Senate Confirms Charles Kushner as US Ambassador to France
The Senate on Monday confirmed Charles Kushner, a New Jersey real estate mogul and father of Jared Kushner, as United States ambassador to France.
Kushner, 71, was confirmed by the upper chamber in a 51–45 vote on Monday.
Who Is Charles Kushner?
Kushner runs the New York-based real estate firm Kushner Companies. His son, Jared, is married to President Donald Trump's eldest daughter, Ivanka. Jared Kushner served as one of Trump's senior advisers during his first term in the White House.
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Yahoo
24 minutes ago
- Yahoo
CT lawmakers OK $3.2 billion annual bond package of school construction, other projects
On the final day of the 2025 regular session, state lawmakers voted Wednesday to fund major construction and renovation projects ranging from colleges to state parks to local schools. The bipartisan bonding package includes $3.2 billion in the first year and $3.4 billion in the second year for projects for more than 30 state agencies, plus public schools across the state. In addition to brick and mortar projects, the legislature decided to allocate bond money to help pay for removing some of the controversial 'public benefits charges' on customers' electric bills. Those costs caused a firestorm of protest starting last July when the increased amounts appeared on electric bills and surprised some customers. Republicans called for switching those costs to the state's general fund, but lawmakers decided to pay for them by borrowing money. The 256-page bond package was approved by the House by 144-4 after less than one hour of debate with four conservative Republicans, Anne Dauphinais of Danielson, Doug Dubitsky of Chaplin, Joe Hoxha of Bristol, and Gale Mastrofrancesco of Wolcott, voting against the measure. The bill was then immediately sent to the Senate, which approved the package before 5:30 p.m. by 35-1. Sen. Rob Sampson, a fiscal conservative from Wolcott, voted against the bill after saying that the state borrows too much money through bonding. The multiple projects range from large to small, for example, including up to $113 million for a new Windham Technical High School to $1 million for renovating a building at Norwalk Community College. Aside from the two-year, $55.8 billion operating budget that is a separate entity, the bond package helps numerous cities and towns, said Senate majority leader Bob Duff of Norwalk. 'This is a crucial piece of the puzzle,' Duff said. 'In this bill, we are under the bond authorization cap in fiscal year 2026 and fiscal year 2027. … At the same time that the federal government is backing out of commitments, we are doubling down. … It is much-needed dollars back to our communities.' Sen. Ryan Fazio of Greenwich, a fiscally conservative Republican, questioned the state's spending on major projects. He said recently on the Senate floor that Gov. Ned Lamont's much-touted 'debt diet' was really like eating a half dozen donuts a day, rather than a full dozen, and feeling like you're still on a diet. Noting that his district is known for sending hundreds of millions of dollars in income taxes annually to the state, Fazio said the package would include money for the historic Old Greenwich School on Sound Beach Avenue and Roxbury Elementary School in the Westover section of Stamford. Traditionally, the bond package often gets approved in the final hours of the session as lawmakers fight to get their special projects into the document. That was the case again Wednesday as both chambers debated on the final day of the regular session. 'The cost of the final version is lower than the committee version,' said Rep. Ron Napoli, a Waterbury Democrat who co-chairs the bonding subcommittee and introduced the bill on the House floor. He added that money set aside in the 'Town Aid Road' category for paving and improving local streets had increased by nearly 33% in a category that he said would make mayors and first selectmen 'very happy.' Rep. John Piscopo, the longest-serving House Republican, noted that the package was crafted on a bipartisan basis. 'The major increases were for energy, getting those public benefits off our bills,' Piscopo said. 'All in all, I could accept this.' Piscopo recalled the early 1990s when an unlikely odd couple of legislators, a blunt, blue-collar Democrat from Enfield and an Ivy League stockbroker from New Canaan, were known for relentlessly traveling around the state and personally looking at leaking roofs and other problems in detailed, on-the-ground inspections. 'We brought back the old tradition of Fred Gelsi and Les Young,' said Piscopo, who has served in the legislature since 1989. 'It means a lot when you can visit the projects and see a day care center that is bursting at the seams … instead of looking at a spreadsheet. We were all over the state. … I'm glad we brought back that Gelsi and Les Young tradition of going out and seeing the projects.' Senate President Pro Tempore Martin Looney, a New Haven Democrat, also mentioned the pair, saying that Gelsi was a 'legendary' lawmaker who knew details down to a particular boiler in a state building. Gelsi died in 2005, long after Young died of cancer in 1996. Looney noted that $550 million will be allocated for school construction, plus $200 million for housing and $10 million in each of the next two years for municipal open space, among others. 