House Approves Bill to Avert Government Shutdown on Oct. 1

Bloomberg Effort Raises $20 Million to Pay Fines for Florida Felons So They Can Vote

An effort bolstered by support from billionaire Michael Bloomberg has raised over $20 million to pay off fines for Florida felons, enabling them to vote in the upcoming presidential election. Bloomberg, NBA star LeBron James, and singer John Legend were among those helping raise funds for the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition with an October 5 voter registration deadline looming. The effort drew contributions from more than 44,000 people and eclipsed the $20 million milestone, the coalition announced Tuesday. “The right to vote is fundamental to our democracy and no American should be denied that right,” Bloomberg, a former Democratic presidential candidate, said in a statement. “Working together with the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, we are determined to end disenfranchisement and the discrimination that has always driven it.” “The ability to vote…

The House has approved a bill that extends funding to the government through Dec. 11, after reaching a deal with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin late Tuesday to avert a government shutdown on Oct. 1.

The short term spending bill includes nearly $8 billion in nutrition assistance to help provide for children who normally receive school lunches amid the widespread shutdown of schools as a result of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus pandemic.

The bill that Democrats initially introduced on Monday did not include the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) program providing aid to farmers that the Trump administration wanted. The latest agreement would keep payments flowing through the CCC program while adding on accountability measures.

White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin speak to members of the press at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Aug. 7, 2020. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

“We also increase accountability in the Commodity Credit Corporation, preventing funds for farmers from being misused for a Big Oil bailout,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said in a statement.

“To help the millions of families struggling to keep food on the table during the pandemic, Democrats have renewed the vital, expiring lifeline of Pandemic EBT [Electronic Benefit Transfer] for a full year and enabled our fellow Americans in the territories to receive this critical nutrition assistance,” she said.

“Democrats secured urgently needed assistance for schoolchildren to receive meals despite the coronavirus’s disruption of their usual schedules, whether virtual or in-person, and expanded Pandemic EBT access for young children in child care,” Pelosi added.

“We also extended key flexibility for states to lower administrative requirements on SNAP [Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program] for families in the middle of this crisis.”

The Senate is expected to vote on the bill later this week before it reaches the president’s desk to be signed before the fiscal year ends on Sept. 30.

Focus News: House Approves Bill to Avert Government Shutdown on Oct. 1

US Execution Planned of Killer Who Said Witchcraft Drove Him

CHICAGO—A former U.S. soldier who said an obsession with witchcraft led him to slay a Georgia nurse in a bid to lift a spell he believed she put on him is the first of two more inmates the federal government is preparing to put to death this week. William Emmett LeCroy, 50, on Tuesday would be the sixth federal inmate executed by lethal injection this year at the U.S. prison in Terre Haute, Indiana. Another is scheduled for Thursday of Christopher Vialva, who would be the first African-American on federal death row to be executed this year. LeCroy is white, as were four of the five inmates executed earlier. The fifth was a Navajo. Critics say President Donald Trump’s resumption of federal executions this year after a 17-year hiatus is…