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A short-term health deal by senators
-- with Trump's blessing
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Republican and Democratic senators joined in announcing a plan Tuesday aimed at stabilizing America's health insurance markets in the wake of President Donald Trump's order to terminate "Obamacare" subsidies. Trump himself spoke approvingly of the deal, but some conservatives denounced it as an insurance company bailout, making its future uncertain.
The agreement followed weeks of negotiations between Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee and Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington that sought to address health insurance markets that have been in limbo following GOP failures to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. The talks took on added urgency when Trump announced last week that he would end monthly "cost sharing reduction" payments the government makes to help insurance companies reduce costs for lower-income people.
Without that money, premiums for some people buying individual health plans would spike, and some insurers would flee the markets, industry officials warn.
The Alexander-Murray deal would continue the insurer payments for two years, while establishing new flexibility for states under former President Barack Obama's law.
"This would allow the Senate to continue its debate about the long term of health care, but over the next two years I think Americans won't have to worry about the possibility of being able to buy insurance in counties where they live," Alexander said in announcing the deal after a closed-door lunch where he presented it to GOP senators.
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Californians head back home to altered lives, communities
PETALUMA, Calif. (AP) -- Some have lost loved ones. Many have survived near-death experiences. Others have lost their homes and a lifetime of possessions.
A week after fleeing raging wildfires, tens of thousands of emotionally ravaged Californians have drifted back home to find their lives and their communities dramatically altered.
At a Red Cross shelter in Petaluma on Tuesday, 69-year-old Sue Wortman recalled the words that raced through her mind when she fled the flames near her home in Sonoma.
"We're all going up in smoke," she thought at the time. Since then, she's been walking around in a daze.
Firefighters gained more control Tuesday of the massive wine country wildfires, even as other blazes erupted in mountains near Los Angeles and Santa Cruz.
Former hostage's American wife rushed to hospital
SMITHS FALLS, Ontario (AP) -- Former hostage Joshua Boyle says his wife Caitlan had to be rushed to the hospital and remains there.
Boyle told The Associated Press in an email that his wife was admitted Monday. He says his first concern is the health of his wife and children. His email Tuesday did not specify why she was taken to the hospital.
Boyle, his American wife and their three children were rescued Wednesday, five years after the couple was abducted in Afghanistan on a backpacking trip. The children were born in captivity.
The family returned to Canada late Friday.
Joshua Boyle said after landing at Toronto's airport that the Taliban-linked Haqqani network raped his wife during the years they were held.
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Judge halts newest Trump travel ban,
saying it has same woes
HONOLULU (AP) -- A federal judge in Hawaii blocked most of President Donald Trump's latest travel ban Tuesday, just hours before it was set to take effect, saying the revised order "suffers from precisely the same maladies as its predecessor."
It was the third set of travel restrictions issued by the president to be thwarted, in whole or in part, by the courts.
U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson issued the ruling after the ban on a set of mostly Muslim countries was challenged by the state of Hawaii, which warned that the restrictions would separate families and undermine the recruiting of diverse college students.
White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders called the ruling "dangerously flawed" and said it "undercuts the president's efforts to keep the American people safe." The Justice Department said it will quickly appeal.
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US-backed forces celebrate fall of IS
'capital' of Raqqa
BEIRUT (AP) -- U.S.-backed Syrian forces celebrated in the devastated streets of Raqqa on Tuesday after gaining control of the northern city that once was the heart of the Islamic State's self-styled caliphate, dealing a major defeat to the extremist group that has seen its territory shrink ever smaller since summer. Militants took over the vibrant metropolis on the Euphrates River in 2014, transforming it into the epicenter of their brutal rule, where opponents were beheaded and terror plots hatched. It took thousands of bombs dropped by the U.S.-led coalition and more than four months of grueling house-to-house battles for the Syrian Democratic Forces to recapture Raqqa.