first quarter this year. The company will now introduce the feature on or before June 30.
“We are planning on a broad rollout, including in the US, in Q2,” the company said in its first-quarter 2023 earnings.
“Paid sharing is another important initiative as widespread account sharing (over 100 million households) undermines our ability to invest in and improve Netflix for our paying members, as well as build our business,” the company added.
Netflix first launched paid sharing in Canada, New Zealand, Spain, and Portugal.
The company said it is also upgrading its ad-supported plan in terms of streaming quality and concurrent streams.
Netflix users subscribed to this plan will be able to see content in 1080p resolution (up from 720p) with support for two concurrent streams.
The feature is being rolled out to users in Canada and Spain now and people using the ad-supported plans in other 10 markets will receive these features later this month.
“We believe these enhancements will make our offering even more attractive to a broader set of consumers and further strengthen engagement for existing and new subscribers to the ads plan,” Netflix said.
Netflix says it will allow up to two extra members per account, and its fee per extra user varies by country.
The sharing plans are available to members using Standard ($15.49 a month) and Premium ($19.99 a month) subscriptions.
The European parliament has approved a series of proposals to overhaul the EU asylum system in a bid to end a years-long deadlock over the issue.
Voting in Strasbourg, MEPs approved plans on the distribution of refugees and migrants across the bloc, screening of people at the EU’s external borders and giving non-EU nationals long-term residence permits after three years of legal stay in a member state.
The votes open the way for MEPs to negotiate the final laws with EU ministers. All sides have pledged to aim for an agreement by April 2024 – before the European elections later that year.
After seven years of deadlock over the issue, lawmakers who will be involved in the negotiations suggested this could be the last chance to create a truly common European asylum system.
“If we miss this chance to make it right, I am very pessimistic about having any other chance to make it right and that will be an extremely, extremely disappointing, extremely sad, extremely counterproductive kind of a message,” Spanish Socialist MEP Juan Fernando López Aguilar told reporters before the vote.
Tomas Tobé, a Swedish centre-right MEP, said the EU was at a crossroad. “Either the political deadlock continues … or we will see the situation where member states will act independently and we will have more problems ahead of us.”
The crunch point is approaching as the EU grapples with the largest number of people seeking to come to Europe via irregular routes since 2016. The EU border agency Frontex reported 330,000 irregular crossings at the EU’s external borders in 2022, a 64% jump on the previous year and the highest since 2016.
After more than 1.2 million people fleeing war and persecution sought refuge in the union in 2015, triggering a political crisis for EU leaders, the European Commission proposed mandatory quotas of asylum seekers to be distributed around the bloc. But member states failed to back the idea. While Mediterranean states, such as Greece, Italy and Spain, insisted on mandatory relocation, central European countries, such as Hungary and Poland, refused to accept such a plan.
Under a new European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, the EU executive revised its ideas in September 2020, proposing that member states opposed to mandatory relocation could instead take charge of returning people denied asylum in the EU to their country of origin. The EU typically returns about 29% of people denied asylum to their home country and is seeking to boost this number by striking deals with governments in the Middle East and Africa.
The European parliament argues that a country that refuses to take in asylum seekers during a crisis situation should be obliged to make financial contributions to frontline countries – an idea that was fiercely opposed and ultimately blocked by central Europe, led by Poland and Hungary’s nationalist governments, during the last round of failed talks.
With the support of the European parliament’s largest groups – the centre-right, centre-left and centrists – that proposal, along with the other negotiating positions, passed with comfortable majorities of about three-quarters of MEPs present on Thursday.
But EU member states have made little progress on the most controversial aspects of the draft laws, the shared management of asylum seekers during normal times and crisis situations. EU governments have, however, fixed a common position on tightening up screening on asylum seekers at the external border.
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MEPs have also called for tougher monitoring of human rights abuses at the EU’s frontiers, in response to numerous reports of illegal pushbacks and beatings.
At the same time, sea crossings are claiming more lives. The International Organization for Migration said last week that 441 people died trying to reach Europe via the central Mediterranean route between January to March 2023, the deadliest first quarter since 2017. With more than 20,000 people having died on this route alone since 2014, the UN agency said it feared these deaths have become “normalised”.