'There is a lot to celebrate here,' Looney said. This year, House Speaker Matt Ritter of Hartford said the number of individual projects was reduced as larger sums of money would be set aside for a broad category of urban projects, for example, that would be named later. 'They've gone away from the line items,' Ritter told reporters. 'You won't see a ton of projects listed.' While lawmakers are highly interested in the bond package, no projects can move forward unless they receive final approval from the 10-member, Democratic-dominated State Bond Commission. Lamont chairs the commission, controls the agenda, and decides which projects get funded. Sen. John Fonfara, a longtime Hartford Democrat, said he wished that legislators had more influence on the final projects that need approval from the bond commission. 'Bonding matters to legislators,' Fonfara said on the Senate floor. 'Parks, recreation, you name it, that are unable to be funded' by local municipalities. The huge, 256-page bill still listed multiple projects, including the maximum amount that could be spent on each one. That includes up to $75 million for the governor's budget office to oversee upgrading computers through an information technology capital investment program, $50 million for designing and planning a replacement for state-owned Whiting Forensic Hospital in Middletown, $40 million for improvements at state parks so that they will comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act, and $15 million for relocating the Department of Motor Vehicles headquarters in Wethersfield, which has been under discussion. 'We are currently looking for a new location in the area that can accommodate our branch and back-office staff with sufficient space,' said state motor vehicles commissioner Tony Guerrera, a well-known former legislator who headed the transportation committee. 'We are collaborating with the Department of Administrative Services to facilitate this process, carefully considering factors such as parking, ADA accessibility and access to public transportation.' The bill also includes up to $40 million for installing solar systems on state properties, $30 million for deferred maintenance at the state's 12 community colleges, $28 million for the UConn Health center in Farmington for equipment, library collections, and telecommunications infrastructure upgrades, $17 million for renovations and improvements at Rentschler Field in East Hartford and the convention center in Hartford, and $30 million for deferred maintenance at the four regional public universities in Danbury, New Britain, New Haven, and Willimantic. Despite plaudits from colleagues about the depth and breadth of the proposals, Sampson said the package was too big. 'Overall, the state of Connecticut bonds too much and probably always has,' Sampson said, adding the bill is 'more giant that it has to be.' But House Republican leader Vincent Candelora of North Branford, who voted for the bill, said the package was affordable. 'The bonding is still under the debt cap,' Candelora told reporters outside the Hall of the House. 'So I think the bonding levels have stayed appropriate. But when you continue to give state employees raises, it puts pressure on the pension fund. So now that you're slowing down the amount of money you're going to put into the pensions, we are going to see our unfunded liabilities potentially now increase. They're no longer going to decrease.' The bond bill also included various 'fixes' from multiple pieces of legislation that had already passed, including mistakes and errors that could be corrected before the legislative session's adjournment at midnight Wednesday. 'I know it's a shock to people that we make mistakes in bills that we have to fix, but that's what happens,' Ritter told reporters Wednesday. A key aspect concerns the future of the State Elections Enforcement Commission, which oversees the elections of the state legislators and others. Both the House and the Senate had passed a controversial bill that would have allowed the legislature to approve the commission's executive director. But Lamont had been lobbied on the issue to veto the bill in order to preserve the commission's independence, and his administration requested the change. Groups like the League of Women Voters, Connecticut Citizen Action Group, and Common Cause had opposed the controversial bill, but the measure had moved quickly through both chambers. While the bipartisan measure passed by 34-1 in the state Senate, numerous House Democrats voted against the measure that still passed in the chamber by 92-46. But the resolution is that the legislature will not have veto power over the choice of the executive director. 'There will be a public hearing before the exec noms committee, but not a vote of the exec noms committee,' Ritter said, referring the executive and legislative nominations committee. 'That is something the governor did ask us to look at. That's a big one. He didn't like the appointment by the legislature.' So the tradition will continue in which the five-member, bipartisan commission will still hire its own executive director. 'That provision was a double-edged sword,' Candelora said. 'At the same time, it doesn't need a full vote of the legislature. … That is a provision that impacts democracy. Christopher Keating can be reached at ckeating@
