persists

WASHINGTON — The government shutdown has reopened debate on what has been a central issue for both major political parties in the last 15 years: the future of health coverage under the Affordable Care Act.

Tax credits for people who get health insurance through the marketplaces created by the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, expire at the end of the year.

Democrats say they won’t vote to reopen the government until Republicans negotiate an extension of the expanded subsidies. Republicans say they won’t negotiate until Democrats vote to reopen the government. Lawmakers in both parties have been working on potential solutions behind the scenes, hoping that leaders will eventually start to talk, but it’s unclear if the two sides could find compromise.

As Congress circles the issue, a poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that about 6 in 10 Americans are “extremely” or “very” concerned about their health costs going up in the next year. Those worries extend across age groups and include people with and without health insurance, the poll found.

A look at the subsidies that are expiring, the politics of the ACA and what Congress might do:

Enhanced premium help during the pandemic

Passed in 2010, the ACA was meant to decrease the number of uninsured people in the country and make coverage more affordable for those who don’t have private insurance. The law created state by state exchanges, some of which are run by the individual states, to try to increase the pool of the insured and bring down rates.

In 2021, when Democrats controlled Congress and the White House during the COVID-19 pandemic, they expanded premium help that was already in the law. The changes included eliminating premiums for some lower-income enrollees, ensuring that higher earners paid no more than 8.5% of their income and expanding eligibility for middle-class earners.

The expanded subsidies pushed enrollment to new levels and drove the rate of uninsured people to a historic low. This year, a record 24 million people have signed up for insurance coverage through the ACA, in large part because billions of dollars in subsidies have made the plans more affordable for many people.

If the tax credits expire, annual out-of-pocket premiums are estimated to increase by 114% — an average of $1,016 — next year, according to an analysis from KFF.

Democrats push to extend subsidies

Democrats extended those tax credits in 2022 for another three years but were not able to make them permanent. The credits are set to expire Jan. 1, with Republicans now in full control.

Lacking in power and sensing a political opportunity, Democrats used some of their only leverage and forced a government shutdown over the issue when federal funding ran out on Oct. 1. They say they won’t vote for a House-passed bill to reopen the government until Republicans give them some certainty that the subsidies will be extended.

Democrats introduced legislation in September to permanently extend the premium tax credits, but they have suggested that they are open to a shorter period.

“We need a serious negotiation,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer has repeatedly said.

Republicans try to scale the ACA back, again

The Democratic demands on health care have reignited longstanding Republican complaints about the ACA, which they have campaigned against for years and tried and failed to repeal in 2017. Many in the party say that if Congress is going to act, they want to scrap the expanded subsidies and overhaul the entire law.

The problem is not the expiring subsidies but “the cost of health care,” Republican Sen. Rick Scott of Florida said Tuesday.

In a virtual briefing Tuesday, the libertarian Cato Institute and the conservative Paragon Health Institute branded the subsidies as President Joe Biden’s “COVID credits” and claimed they’ve enabled fraudsters to sign people up for fully subsidized plans without their knowledge.

Others have pitched more modest proposals that could potentially win over some Democrats. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., has said he is open to extending the subsidies with changes, including lower income limits and a stop to auto-enrollment that may sign up people who don’t need the coverage.

The ACA is “in desperate need of reform,” Thune has said.

House Republicans are considering their own ideas for reforming the ACA, including proposals for phasing out the subsidies for new enrollees. And they have begun to discuss whether to combine health care reforms with a new government funding bill and send it to the Senate for consideration once they return to Washington.

“We will probably negotiate some off-ramp” to ease the transition back to pre-COVID-19 levels, said Maryland Rep. Andy Harris, the head of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, during a virtual town hall Tuesday.

Is compromise possible?

A number of Republicans want to extend the subsidies. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said most people who are using the exchanges created by the ACA “don’t really have another option, and it’s already really, really expensive. So I think there are things we can do to reform the program.”

Hawley said he had been having conversations with other senators about what those changes could be, including proposals for income limits, which he said he sees as a “very reasonable.”