Stephanie Pope, an expert in EU asylum policy at Oxfam, said the votes were a significant step, but she was not hopeful of a better asylum system. “A lot of the proposals in the pact were pretty much a race to the bottom when it comes to the protection of human rights and the right to asylum and not much has changed in that regard,” she said.
“The key sticking point, and the root of a lot of the ongoing human rights violations against refugees we’ve seen for years now is the lack of an effective responsibility sharing mechanism between member states.
“Push backs and the violence we are seeing at borders are an unacceptable symptom of this failure to agree on responsibility sharing between member states.”
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
New Delhi: The Centre plans to allow entities other than a central or state government ministry or department that plan to use Aadhaar for providing various public services to authenticate it.
The Ministry for Electronics and IT proposes to amend the Aadhaar Authentication for Good Governance Rules, 2020 for this purpose and has posted the amendments on its website, seeking comments on them from stakeholders and the general public by May 5, 2023.
“It is proposed that any entity other than a government ministry or department that desires to use Aadhaar authentication for the purpose of enabling better access to services, usage of digital platforms to ensure good governance, preventing dissipation of social welfare benefits, enabling innovation and spread of knowledge, shall prepare a proposal giving justification as to how the authentication sought is for one of the above purposes and in the interest of state and submit the same to the concerned ministry or department of the central or state government,” a statement issued by the IT ministry said.
“If the concerned ministry or department is of the opinion that the proposal submitted fulfils such a purpose and is in the interest of the state, it will forward the proposal along with its recommendation to the IT ministry,” it added further.
At present, the ministries and departments are allowed to undertake Aadhaar authentication under the Aadhaar Authentication for Good Governance (Social Welfare, Innovation, Knowledge) Rules, 2020 in the interest of good governance and to prevent leakage of public funds and enable innovation and the spread of knowledge.
New Delhi: The Communist Party of India, which recently lost its national party status, will contest the Karnataka election on its ‘ears of corn and sickle’ symbol, party MP Binoy Viswam said Friday.
The CPI was recognised as a ‘national party’ in 1989. It is the only political party to contest all general elections on the same electoral symbol and has maintained an uninterrupted presence in the Lok Sabha. It was the first non-Congress party to form government in any state and since then has been part of many governments.
To use its poll symbol in a state where it is not a recognised party, CPI will have to seek the Election Commission’s permission.
“In the Karnataka election, CPI will contest on the symbol ‘ears of corn and sickle’ that used to be the party’s election symbol ever since 1952… The CPI will strive hard to retain it,” Viswam said in a tweet.
While the CPI’s state party status has been withdrawn in West Bengal and Odisha, it continues to enjoy the status in Kerala, Manipur and Tamil Nadu.
The major advantage of a ‘national tag’ is that the party can have a common symbol across the country for its candidates thus making it easier for people to recognise it.
The nomination process for the May 10 Karnataka Assembly poll began on April 13 with April 20 being the last date to file the papers.
HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra said in a statement that the proposed rule would “improve health outcomes for DACA recipients and would in turn improve the economic and productive capacity of America.” He estimated that roughly a third of immigrants enrolled in the DACA program are uninsured.
The details: The proposed rule submitted by CMS amends the definition of “lawful presence” to include DACA recipients, also known as “Dreamers,” for eligibility for Medicaid and marketplace coverage. Medicaid and exchange applications will have their eligibility verified electronically when they apply for coverage, the administration said.
While finalization of new rules usually takes some time, the Biden administration expects to have the new policy in place by the end of the month.
Context: President Barack Obama created the DACA program in 2012, shielding immigrants brought to the U.S. as children from deportation and allowing them to work legally in the United States. But DACA recipients have continued to lack access to key federal programs and benefits, such as health care coverage, because they lack permanent legal status.
Biden has focused on using his executive powers to protect and extend benefits to DACA recipients. And the president said on Thursday that he will continue to press Congress to create a path to citizenship for DACA recipients.
The moves represent a sea change from the approach taken by the Trump administration, which attempted to dismantle the DACA program.
State perspective: Several states, including California, New York and Minnesota, already cover DACA recipients through Medicaid. However, they have been unable to receive federal matching dollars for the coverage and have had to pull from their own state coffers.