Associated Press
26 minutes ago
- Associated Press
Trump's support of Rose among the voices Manfred listened to in ruling MLB ban ended with death
NEW YORK (AP) — President Donald Trump's support of Pete Rose was among the factors Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred weighed when he decided last month that permanent bans by the sport ended with death, which allows the career hits leader to be considered for the Hall of Fame. Manfred announced the new interpretation on May 13, a decision that allows Rose and Shoeless Joe Jackson to be considered for a Hall committee vote in December 2027. 'The president was one of a number of voices that was supportive of the idea that this was the right decision,' Manfred said Wednesday during a news conference at an owners meeting. 'Obviously, I have respect for the office and the advice that he gave I paid attention to, but I had a lot of other people that were weighing in on the topic, as well.' Rose and then-Commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti agreed to a permanent ban in August 1989 after an investigation commissioned by MLB concluded Rose repeatedly bet on the Reds as a player and manager for the team from 1985-87, a violation of a long-standing MLB rule. The Hall of Fame in 1991 decided people on the permanent banned list were ineligible for consideration. 'Those who really think about the reasons that I did it think that it is the right decision, and other people I think largely get confused with whether he's going to be in the Hall of Fame or not and maybe don't think that was so good,' Manfred said. Robot umpiresComputer technology to appeal ball/strike calls could be in place for the 2026 regular season. Manfred said use of the Automated Ball-Strike System was likely to be considered by the 11-man competition committee, which includes six management representatives. During a spring training experiment in 288 games, teams were successful on 52.2% of their ball/strike challenges using the Automated Ball-Strike System. 'I do think that we're going to pursue the possibility of change in that process and we'll see what comes out at the end of that,' he said. 'The teams are really positive about ABS. I do have that unscientific system that I use: my email traffic. And my distinct impression is that using ABS in spring training has made people more prone to complain of balls and strike calls via email to me referencing the need for ABS.' An experiment with a technology system to challenge checked-swing calls started in the Class A Florida State League on May 20. That is not under consideration for MLB use in 2026. 'I think we've got to get over the hump in terms of either doing ABS or not doing it before you'd get into the complication of a separate kind of challenge,' Manfred said. Baseball in 2028 Olympics Baseball is returning to the Olympics in 2028 after being played from 1992 to 2008 and then in 2021. MLB is considering whether to allow big league players to be used at the 2028 Games. It did not allow players on 40-man rosters to participate in the 2021 Olympics and many teams discouraged top eligible prospects from playing. 'We made some progress with LA 2028 in terms of what it could look like,' Manfred said. 'We have some other business partners that we need to talk to about, changes that would need to be made in order to accommodate the Olympics. I think we're going to go forward with that process.' Manfred said the players' union appears to be supportive. Labor and possible salary cap proposal A decision on MLB's bargaining positions with the players' association, including whether to propose a salary cap, will be made after this season. Bargaining is likely to start in the spring of 2026 for a successor to the five-year agreement with the union that ended a 99-day lockout on March 10, 2022. The deal expires on Dec. 1, 2026. An ownership economic study committee was formed in early 2023, sparking speculation about a renewed push for a salary-cap system aimed at decreasing payroll disparity. 'Payroll disparity is such a fact of life among the ownership group that there's not a lot of need for talking about whether we have it or not. Everybody kind of gets it,' Manfred said. 'We understand that it has become a bigger problem for us, but there has not been a lot of conversation about that particular topic.' When MLB proposed a cap in 1994, players struck for 7 1/2 months in 1994 and '95, leading to the first cancellation of the World Series since 1904. 