Colombia's President Taps Ex-Venezuela Envoy as Interior Minister
President Gustavo Petro put Armando Benedetti in charge of repairing the Colombian government's relationship with Congress amid deep divisions within the leftist leader's administration.
Benedetti, a former senator and diplomat, was named interior minister late Monday, with the presidency publishing his resumé on the appointees page of its website. He'll be tasked with securing legislative approval for key social reforms, including overhauls of health and labor aimed at expanding the state's role in public services and increasing worker benefits.
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12 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Local leaders respond to potential Medicaid cuts
DERBY, Conn. (WTNH) — Leaders of multiple local hospitals came together Monday morning to warn what might happen if Republicans in Congress pass their proposed changes to Medicaid. They worry state and local costs will skyrocket if the federal government makes proposed changes to how the program works. One of the proposed changes involves charging low-income patients a co-pay of as much as $35 for certain medical appointments. Hartford HealthCare introduces 'Empowering New Parents' program 'What this does is act as a barrier,' said Griffin Hospital CEO Patrick Charmel. 'People will see they have an out-of-pocket responsibility and just won't pursue the care that they need.' Eventually, he said, those people will end up in the emergency room, which ends up costing more. The Trump administration contends their changes will lower insurance premiums, but Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-CT3) disagrees. 'Premiums for individual plans sold on Access Health CT will increase by as much as 25% next year,' DeLauro said. DeLauro says proposed cuts threaten access to health care for nearly 14 million people nationwide. A white house spokesman had a different take in an emailed statement. 'President Trump pledged to protect and preserve Medicaid, and that's exactly what The One, Big, Beautiful accomplishes by kicking illegal immigrants off the program, implementing commonsense work requirements, and enforcing basic eligibility verification to combat fraud,' wrote spokesman Kush Desai. Hartford HealthCare and Pfizer partner to tackle workplace migraines For those not on Medicaid, they may wonder why they should care about these cuts. Hospitals have to provide care to everybody who needs it, whether they can pay for it or not. If there is less money from the government coming in to pay for low-income patients, that means hospitals that are already stretched thin financially, could find themselves in serious financial trouble. 'Cuts to programs that support our communities like Medicaid will stress that ecosystem further and bring changes, challenges and collapses to some of our critical infrastructure across the state of Connecticut,' said Dr. Tom Balcezak, EVP & Chief Clinical Officer, Yale New Haven Health System. Which, they say, means fewer people seeing fewer doctors. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
12 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Two Illinois senators help introduce bill on gun industry negligence
WASHINGTON, D.C. (WTWO/WAWV)— Two Illinois Senators helped introduce a bill Monday that they believe will hold gun companies and sellers more liable in court. Senator Tammy Duckworth(D-IL) and U.S. Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) along with the help of many others including senators, U.S. Representatives, and and more than 80 members of congress introduced the bill Monday. The bill is entitled the Equal Justice for Victims of Gun Violence Act. They believe the bill will ensure victims of gun violence can get their day in court. It will also repeal the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) that was passed by Congress in 2005. The PLCAA gives the gun industry a unique legal liability shield that protects manufacturers from lawsuits. They believe that repealing this will allow gun companies and gun sellers to face liability for acts of gun violence that threaten public safety. 'The needless gun violence that too many Illinoisans—and Americans across the country—experience is heartbreaking and not reflective of the kind of future my daughters or any of our young people deserve,' Duckworth said. 'That's why I'm proud to join my colleagues in introducing the Equal Access to Justice for Victims of Gun Violence Act, which will hold gun manufacturers accountable and bring justice to grieving families. I'll never stop working for commonsense gun safety reforms.' Congress originally stated that the reason for the PLCAA was that it was necessary to protect the gun industry from frivolous lawsuits. Due to this, though, the press release from the Senate states that numerous cases of gun violence victims around the nation have been dismissed based on the PLCAA, even when gun dealers acted in a way that would be negligent for other products. 'It's unconscionable that the gun industry is shielded from the consequences of negligent behavior that would result in liability if this were any other product,' said Durbin. 'Gun dealers and manufacturers do not deserve special treatment, and certainly not at the expense of the communities that are plagued by gun violence. By repealing this unjustifiable legal liability shield, this bill will allow victims of gun violence to seek justice and have their day in court.' The legislation is endorsed by Brady, GIFFORDS Law Center, Everytown for Gun Safety, March for Our Lives, Guns Down America, Newtown Action Alliance, and Sandy Hook Promise Action Fund. For full wording of the bill, you can click here. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