Bipartisan groups of lawmakers have been discussing the income limits and other ideas, including making the lowest-income people pay very low premiums instead of nothing. Some Republicans have advocated for that change to ensure that all enrollees are aware they have coverage and need it. Other proposals would extend the subsidies for a year or two or slowly phase them out.

It’s unclear if any of those ideas could gain traction on both sides — or any interest from the White House, where President Donald Trump has remained mostly disengaged. Despite the public stalemate, though, lawmakers are feeling increased urgency to find a solution as the Nov. 1 open enrollment date approaches.

Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire has been talking to lawmakers since the shutdown began, trying to find areas of compromise. On Tuesday, she suggested that Congress could also look at extending the enrollment dates for the ACA since Congress is stalled on the subsidies.

“These costs are going to affect all of us, and it’s going to affect our health care system,” she said.

Jalonick writes for the Associated Press. AP writers Lisa Mascaro and Joey Cappelletti in Washington and Ali Swenson in New York contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — President Trump on Thursday warned Hamas “we will have no choice but to go in and kill them” if internal bloodshed persists in Gaza.

The grim warning from Trump came after he previously downplayed the internal violence in the territory since a ceasefire and hostage deal between Israel and Hamas went into effect last week.

Trump said Tuesday that Hamas had taken out “a couple of gangs that were very bad” and had killed a number of gang members. “That didn’t bother me much, to be honest with you,” he said.

The president did not say how he would follow through on his threat posted on his Truth Social platform, and the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment seeking clarity.

But Trump also made clear he had limited patience for the killings that Hamas was carrying out against rival factions inside the devastated territory.

“They will disarm, and if they don’t do so, we will disarm them, and it’ll happen quickly and perhaps violently,” Trump said.

The Hamas-run police maintained a high degree of public security after the militants seized power in Gaza 18 years ago while also cracking down on dissent. They largely melted away in recent months as Israeli forces seized large areas of Gaza and targeted Hamas security forces with airstrikes.

Powerful local families and armed gangs, including some anti-Hamas factions backed by Israel, stepped into the void. Many are accused of hijacking humanitarian aid and selling it for profit, contributing to Gaza’s starvation crisis.

The ceasefire plan introduced by Trump had called for all hostages — living and dead — to be handed over by a deadline that expired Monday. But under the deal, if that didn’t happen, Hamas was to share information about deceased hostages and try to hand them over as soon as possible.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that Israel “will not compromise” and demanded that Hamas fulfill the requirements laid out in the ceasefire deal about the return of hostages’ bodies.

Hamas’ armed wing said in a statement Wednesday that the group honored the ceasefire’s terms and handed over the remains of the hostages it had access to.

The United States announced last week that it is sending about 200 troops to Israel to help support and monitor the ceasefire deal in Gaza as part of a team that includes partner nations and nongovernmental organizations. But U.S. officials have stressed that U.S. forces would not set foot in Gaza.

Israeli officials have also been angered by the pace of the return of the remains of dead hostages the militant group had been holding in captivity. Hamas had agreed to return 28 bodies as part of the ceasefire deal in addition to 20 living hostages, who were released earlier this week.

Hamas has assured the U.S. through intermediaries that it is working to return dead hostages, according to two senior U.S. advisors. The advisors, who were not authorized to comment publicly and briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity, said they do not believe Hamas has violated the deal.

Madhani writes for the Associated Press.

Torrential rain has triggered flooding, destroyed hundreds of houses, and killed more than 150 people in the past month.

Heavy monsoon rains across Pakistan’s Punjab province have killed at least 63 people and injured nearly 300 in the past 24 hours, provincial officials said, bringing the nationwide death toll from the rains to at least 159 since late June.

The downpours on Thursday caused flooding and building collapses, with most of the deaths caused by the roofs of weaker homes failing. Lahore, the eastern provincial capital, reported 15 deaths, Faisalabad nine, and the farming towns of Okara, Sahiwal and Pakpattan several more.

Rescue teams used boats to evacuate families from villages along riversides further south in the morning, but the water had begun to recede by the afternoon.