'Obviously, over the winter we're going to have to decide what is going to be out there from our perspective, but no decisions on that topic so far,' Manfred said. Broadcasting MLB hopes to reach a deal before the All-Star break on a Sunday night national broadcast package and for the Home Run Derby to replace the agreement ESPN said in February it was ending after this season. Manfred said MLB is negotiating with three parties and is weighing traditional broadcasters and streaming services, who may pay more but have a smaller audience. Manfred regrets giving ESPN the right to opt out, which is causing a negotiation for rights lasting three seasons. MLB's contracts with Fox and Turner end after the 2028 season. 'If you're talking about what we're doing for the next three years, I would overweight reach,' Manfred said. 'The larger negotiation we'll have for the post-'28 period and we continue to believe that reach drives our live business.' Tropicana Field repair Tampa Bay hopes to return to Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida, next season after playing home games this year across the bay at Steinbrenner Field in Tampa, the New York Yankees' spring training home. The St. Petersburg City Council approved $22.5 million in April to repair the roof, destroyed by Hurricane Milton last Oct. 9. A new roof is being built in Germany and will be shipped to Florida. 'Repair of the stadium is moving along. We remain optimistic that we will be ready either for opening day or very shortly thereafter,' Manfred said. 'Obviously, the big contingency is what happens with hurricane season.' Athletics Las Vegas ballpark A formal groundbreaking hasn't taken place for the Athletics' planned ballpark to open in 2028, though work is being done at the site and a ceremony could be held this month. 'My understanding is they believe they're going to make opening day '28,' Manfred said. Attendance up slightly from 2024 Attendance averaged 28,081 through Tuesday and 900 dates, up 1.4% from 27,687 through the same point last year, when MLB finished with a 0.9% rise to 29,568 for its highest average since 30,042 in 2017. MLB could finish with an average increase in three straight years not impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic for the first time since 2004-07. Tariffs on baseballs While MLB is not concerned about Trump administration tariffs raising the cost of big league baseballs, which are manufactured in Costa Rica, the impact on minor league balls is a concern. 'The minor league baseball is made in China. That's more of an issue,' Manfred said. ___ AP MLB:
Yahoo
28 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Canadian metals industry warns of layoffs, lost sales due to new US tariffs
(Corrects name of Marid industries in paragraph 6) By Divya Rajagopal TORONTO (Reuters) -Canadian companies and a major union said on Wednesday higher U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum could result in more job losses and lost sales, as Prime Minister Mark Carney said Canada is preparing reprisals. The U.S. tariff hike on the two metals to 50% from the 25% rate introduced in March took effect at 12:01 a.m. (0401 GMT) on Wednesday. Canada is the largest seller of the metals to the U.S., exporting to its southern neighbor roughly twice as much aluminum as the rest of the top 10 exporters' volumes combined. "So this is going to have a very quick impact, I will say to you, on steel industry," said Lana Payne, president of Unifor, which is Canada's private sector union. The Aluminium Association of Canada, which counts Rio Tinto among its members, said 50% tariffs could result in its members diversifying to Europe. Tim Houtsma, CEO of Nova Scotia-based Marid Industries, a medium-scale steel fabricator, told Reuters that the tariffs make it impossible to sell to the United States. "We are going to tighten our belt and we are going to need to watch our cost because we are going to be shut out of the U.S. market for some period of time," Houtsma said. Canada is prepared to strike back against the United States if talks with Washington to remove tariffs do not succeed, Prime Minister Mark Carney said on Wednesday. "We are in intensive negotiations with the Americans, and, in parallel, preparing reprisals if those negotiations do not succeed," he told the House of Commons. Unifor called on Carney to retaliate immediately and urged Canada to pause exports of critical minerals to the United States. Hundreds of Canadian steel workers have lost their jobs since initial tariffs took effect. Unifor warned layoffs in the auto and aerospace industries could also occur. In March, Canada imposed 25% tariffs on C$29.8 billion ($21.79 billion) worth of imports from the U.S. Carney has said previously there is a limit to how far Canada can go in imposing tit-for-tat tariffs. Jeremy Flack, CEO of Flack Global Metals, a U.S.-based steel trader and manufacturer, said the tariffs have led to a pause of orders and reduced demand for steel. "We are not getting any orders. Volumes starting from February have begun to decline," Flack said. ($1 = 1.3674 Canadian dollars) (Additional reporting by David Ljunggren in Ottawa; Editing by Caroline Stauffer; Richard Chang, Andrea Ricci and Sandra Maler) Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
