USA

WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrats pared part of their proposed minimum tax on huge corporations and made other changes in their giant economic bill, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Friday, as they drove toward delivering a campaign-season victory to President Joe Biden on his domestic agenda.

DAYTON, Ohio (AP) — Four people were shot to death in an Ohio neighborhood, and a man considered armed and dangerous was being sought, authorities said.

Police in Montgomery County’s Butler Township said officers were called to the area shortly before noon Friday on a report of shots fired. Chief John Porter said four victims with gunshot wounds were found at “multiple crime scenes” and all were pronounced dead at the scene.

LaPLACE, La. (AP) — Enthusiastic church volunteer Sonia St. Cyr lost something she treasures during the blackout caused by Hurricane Ida — her independence, afforded her by the electric wheelchair she expertly maneuvers over bumpy city sidewalks.

“After Ida I was housebound,” said St. Cyr, who has multiple sclerosis. She did her best to conserve power on her wheelchair, going only to the end of her block or sitting on her porch after the storm made landfall last August 29.

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Indiana on Friday became the first state in the nation to approve abortion restrictions since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, as the Republican governor quickly signed a near-total ban on the procedure shortly after lawmakers approved it.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate parliamentarian narrowed Democrats’ plan for curbing drug prices but left it mostly unscathed Saturday, Democrats said, as party leaders prepared to start moving their sprawling economic bill through the chamber.

Elizabeth MacDonough, the chamber’s rules arbiter, said provisions must be removed that would force drugmakers to pay rebates if their prices rise above inflation for products they sell to private insurers. Pharmaceutical companies would have to pay those penalties if their prices for drugs bought by Medicare rise too high.

NEW YORK, Aug 05 (APP): Pakistan has called on India to stop human rights violations in occupied Jammu and Kashmir, reverse demographic changes there, and restore the State’s identity by rescinding its “illegal” measures of 5 August 2019 to pave the way for a dialogue aimed at resolving the decades-old dispute.

WASHINGTON, Aug 5 (Reuters) - The only way out of the crisis in U.S.-Chinese relations triggered by a visit to Taiwan by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is for the United States to immediately rectify its mistakes, a senior Chinese Embassy official in Washington said on Friday.

Jing Quan, a minister of the Chinese Embassy in the United States, referred to the White House protest to China's ambassador about Beijing's military actions since Pelosi's visit and said it was the United States that was threatening peace and stability.

NEW YORK, Aug 5 (Reuters) - Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, said on Friday he has started to send buses carrying migrants to New York City in an effort to push responsibility for border crossers to Democratic mayors and U.S. President Joe Biden, a Democrat.

The first bus arrived early on Friday at the city's Port Authority Bus Terminal in midtown Manhattan carrying around 50 migrants. Volunteers were helping to steer people who had no relatives in town to city resources.

NEW YORK, Aug. 5 (Xinhua) -- No one is immune from COVID-19, but not everyone's experience of the pandemic is the same in the United States, where the poor face higher risk, NBC reported on Wednesday.

Privileged Americans have free, high-quality testing and can quickly get access to anti-COVID medication, while those without insurance now have to pay for testing, and quick access to medication has proven elusive for some, said the report.

LOS ANGELES, Aug. 4 (Xinhua) -- At least five people were killed and nine others injured Thursday afternoon in a fiery multi-vehicle crash in Los Angeles, authorities said.

The Los Angeles County Fire Department said in a tweet that the agency responded to the crash at about 1:41 p.m. local time (2041 GMT) at La Brea and Slauson avenues.

Five people were pronounced died at the scene. Eight of the nine injured were transported to area hospitals, said the department.