“Children were screaming for help, and women stood on rooftops, waving their shawls and begging to be rescued,” said Tariq Mehbood Bhatti, a 51-year-old farmer in Ladian village.

Residents living in low-lying areas near the Nullah Lai River, which runs through Rawalpindi city, neighbouring the capital Islamabad, were ordered to evacuate after a sharp rise in the water level.

“Rescue teams are on standby for more evacuations,” a spokeswoman for the disaster agency said.

The Rawalpindi government declared a public holiday on Thursday to keep people at home.

Al Jazeera’s Kamal Hyder, reporting from Punjab’s Chakwal district, said “heavy rains [are] causing extensive damage and also loss of life” across the Punjab region.

Rains have “swept away small dams which have burst at banks,” he said, adding that the military is using helicopters to evacuate people who are now surrounded by water.

“Pakistan has seen devastating floods over the last few years. This monsoon season is not different,” Hyder added. Experts have warned that the country can see extreme weather in the coming years, he said.

Since late June, the monsoon rains have killed 103 people and injured 393 in Punjab alone, according to the Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA). More than 120 homes were damaged and six livestock animals killed.

The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) gave the toll of at least 159 deaths nationwide since June 25 and said more than 1,000 homes had been damaged.

A high flood alert was issued for the Jhelum River at the northern town of Mangla, where water inflows were expected to surge to high levels, according to the Pakistan Meteorological Department. Authorities warned that adjoining streams could also overflow in the next 24 hours, putting nearby communities at risk.

Monsoon rains are a routine part of South Asia’s climate and are essential for crop irrigation and replenishing water supplies. However, their adverse impact has worsened in recent years due to rapid urban expansion, poor drainage systems, and more frequent extreme weather events linked to climate change.

Federal agents have fired flashbangs and tear gas towards crowds angered by the arrests of dozens of migrants in Los Angeles, United States, a city with a large Latino population.

The Department for Homeland Security said Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations in Los Angeles this week had led to the arrest of “118 aliens, including five gang members”.

The standoff came on Saturday in the suburb of Paramount, where demonstrators gathered outside a reported federal facility, which the local mayor said was being used as a staging post by agents.

On Friday, masked and armed immigration agents carried out high-profile workplace raids across different parts of Los Angeles, drawing angry crowds and causing hours-long standoffs.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass acknowledged that some residents were “feeling fear” following the federal actions.

“Everyone has the right to peacefully protest, but let me be clear: violence and destruction are unacceptable, and those responsible will be held accountable,” she said on X.

FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino said multiple arrests had been made after Friday’s clashes.

“You bring chaos, and we’ll bring handcuffs. Law and order will prevail,” he said on X.

The White House has taken a firm stance against the protests, with deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller describing them as “an insurrection against the laws and sovereignty of the United States”.

Reporting from Sacramento — When California updated its equal pay law in 2015, there was no shortage of fanfare. Women’s rights groups called it one of the toughest in the country. Gov. Jerry Brown, in a symbolic flourish, signed the new measure at a Richmond park named after feminist icon Rosie the Riveter.

But a state report released last fall underscored how far California has to go before its rhetoric matches reality when it comes to paying state workers. According to its findings, there is a 20.5% disparity in pay between female and male state employees — a wider gap than in the federal civil service and the private sector in California and nationwide.

The focus on the public sector pay gap is just one way the equal pay debate continues to reverberate through the state Capitol. Several measures this year offer new approaches to bring women’s earnings to parity with wages earned by male counterparts — in state government and the workforce as a whole.

“We are frankly at an ‘equal pay 2.0’ moment,” said state Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson (D-Santa Barbara), author of the 2015 law.

As lawmakers plumb deeper into the pay gap debate, the challenge before them becomes more daunting. While the mantra “equal pay for equal work” sounds straightforward, experts say lagging female earnings are rooted in unconscious bias and persistent undervaluing of jobs held by women — phenomena not easily solved by legislation.

The effort to shrink the pay gap for California state workers illustrates how thorny the issue can be.

At a February legislative hearing on the gender pay gap in civil service, Richard Gillihan, the director of the California Department of Human Resources, offered a blunt assessment.