Other states have taken creative approaches to expand health insurance access for immigrants, such as Colorado’s new OmniSalud program, which allows people to purchase health insurance through the state marketplace without disclosing their immigration status and potentially receive state subsidies to help with premium costs.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Washington: US President Joe Biden on Monday (local time) said that he plans to run for president in 2024 but was not prepared to announce it yet.
In an interview with NBC’s “Today” show before the White House Easter Egg Roll, Biden said, “I plan on running … but we’re not prepared to announce it yet.”
Biden is the oldest US president in history. If he wins re-election, he would be 86 at the end of his second term.
Biden has said he intends to be the Democratic candidate in 2024 but has not made a formal announcement. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris said they will run together, reported NBC News.
Biden, 80, has consistently stated his plans to run for re-election. “I’m going to do it again,” Biden said last year as he posed for a photograph in the Roosevelt Room with Sharpton.
Top White House advisers are set to make final decisions on launching Biden’s re-election campaign, NBC News reported, citing several unidentified sources.
“The decision part is over, but he resents the pressure to have to announce what he’s already decided,” one source familiar with the matter told NBC.
Several considerations in the decision-making process include that no major Democratic challenger has emerged; that former President Donald Trump, who is running for the GOP nomination, has been indicted and is consuming the political spotlight; and that there’s a major clash coming with congressional Republicans over spending.
Last week, the former president pleaded not guilty in a Manhattan court to falsifying business records.
There are currently two announced candidates for the 2024 Democratic presidential nomination – best-selling self-help author Marianne Williamson and anti-vaccine activist Robert Kennedy Jr.
No prominent Democratic officeholders appear to be considering a challenge to the incumbent, however.
Despite lacklustre approval ratings, Democratic power brokers have indicated that they are all in for Biden’s re-election bid even before he has officially declared his intention to seek it, reported NBC News.
Biden’s remarks come as he broke with progressives on some hot-button issues ahead of the expected launch of his re-election campaign, including on crime, immigration policy and the environment.
However, Democrats from across the party, from progressives and moderates to leadership and rank-and-file members — have said they plan to stick with Biden heading into 2024.
Washington: US President Joe Biden has once agains teased a run for a second term but stopped short of announcing it.
“I plan on running,” Biden told an NBC news interview Monday, adding, “but we’re not prepared to announce it yet.”
Biden has said before that he intends to seek a second term but he would announce it only after consulting his family.
First Lady Jill Biden told CNN in February, “I’m all for it, of course.”
Though an official announcement has not been made yet, there are every indication that the US President will run for a second term, defying questions about his age, including by members of his own party.
Biden is 80 and is already the oldest president in US history, at the age of 78. If he wins, he will be 82 when he starts the second term in 2025.
Former President Donald Trump, the leading Republican challenger to Biden as of now is 76 and will be 78, if he wins and secures a second term. He lost his re-election in in 2020 to Biden and is running a third time, dogged by mounting legal troubles.
President Biden is currently at 42.6 per cent approval rating in FiveThirtyEight’s aggregate of polls, with 52.6 per cent disapproval rating. While the economy has recovered from the crippling effects of the Covid-9 epidemic and unemployment is low, inflations remains high and because of rising interest rates – raised by the Federal Reserve for curb prices – fears of recession are in the air, bolstered by the collapse of two regional banks in recent weeks.
Hyderabad: Chief Secretary Santhi Kumari on Thursday directed the district collectors to prepare an action plan for the implementation of the Telangana government’s sheep distribution scheme’s second phase.
In a video conference with the collectors, CS Kumari asked them to create a plan for the collection of sheep units, transportation, and collection of deposits from the beneficiaries.
“The sheep distribution program should be organised under the leadership of the collectors. The plan should be prepared in accordance with the target of distributing sheep to 3.38 lakh people in the second phase,” added the chief secretary.
Collectors of the 12 districts with the highest number of beneficiaries were instructed to take special measures for the distribution scheme.
Santhi Kumari directed the officials to also complete the transport-related tenders immediately and invited the district collectors to attend the 125 feet tall Dr BR Ambedkar statue on April 14, along with the general public of various districts.
