House passes funding bill, heading off shut down – National & International New – FRI 20Dec2024

House passes funding bill, heading off shut down.

Germany: Reports identify ex-Muslim Saudi psychologist as driver who plowed into Xmas market, killing at least two.

NATIONAL NEWS

House passes funding bill, heading off shut down

With hours to spare to prevent a partial government shutdown at midnight tonight, the house has passed a new version of the continuing resolution with strong bipartisan support, 366 yeas to 34 nays. The resolution is expected to pass easily through the Senate and President Biden has said that he will sign it.

This was the third version of the continuing resolution presented this week in Congress. The first, a 1500-page bill, was rejected first by Elon Musk and then by President-elect Trump. This prompted most House Republicans to withdraw support, despite it being a bipartisan bill.

A second, slimmed down bill of 116 pages, was presented yesterday. It failed when nearly all Democrats and at least 20 Republicans said they would not back it because of a provision that suspended the debt ceiling until 2027. The debt ceiling suspension was a demand from President Trump.

This third version still contains $100 billion for natural disaster relief aid, as well as $10 billion for farm aid. It funds the government at current levels until March 14th, by which time Trump will be in office and Republicans will have control of both chambers of Congress. There are no provisions concerning the debt ceiling.

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INTERNATIONAL NEWS

Germany: Reports identify ex-Muslim Saudi psychologist as driver who plowed into Xmas market, killing at least two

Today, a 50-year-old Saudi immigrant drove into a Christmas market in the city of Magdeburg, about 2 hours west of Berlin. Most reports say two people were killed, one a young child and one an adult, but some local reports say 11 were killed. About 70 were injured, more than a dozen of them seriously.

Five years ago, nearly to the day, a man drove into a crowd at a Christmas market in Berlin, killing several people. Such attacks have also occurred elsewhere in Europe. In those cases, the assailants were Muslim extremists who were affiliated with or had sympathies with ISIS. Many news outlets, and even public officials (especially those of Germany’s far-right AFD) jumped to the conclusion that the motivations of today’s attack were the same.

However, reports have emerged identifying today’s attacker as Taleb Al Abdulmohsen. He was taken into custody following the attack. Abdulmohsen is an ex-Muslim atheist, who is anti-Islam and a supporter of Israel. He has a warrant for his arrest in Saudi Arabia for human trafficking. Reports indicate that these charges stem from Abdulmohsen’s efforts to help ex-Muslims, particularly women, flee oppression in Saudi Arabia to seek asylum in Europe. This work even got him featured in a 2019 BBC documentary.

He has also created lengthy posts on Twitter decrying the spread of islam in Europe, and supporting the anti-immigrant AFD party, despite being an immigrant himself. Abdulmohsen immigrated to Germany in 2006, and has held refugee status in Europe since 2016. Hours before the attack, Abdulmohsen posted a video claiming that German authorities were spying on him, opening his mail and stealing items like USB sticks. Abdulmohsen is a psychologist who apparently saw patients in Germany.

Even assuming this reporting is correct, it does not shed much light on a motive for the attack. German authorities say Abdulmohsen acted alone, but that security at this Christmas markets around the country will be beefed up.

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