“We know we have work to do; we know we need to do a better job,” Gillihan said, adding, “20.5% is unacceptable to all of us.”

The report by California’sDepartment of Human Resources, which surveyed state worker pay in 2014, estimated that California wouldn’t close its gender pay gap until 2044.

Assemblyman Jim Cooper (D-Elk Grove) has offered one solution: Make sure California’s equal pay laws apply to the public sector. He’s pushing a bill that would make public employers subject to existing law, including a 2015 update that expanded its purview to “substantially similar” work, not just identical jobs.

“If it’s good enough for the private sector, it should also be good enough for the public sector,” Cooper said.

Cooper’s measure was inspired by pay discrepancies he saw working in the Legislature, which is exempt from the rigid salary classifications that apply in most state work. A Sacramento Bee investigation in 2015 found women working in the state Assembly made 92 cents for every dollar men made; in the state Senate, it was 94 cents on the dollar. The findings prompted the Senate to give raises to more than 70 employees last year to close the gap.

“Female chiefs of staff make less than their male counterparts — that’s just plain wrong,” Cooper said.

It’s not entirely clear whether Cooper’s proposal is necessary; the state labor commissioner is currently reviewing claims filed by government employees under the Equal Pay Act. Supporters nonetheless cheer the proposal as eliminating any doubt that public sector jobs will be covered.

But for state workers outside the Capitol, the problems run deeper than men and women being paid unequally for doing the same job. State government jobs are classified into more than 3,500 positions, which strictly spell out salary.

“The issue that presents itself here is not as much one of disparate pay, but an unequal distribution of gender throughout the classification system,” said Joe DeAnda, spokesman for the California Department of Human Resources.

Women tend to work in sectors with lower salary ranges, such as administrative support or social work, while men tend to hold jobs with higher pay — particularly public safety jobs such as California Highway Patrol officer or firefighter. More than 61% of men in state government make more than $70,000, according to the Human Resources Department, while just 39% of women do.

Maia Downs, who works in Monterey Park as a state adoption specialist finding homes for neglected or abused children, said the salary range for her profession, which requires a graduate degree and is dominated by women, is significantly lower than those for jobs predominantly held by men.

“It’s sanctioned discrimination,” said Downs of the low salary ranges for female-dominated positions.

DeAnda said negotiations related to salary and benefits are hashed out during the collective bargaining process. Downs said attempts by her union, AFSCME Local 2620, to use gender as a reason for higher salary ranges were unsuccessful.

“California should be leading by example. And they are imposing these equal pay laws on private industry, all the while hiding behind the excuse of collective bargaining,” Downs said. “And then they wonder why their gender pay gap is so high.”

To close the gap, the state says it’s focused on recruiting women into higher-paid jobs and encouraging upward mobility to help women scale the salary rungs.

But overhauling the pay classifications to ensure women’s work is better compensated is a thornier matter. It means reexamining long-held customs that place a greater value on certain professions — particularly high-risk public safety jobs.

“Getting there is not just a matter of legislation,” said Lauri Damrell, an employment lawyer and the co-chair of the state’s Commission on the Status of Women and Girls. “It’s a matter of getting our cultural norms to catch up.”

That hasn’t stopped lawmakers from trying to tackle the pay gap issue — in both the public and private sectors. One bill this year by Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher (D-San Diego) would require large employers to make aggregate pay data publicly available, such as the differential between the mean salaries paid to men and women by job classification.

Another, by Assemblywoman Susan Talamantes Eggman (D-Stockton), would bar employers from seeking salary history from job applicants. Proponents argue that women often enter the workforce with lower salaries and are disproportionately hurt when prior compensation is used to determine their next job’s pay.

“One thing that bakes in inequity is when we base somebody’s salary on what they previously made,” she said.

Eggman, who was among the legislators who convened the hearing on state worker pay this year, said she hopes to tackle the lingering pay gap affecting jobs predominately held by women.

“We are certainly looking at if there is some way that we can get to a root of that,” Eggman said. “Clearly we have a lot more work to do.”