12 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Trump neutered Justice Department watchdogs that were there to prevent politically motivated prosecutions
Donald Trump's DOGE-ification of the federal government added a key team at the Department of Justice to its list of victims in a pair of moves that greased the wheels for his adminsitration to use the agency to go after Democratic members of Congress. The Justice Department's public integrity section (PIN) underwent a series of key changes this year at the direction of Trump-appointed Attorney General Pam Bondi, who has overseen the agency as it charged a Democratic member of Congress, Monica McIver, with assault after she was repeatedly confronted by ICE agents during a legally permitted congressional oversight visit to a detention facility in Newark. McIver's charging is one of several instances where the Trump-led Department of Justice has brazenly defied the tradition of independence from the White House that agency officials typically follow. Under Bondi's leadership, the agency has quickly transitioned into an arm of the White House, focused on the president's priorities and willing to target his political enemies. Other targets of that trend have been a Milwaukee judge, arrested and charged with allegedly preventing immigration authorities from arresting a man outside of her courtroom by leading him out a back entrance after his hearing concluded, and Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland resident who was deported to a hellish prison in El Salvador in violation of a court ruling. Abrego Garcia was charged with trafficking migrants last week after the federal government relented in a weeks-long battle with the courts and returned him to the United States. A federal prosecutor in Tennessee, Ben Schrader, resigned over his concerns that the charges were filed for political reasons, according to ABC News. McIver's charging shortly followed the agency-wide suspension of a rule which previously required prosecutors to obtain approval from the PIN before members of Congress could be criminally charged — a safeguard previously in place to prevent targeting of the administration's political opponents on spurious charges, Reuters reported. McIver was charged with assault after being involved in a scuffle with ICE agents outside of a Newark detention facility; video shows her making physical contact with an agent, but possibly by accident. The agency has not released an explanation for why agents engaged in a scuffle with McIver at the scene at all, given that the agency is, by law, prohibited from using its funding in any way to prevent members of Congress from conducting oversight visits. Newark's mayor, Ras Baraka, was arrested at the scene. The Independent reached out for comment regarding the suspension of the rule regarding criminal cases which involve members of Congress, and to inquire about any other reductions to the PIN division's responsibilities. As part of staff reductions across the whole of the federal government, the PIN team was also hit. The decision of federal prosecutors to drop an investigation into New York's Democratic mayor sparked a wave of resignations at the division, with departing attorneys having been asked to give the order to end the probe after federal prosecutors in New York refused. What followed was a gutting of the PIN section, which is now a fraction of its former size, according to multiple reports, and no longer handling cases directly. Just five prosecutors were directly assigned to the division by mid-March, down from 30. The suspension of the rule in May and the other reported erosions of PIN's authority marks a serious reduction in a key safeguard that the agency implemented in 1976 after the Watergate scandal. At the time, another Republican president leaned on the Justice Department to influence an investigation into a break-in at the Democratic Party's headquarters and the extent of the Oval Office's knowledge of the plot. Donald Trump, in an executive order, directed Bondi to review all DOJ teams with 'civil or criminal enforcement authority ' and identify whether individual divisions were, by Trump's standards, used for political purposes by the Biden administration. Biden officials have denied any weaponization of the DOJ, with prosecutions of the president's son Hunter and a Democratic senator from New Jersey as evidence to point to. The stated purpose of that executive action was to end the 'weaponization' of the Justice Department and other agencies. But over the course of six months, the DOJ's greatest tool for preventing that possibility has all but vanished. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democratic senator from Rhode Island, wrote to Bondi in March about the dismantling of the PIN division, but his office has not released a statement on the matter since. The DoJ issued no public statement in response. 'Certain political appointees in this Department of Justice have already proven they put President Trump's political interests over their duties as prosecutors and as lawyers. Multiple Public Integrity Section attorneys resigned rather than endorse then-Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove's unethical quid pro quo in dropping the case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams,' wrote the senator. He added: 'If the Trump administration's goal was to encourage corruption and abuse of office, it is hard to know what it would do differently.'
