Senate adopts GOP budget targeting health care law

Senate adopts GOP budget targeting health care law

WASHINGTON

The Senate on Tuesday adopted a GOP budget that paves the way for an assault on President Barack Obama’s health care law this summer and a partisan showdown over spending bills this fall.

The Senate passed the nonbinding measure by a nearly party-line 51-48 vote. The House adopted it last week.

The measure sets a potential path for a balanced budget within a decade. It promises to cut domestic agencies and safety-net programs such as Medicaid and food stamps, carve up transportation spending and student aid, and curb tax breaks for the poor.

Republicans don’t plan to adhere to most of its cuts in follow-up legislation, however.

New Joint Chiefs chairman named

WASHINGTON

President Barack Obama tapped a highly respected combat commander as his next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on Tuesday, signaling that the battles against al-Qaida and Islamic State militants threatening the Middle East and the West remain top priorities for the nation’s military despite years of trying to change the focus to Asia.

Announcing his selection of Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford Jr. during a Rose Garden ceremony, Obama said America’s armed forces must be ready to meet a broad range of challenges, and that Dunford has proven to be one of the military’s most highly regarded strategic thinkers.

Secretary of state visits Somalia

MOGADISHU, Somalia

Two decades after dead American soldiers were dragged through the streets of Mogadishu, John Kerry on Tuesday became the first secretary of state to set foot in Somalia, a symbolic visit to show support for the African nation’s fledgling government and the United States’ readiness to move past a dark chapter in its history.

But as Kerry vowed to deepen America’s partnership with a new cadre of Somali leaders, the fact that he never left the airport underscored just how dangerous and unstable Somalia remains after a quarter- century of civil war.

60 bodies recovered in village in Nepal

KATHMANDU, Nepal

Emergency workers have recovered the bodies of 60 people — including nine foreigners — who were killed when Nepal’s earthquake triggered a mudslide that buried a village in the scenic Langtang Valley popular with tourists.

Residents of the village, also called Langtang, said Tuesday that as many as 200 people could have been killed by tons of earth and mud unleashed in the devastating April 25 quake.

Yemeni rebels fire into Saudi Arabia

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia

Yemen’s rebels fired rockets and mortars into Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, killing at least three people and purportedly capturing five soldiers in an attack showing the insurgents’ ability to launch assaults despite weeks of Saudi-led airstrikes targeting them.

Saudi Arabia’s national airline cancelled flights into the border area of Najran as schools closed early amid the attack, the first by the rebels, known as Houthis, to target a civilian area in the kingdom since the start of the airstrikes late March.

Associated Press