[email protected]

Follow @melmason on Twitter for the latest on California politics.

Pay gap between men and women in California is nearly $79 billion a year

California now has one of the toughest equal pay laws in the country

Updates from Sacramento

Five years ago on May 25, 2020, a white police officer in the United States killed George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, during an arrest.

A bystander’s video showed officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on Floyd’s neck for about nine minutes in Minneapolis, Minnesota, as Floyd pleaded that he couldn’t breathe. The footage sparked weeks of global protests against police brutality and racism. It contributed to a jury’s murder conviction against Chauvin and a federal investigation into the Minneapolis Police Department.

Although ample evidence showed that Chauvin and police misconduct were to blame for Floyd’s death, another narrative quickly emerged – that Floyd died because of a drug overdose.

Five years later, that falsehood is central to calls for President Donald Trump to pardon Chauvin.

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a member of Trump’s Republican Party from Georgia, for example, recently revived her longstanding and long-debunked take that Chauvin did not cause Floyd’s death.

“I strongly support Derek Chauvin being pardoned and released from prison,” Greene wrote in a May 14 X post. “George Floyd died of a drug overdose.”

In 2021, a Minnesota jury convicted Chauvin of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. Chauvin also pleaded guilty to twice violating a federal criminal civil rights statute – once against Floyd and once against a 14-year-old in 2017. The state and federal sentences that Chauvin is serving concurrently each exceeded 20 years.

In 2023 after a two-year investigation sparked by Floyd’s death, the US Department of Justice found that the city of Minneapolis and its police department engaged in a pattern of civil rights violations, including use of excessive force and unlawful discrimination against Black and Native American people.

The narrative that Floyd died of an overdose persisted through the involved police officers’ criminal trials and beyond their convictions, in part because powerful political critics of the racial justice movement sought to rewrite history with false claims. It was one of many false statements about Floyd’s actions, his criminal history and the protests that followed his murder.

Experts said systemic racism contributes also to the proliferation of the inaccurate narratives and their staying power.

“The core through-line that emerges is the kind of longstanding, deep racist narratives around Black criminality and also the ways people try to justify who is or isn’t an ‘innocent victim’,” Rachel Kuo, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor who studies race, social movements and technology, said of the falsehoods.

The summer 2020 protests built on 2014 and 2016 protests against police brutality, but with Floyd’s case as a catalyst, racial justice advocates achieved global visibility and corporate attention, Kuo said.

That visibility came with a price.

When people of colour achieve visibility for their social movements or political demands, an effort to delegitimise those demands quickly follows, Kuo said. Misinformation plays a part by trying to “chip away” at the belief that what happened to Floyd was unjust or to undermine the protest movement overall, she said.

How conservative influencers distort an autopsy report to push overdose claim

Chauvin killed Floyd after police were called to a corner grocery store where Floyd was suspected of using a counterfeit $20 bill. News reports about Floyd’s criminal record – which included three drug charges, two theft cases, aggravated robbery and trespassing – fuelled false claims about his background.

Two autopsy reports – one performed by Hennepin County’s medical examiner and one commissioned by Floyd’s family – concluded Floyd’s death was a homicide. Although they pointed to different causes of death, neither report said he died because of an overdose.

The Hennepin County medical examiner’s office reported “fentanyl intoxication” and “recent methamphetamine use” among “other significant conditions” related to his death, but it did not say drugs killed him. It said Floyd “experienced a cardiopulmonary arrest while being restrained by law enforcement officer”. The private autopsy concluded Floyd died of suffocation.

Nevertheless, the Hennepin County autopsy report’s fentanyl detail provided kindling for the drug overdose narrative to catch fire. PolitiFact first fact-checked this narrative when it was published on a conservative blog in August 2020.

As Chauvin’s trial approached in early 2021, then-Fox News host Tucker Carlson wrongly told his millions of viewers that Floyd’s autopsy showed he “almost certainly died of a drug overdose. Fentanyl.”

Conservative influencer Candace Owens amplified the false narrative in March 2021. Lawyers defending Chauvin argued drug use was a more primary cause of death than the police restraint, but jurors were unconvinced.

Chauvin’s 2021 conviction didn’t spell the end of misinformation about Floyd’s death. The drug overdose narrative emerged again in late 2022 as the trial neared for two other police officers charged with aiding and abetting second-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter in Floyd’s death.

Misinformation experts said it’s not surprising that Floyd and the 2020 protests remain a target of false portrayals years later because of the widespread attention Floyd’s death drew at a time when online platforms incentivise inflammatory commentary.

“Marginalised groups have been prime targets of misinformation going back hundreds, even thousands of years” because falsehoods can be weaponised to demonise, harm and further oppress and discriminate, said Deen Freelon, a University of Pennsylvania Annenberg School for Communication professor who studies digital politics with a focus on race, gender, ideology and other identity dimensions in social media.

He said Floyd’s murder was a magnet for mis- and disinformation because it “fits the mould of a prominent event that ties into controversial, long-running political issues,” similar to events such as the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Conservative activists and politicians with large followings have continued to target Floyd and the 2020 protests.

The drug overdose narrative proliferated in conjunction with the October 2022 release of Owens’s film about Floyd and the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, titled The Greatest Lie Ever Sold: George Floyd and the Rise of BLM. Rapper Ye, formerly Kanye West, parroted the false narrative in an October 2022 podcast interview, citing Owens’s film.

In October 2023, Carlson repeated the false drug overdose narrative. That X video has since received more than 23.5 million views. In December 2023, Greene reshared a different Carlson video with the caption, “George Floyd died from a drug overdose.”

Ramesh Srinivasan, an information studies professor at the University of California-Los Angeles Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, said social media algorithms don’t allow for nuanced conversations that require detail and context, which are important for productive discussion about what happened in the summer of 2020.

A person’s online visibility and virality, which can directly correlate to their revenues in some cases, improves when a person takes extreme, antagonistic, partisan or hardened positions, he said.

“Those conditions have propped up certain people who specialise in the peddling of troll-type content, of caricatured content, of deliberately false content,” Srinivasan said.

Freelon said the internet has “added fuel to the fire” and broadened misinformation’s reach.

“So it’s important to remain vigilant against misinformation,” he said, “not only because lies are inherently bad but also because the people who bear the harm have often historically suffered disproportionately from prejudice and mistreatment.”

PolitiFact researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.

Despite the recent peace accord signed by the government of the Central African Republic (CAR) and two rebel groups, the warring parties have continued attacking each other, with unarmed civilians at the receiving end.

The latest clashes occurred on May 15, 2025, between the CAR soldiers and dozens of rebels around the Mambere prefecture of the country. Events leading to the clashes remain unknown, but local media reports reveal that a soldier was injured during the fighting.

The incident came 24 hours after another attack in the town of Ouadda, situated 204 kilometres from Bria in the Haute-Kotto prefecture. There, the armed group, Rassemblement de la Nation Centrafricaine (PRNC), carried out an offensive which resulted in the death of five soldiers and two civilians.

The CAR authorities have not made any declaration concerning the incidents, and the exact circumstances of the clashes and the details of the armed groups involved remain unclear.

The country has been embroiled in a brutal civil war since 2013, when the Séléka, a predominantly Muslim rebel coalition, seized power and ousted President François Bozizé. This marked the beginning of a devastating conflict that has ravaged the country, causing widespread displacement, hunger, and human rights abuses.

Historical grievances played a significant role in the conflict’s escalation. The Séléka rebels accused the government of failing to abide by previous peace agreements, which led to their takeover. Religious and ethnic tensions between the mostly Muslim Séléka rebels and the predominantly Christian Anti-balaka militias have fueled the conflict. 

Over 737,000 Central Africans are registered as refugees, and 632,000 are internally displaced. Half of the population lacks access to sufficient food, and the country ranks worst on the Global Hunger Index. The healthcare system is barely functioning, with a shortage of skilled health workers and medical supplies. The ongoing conflict has had a profound impact on the country’s development and its people. The situation remains complex, with multiple factors contributing to the crisis.